“Immersion” is a buzzword in the theme park industry, as Disney and other companies design large-scale environments meant to completely transport guests to fantasy realms. We see this with upcoming projects like Villains Land and Monstropolis. Arguably the most extreme example of immersion was the ill-fated Star Wars hotel at Walt Disney World, which attempted to be an overnight Star Wars adventure, but permanently closed just 19 months after opening.
Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek reveals new details on Disney World’s failed Star Wars hotel closure in his new book. We got access to a copy of the book ahead of the publishing date and have pulled out the most interesting details for Disney theme park fans, including Chapek’s remarks on price increases at the parks and what he calls “chronic” Imagineering problems. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including insight from Imagineers into Disneyland’s Tomorrowland overhaul and Disney World hotels that feel like deluxe resorts without deluxe prices.
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Bob Chapek’s Perspective on Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser
A new book, “Behind the Castle Walls: My Thirty Years at the Happiest Place on Earth,” traces the career of Bob Chapek, who served as CEO of The Walt Disney Company from 2020 to 2022, the job that now belongs to Josh D’Amaro. Before that position, Chapek was in charge of theme parks as Chairman of Disney Experiences, the role that Thomas Mazloum now occupies. The book debuts on September 29, 2026. Pre-order the book now on Amazon.
With co-author Don Yaeger, Chapek writes from his perspective on some of the most significant moments in Disney’s modern history. One of those moments is the opening and swift closure of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, commonly known as “the Star Wars hotel,” at Walt Disney World in Florida. It opened in 2022 and permanently closed in 2023.
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In a nutshell, the Galactic Starcruiser was a 48-hour experience designed to place guests fully into Star Wars. Throughout their whole stay, the story never stopped, and Walt Disney Imagineers’ attention to detail maintained that guests had really blasted off into space for a few days.
“What if you could literally live a Star Wars adventure for three days?” Chapek writes in his book. “Like a cruise ship, you would never leave, so the Imagineers wanted to make it a twenty-four-hour-a-day experience so the guests could live their own Star Wars adventure.”
In reality, the hotel was a new building adjacent to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the theme park where Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, an immersive land with new rides, opened in 2019. On day 2 of their Starcruiser experience, guests took a port excursion, as if on a cruise ship, to Galaxy’s Edge. Even within the 2-minute ride from the hotel to the park, windowless buses were themed as spaceships and didn’t reveal the outside world.
“It was the greatest expression of the idea of immersing our guests in an experience they couldn’t get anywhere else,” says Chapek, “and it forever evolved the idea of how immersive a ‘hotel stay’ could be.”
Chapek strongly supported the Starcruiser as a potential pioneer for a new type of Disney experience, calling it “an outrageously bold idea that I absolutely loved.”
Data ahead of the Starcruiser’s opening gave Disney confidence in the project despite its experimental nature. “People are crazy about Star Wars,” Chapek writes, “so the idea of getting to live out something like a Star Wars survivor guest experience tested through the roof.”
The development of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser came during a frenzy of new Star Wars media across all of Disney. Chapek himself announced the project at D23 Expo 2017. At that point, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story were the two most recently released Star Wars movies, both financially and critically successful. It would be just a few months later that Disney announced The Mandalorian, the company’s first streaming venture with Star Wars. The iron was hot, and Disney could seemingly do no wrong with giving the public more Star Wars, fast.
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All the same, the business side of the Starcruiser endeavor still had to make sense. Given the “always on” nature of the experience, Chapek says, “the labor costs were extraordinary, but we knew that going in.” Disney hoped to offset the expenses by charging luxury prices. The all-inclusive cost for the 2-night stay was priced around $5,000 for a cabin with 2 guests and $6,000 for a cabin with 4 guests.
For those who could afford it, Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser received positive reactions from Chapek’s perspective. “When it opened, some of the first guests were in tears at the end of three days because they didn’t want the experience to end,” Chapek says. “The whole concept was a great idea, and we were figuring out the economics.”
A 4-hour manifesto from YouTuber Jenny Nicholson painted a different picture when it went viral with a mildly negative review, puncturing beyond just theme park fan viewership and into the general pop-culture zeitgeist. It currently has 17 million views.
Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser had opened in March 2022. Chapek was removed as Disney’s CEO in November 2022 and Bob Iger returned. In May 2023, Disney announced the Starcruiser would permanently close in September, a year and a half after it opened. Today, it has been converted into an office for Walt Disney Imagineering.
“It’s a known fact that no hotel is ever profitable in the first year,” Chapek writes in his book. He goes on to say, “There is no doubt that the resort and experience were not profitable in that moment.”
Beyond the numbers, from a conceptual standpoint, Chapek regards the Starcruiser positively. “I believed in the idea and its potential,” he says. From Chapek’s perspective, when Bob Iger returned as Disney’s CEO following Chapek’s leave, Iger viewed the Starcruiser “as something connected to my time in charge,” contributing to the reasons to close it. This came at the same time that Iger rolled back other up charge offerings in an effort to turn back price increases and deliver more for guests.
We have our own thoughts on why the Starcruiser failed. Read our article considering whether it was the cost, theming to the new trilogy of movies, lack of hotel amenities, or other factors that made the experience less successful. Regardless of why it failed, the hotel pushed the envelope and gave Disney a space to try new technology and storytelling that we hope has positively influenced other park offerings available to more guests.
Ultimately, Chapek says he was “proud to give birth to the entirely new galaxy.” Pre-order the Bob Chapek book now on Amazon.
With the Starcruiser’s higher costs, Chapek says it was a “once-in-a-lifetime experience” rather than a typical Disney hotel that loyal fans would return to frequently year after year. Despite this, the Starcruiser still had a niche fandom of repeat visitors who were devastated when it closed. Following the closure, these guests hung ribbons on the gate where Starcruiser guests previously entered Galaxy’s Edge, as if it was a memorial. Elsewhere in the book, Chapek is vocal about his thoughts on frequent Disney visitors.
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