Fans Book One Last Stay at Disney World's 'Star Wars' Hotel - Slashdot

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Yes, that expensive Star Wars-themed hotel at Walt Disney World is closing September 30th — after opening barely one year ago. But Sfgate spoke to a couple who's already been three times, and before it closes are "currently planning a fourth and final voyage this summer."

If you're counting, that's more than $15,000 their travel parties will have spent on the experience. Their first trip was hosted by Disney as a media preview; for the other visits, the pair split rooms with friends to lower the per-person cost. [The couple is Peter Sciretta and partner Kitra Remick, the couple behind the theme park vlog Ordinary Adventures.] "Any time that we went, we were bunking with people in one room to make the price cheaper because if you can fit four people in one room, it ends up being $1,000 or $1,500 each," Sciretta explained. "It's still expensive even when you split it, but to us and to a lot of people who went back, it was obviously worth it...."

"It's so hard to explain what it's like in there," Sciretta said, "and you saw that from Disney's marketing because they were unable to explain what it was like in there. It's like you are in a 'Star Wars' movie for two and a half days — not just inside, but you are part of a 'Star Wars' movie..." If you want to, you can make the fight between the Resistance and the Dark Side the whole experience — but if you don't, you can spend your time spying on storylines happening in darkened corners and stairwells, trying to sabotage other people's missions (which is actually a thing on the ship), going to lightsaber training, seeing a galactic songstress perform or just eating space food and drinking in the cantina.

The space food, Remick noted, was especially good, even those infamous blue shrimp. "Most of the stuff is otherworldly. It is so good," she said. "That was one of the things I was most excited about when we went back, eating all the food again. Not only does it look cool and Instagram-worthy, it actually tastes really good, too. And all the cocktails are amazing." There's even a cocktail, called the Krayt Reactor, that comes with a song and dance by cast members when you order it — it costs $79 but serves four people... According to information provided to SFGATE by Disney representatives, Galactic Starcruiser has been earning some of the highest guest satisfaction ratings in the history of Walt Disney World. It also won one of the theme park industry's highest honors: a Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement from the Themed Entertainment Association.

"I know hundreds of people that have gone at this point, and not one single person didn't plan on or didn't already go back a second time," Sciretta said. "I kind of do feel like even before it opened, [Disney] shot themselves in the foot with the marketing and the price. They were never able to recover no matter what people said about it."

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