Whether it plays out for 3 days or 3 hours, it's still not the kind of experience that really screams Star Wars. Price alone wasn't the only reason why this idea failed. It failed because of the premise on which it was built was a faulty one.
Scavenger hunts with your smart phone, watching actors lightsaber duel, and sitting in a Cantina themed bar with overpriced drinks doesn't strike me as an "immersive" Star Wars theme park experience. Again, most of the things you can "do" on this experience are passive activities which require almost no effort. The best way to achieve an immersive experience from your guests is to create activities that require active engagement. Just like a toy that "plays itself" and requires almost no effort by the child to use their imagination and they sit and watch it, where a cardboard box offers more potential if a child is willing to engage it with their mind.
Even Star Tours with it's virtual missions feels more akin to the adventures seen in the movies. You could create virtual rides, have large scale laser tag between the Alliance/ Resistance and the Empire/First Order, using Star Wars themed "weapons" and have guests side with one group and "fight" each other or hire actors to play the villains and have guests "fight" them. Even creating games of skill, like lightsaber training with an actor or animatronic robot combatant, or some sort of recreation of a speeder chase, or flying an X-Wing in a dogfight is still far more in line with the adventure spirit of Star Wars than merely sitting in a themed environment. Lucasfilm has the funding and resources to literally build experiences like this, so it's not like it's out of the realm of possibility. Now they're being forced to reasses and revamp this effort. I see posts in one of the threads here for these incredible fan made prop collections and themed home theaters and to me this cruise sounded like spending a weekend sleeping in one of those where the host had a few party games to keep people entertained, all the while claiming it was immersive because of the props lining the walls.
Star Wars. Wars. The name itself doesn't conjure up images of luxury. The spirit of this thing is adventure, excitement and daring escapes. The aesthetic is covered in dirt and grime. It's messy and melodramatic in it's storytelling. Just thinking of a cruise and being entertained is not the experience I think most people would expect. And then there's the price....
Scavenger hunts with your smart phone, watching actors lightsaber duel, and sitting in a Cantina themed bar with overpriced drinks doesn't strike me as an "immersive" Star Wars theme park experience. Again, most of the things you can "do" on this experience are passive activities which require almost no effort. The best way to achieve an immersive experience from your guests is to create activities that require active engagement. Just like a toy that "plays itself" and requires almost no effort by the child to use their imagination and they sit and watch it, where a cardboard box offers more potential if a child is willing to engage it with their mind.
Even Star Tours with it's virtual missions feels more akin to the adventures seen in the movies. You could create virtual rides, have large scale laser tag between the Alliance/ Resistance and the Empire/First Order, using Star Wars themed "weapons" and have guests side with one group and "fight" each other or hire actors to play the villains and have guests "fight" them. Even creating games of skill, like lightsaber training with an actor or animatronic robot combatant, or some sort of recreation of a speeder chase, or flying an X-Wing in a dogfight is still far more in line with the adventure spirit of Star Wars than merely sitting in a themed environment. Lucasfilm has the funding and resources to literally build experiences like this, so it's not like it's out of the realm of possibility. Now they're being forced to reasses and revamp this effort. I see posts in one of the threads here for these incredible fan made prop collections and themed home theaters and to me this cruise sounded like spending a weekend sleeping in one of those where the host had a few party games to keep people entertained, all the while claiming it was immersive because of the props lining the walls.
Star Wars. Wars. The name itself doesn't conjure up images of luxury. The spirit of this thing is adventure, excitement and daring escapes. The aesthetic is covered in dirt and grime. It's messy and melodramatic in it's storytelling. Just thinking of a cruise and being entertained is not the experience I think most people would expect. And then there's the price....
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