Disney World’s struggling $5,000 Star Wars hotel cuts fall dates for midweek ‘voyages’

Walt Disney World’s highly hyped Star Wars hotel that debuted to months of sold out “voyages” has seen demand cool so dramatically that the Florida theme park giant has been forced to  reduce dates during the busy Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons.

The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser hotel at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida has dropped most midweek “voyages” in October, November and December aboard the Star Wars starship that doubles as an immersive storytelling experience.

Disney announced the Galactic Starcruiser will reduce the number of weekly experiences by 25% to 50% starting in October, according to a release to travel agents.

“When the voyage calendar is live, you may notice the schedule has been modified to provide two voyages per week, except for holiday weeks where we may have three voyages,” according to the travel agent release obtained by WDW News Today. “We’ve been learning a lot during our first year of operation and have adjusted voyage dates to meet the needs of our guests.”

Disney World just released the new dates for October through December — meaning no booked Starcruiser “voyages” were canceled.

The Galactic Starcruiser will be dark most Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays with 10 to 12 dates per month removed from the calendar during the last quarter of 2023.

The three to four weekly “departures” aboard the Galactic Starcruiser will be reduced to two on most weeks starting in October.

Most hotel stays on the cruise ship-style experience will “depart” on Friday or Sunday starting in October with one “voyage” per month departing on Tuesday. Halloween night and Thanksgiving day are dark as well as dates before and after Christmas day.

Walt Disney World officials say that Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is one of the most ambitious and immersive experiences ever created that continues to receive outstanding feedback from guests.

The “galactic cruise” invites costumed passengers to hatch plots against the First Order, fall in with a band of underworld smugglers and sip space cocktails for as long as they can suspend disbelief and buy into the interstellar cosplay theater of what’s been billed as the “most immersive Star Wars experience ever created.”

The Star Wars hotel that debuted to much fanfare in March 2022 initially opened with three months of sold-out dates.

Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek said interest in the Galactic Starcruiser was “phenomenal” and customer ratings were “incredibly high” a few months after the hotel opened, according to Forbes. At the time, Chapek said strong demand would keep the Galactic Starcruiser at “100% utilization” during the summer, Forbes reported.

The initial buzz that helped fill Disney coffers with galactic credits has turned into a concerning quiet in the halls of the Halcyon — the Star Wars starship created by Walt Disney Imagineering and Lucasfilm at the center of an immersive storytelling hotel experience.

The Galactic Starcruiser hotel has been offering 30% to 50% discounts to select customers on 3-day, 2-night experiences that cost $5,000 to $20,000.

You can book a stay on the Galactic Starcruiser this weekend and virtually any night through December now that the once solidly booked calendar is wide open.

The Star Wars hotel has about 100 rooms with a capacity of about 500 people — with the footprint kept intentionally small to allow for intimate storytelling moments throughout the 45-hour galactic journey.

The Galactic Starcruiser began offering 30% discounts to loyal Disney Vacation Club members in November when hotel capacity dropped to as low as 25% on some dates, according to WDW News Today. The low turnout forced the Starcruiser to cut the second dinner seatings on some evenings, WDW News Today reported.