Nicky's Journal

My trip on the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser - Halcyon aka Lady H

Galactic Starcruiser = The name of the hotel and immersive and participatory theater experience

Cruise = the 2 night 3 day stay at Galactic Starcruiser

The Halcyon also known as Lady H = the "ship" on which the cruise was happening (hotel+)

Warning, there be some spoilers

Before I got a reservation

When I first found out about the Disney Starcruiser hotel and experience I wanted to go. Based on the marketing materials I was unsure exactly what it was, other than a hotel and some shows and perhaps character meet and greets.

But with getting married, honeymoon, house repairs and improvements my plan was to put it off until our 5 year anniversary, 2024. 

I was not thrilled with it being in Florida and had hopes they would do something similar in California.  (There are those who say California is horrible, so i can see why disney has a park in Florida and a park in California to net all the possible customers.)

That would give us time to save, and I like to do research so time to research.

I like Star Wars but my partner loves Star Wars. He has seen it all and knows all the backstories and characters and everything! Whenever there is a reference I miss or don’t get when we watch something he can explain it.

I filed it away and put a reminder in my calendar to book it come January 2024 for October 2024.

Then came the announcement it was closing.

I was confused, upset, and frustrated as I tried to book asap but bookings were closed. When they reopened the booked up nearly right away.

I had a daily reminder in my calendar to check the online calendar. I did that daily for a long time.

I still had only researched the trip via the official website as I was not going so why put in my usual level of effort?

Then I found out about a Discord group. There I found out you needed to call, and call a lot (always be calling!) as soon as someone had to drop a reservation you needed to be lucky and scoop it up.

Whenever I was not in meetings I was calling. It was my new hobby

The phone Cast Members (CMs) were always so amazing and happy and hopeful and friendly and knowledgeable about Star Wars it was amazing.

One lucky day a rebel (members of the discord) got an opening and conferenced me in. I was able to get a reservation and add 3 other rebels (a family). I will forever be thankful and amazed at the tight community formed around this experience, even for some of those who had not gone.

After getting a reservation

Now that I had the reservation, and one week, I had to kick into gear.

We needed a pet sitter, flights, packing, apparently gifts were a thing on the “ship” much like they are on a Disney Cruise (with the “fish extenders”).

We didn’t really have time to get costumes, shipping here is slow and poor. We managed to wrangle up something it wasn’t great but it also wasn’t jeans and a tshirt.

Next came the research, I read blogs, watched youtubes, and overall was impressed by what i saw. I knew there was no way I way i could do all the various things in only one trip. I also released it was not an immersive experience, it was a LARP (live action role play) where you joined the Star Wars world and were an active participant. That made me sad to realize I would never get to do it all.

I had participated in LARPs at various times and enjoyed them. I was slightly concerned about my partner but was hoping since it was a works he knew it would be OK. 

The marketing on the website made much more sense now. Sadly i feel the press, and website, were too subtle with a focus on hotel and experience not costumed, participatory, adventure.

I was actually shocked about the costumes as usually thats a no-no for adults at Disney.

So it seems there was a miss in the way it was marketed sadly.

There were also a ton of really negative, nasty, comments. This made me so sad after hearing about and seeing so many people having amazing experiences, alone, with children, with partners, that anyone would be so harsh. Then again LARPers get made fun of so I shouldn't be surprised.

I started, and failed to make a character concept. With how much work I had to do at my day job, as well as trip logistics and what not there was no time. I feel like I would have had a better experience if I had done that, but oh well.

The Trip there

Because of where we were located and the timing the flight cost $4k and took around 24 hours with a layover long enough we needed to collect our baggage and have a hotel. The baggage took a silly amount of time, and it was hard to wind down.

Arrival

In the end we arrived there around 11am as recommended by others, and against Starcruiser's recommendation. We were queued up, and our lyft driver was agitated by the waiting (he wanted to move on and make money). Then the Starcruiser crew took our luggage and we queued up.

There were people who were getting in costume in line, I feel like with the encouragement of costumes they could have foreseen this and had larger bathroom areas to assist with this? (future lesson)

The entire process was very inefficient. I am sure in hindsight it could have been better optimized (more staff to grab bags, or let people grab bags and a larger area to queue people and luggage until they could be handled).

Much like the events we attend in the hacker world, “linecon” was a great way to make friends!

At a given time they had each person get checked in and get their M-band, register into the system (like when one enters the parks), and go through a metal detector.

You then went into a very small holding area to wait (because we were early).

Please note through this point everything was ALL in character, the look of everything, branding, no crew member ever left character! You were loading into the Halcyon (Lady H) as passengers on a voyage.

In the indoor waiting area you got water and frozen grapes which were fun.

Again it would have been more ideal for that area to be larger and better optimized for holding larger group but hindsight is 20/20.

When the time arrived, we watched the safety video which explained the in-character safety and real-life safety information about the “ship” and out rooms.

This is groundhog day for Lady H, all the voyages are the same voyage, but they don’t happen exactly the same way as we, the passengers, change it by our participation.

Boarding

If you weren’t already getting in the mood, now you would be.

There was an elevator (best I can tell) going ground to 2nd level which was decorated up, with video projection, of blasting off from the planet, and being loaded onto the Halcyon!

You were greeted by a crew member and shown to your room.

Aboard Lady H

I then rushed, per recommendation, to be the first two people on the chemist’s (bartender’s) list for the drink tasting.

I then took a ship tour. Again each crew member was amazing about not only staying in character, but also being helpful and drawing people into the experience. They were amazing about knowing returning guests' names. Honestly the level of service was on par with Ritz Carlton / Four Seasons + too often things cost a premium but are not a premium experience, this was a very premium experience.

We popped down for lunch (meals were included, snacks over in passenger services (rice krispies, cookies, etc), so were bar snacks but i didn’t know that until after I also ate so much i can’t imagine having room for snacks! If i went more and didn’t want to try everything i might have had more room). The food all looked alien, but tasted great.

The staff checked in on us and we got drinks (alcohol is not included), and then wandered around the ship looking at things.

In the end it isn’t a very large space, but large enough (I believe all voyages are full now?) to hold everyone though at certain times places got crowded. I heard at other times it was 40% capacity which would have felt deserted, but less than full would have been a better sweet spot, which I assume is what they were planning for in normal circumstances.

We were fully immersed in a alien world, in a time away from the current time, and were kids again. It was magical.

Muster, aka the kickoff, began. We were introduced to the actors (in a normal way, the ship captain and entertainment cruise director introducing themselves as they would on a small cruise ship), followed by more actors as the first order boarded the ship.

After the flurry of activity, you had a chance to chat with various actors and I decided to align with the First Order and my partner the scoundrel.

You then also interacted with the characters on your phone (the datapad) in a dedicated app. Obviously it was all pre-programmed but it flowed well.

The actors were able to remember names, be engaging, redirect things to stay on track while also feeling organic and unique. They were deft hands at handling people trying to derail (or excited children attempting to derail in excitement not realizing they shouldn't). In fact they were amazing with handling children, both the crew and actors. Every person was a top notch improvisationalist, child wrangler, and star wars aficionado. The crew who served dinner had designate home planets and stories and stayed in character. The entire thing was playing a role in a world they made real.

We had dinner, where Gaya performed, a wonderful singing voice and stage presence, topped with needing to be a good actor, improvisationalist, and star wars trivia buff.

After dinner we got to learn how to wield lightsabers, well my partner did, it was unfortunately a low light activity so with cataracts I could not see. He got so emotional he cried. It was so well done.

We progressed our story lines, explored the ship, tried out the sunlight lounge (bar), did bridge training (getting to helm the star ship! And fight! And story progression!)

At night, in the room, you had a “port” screen which showed you space.

An amazing technology move - the bridge, side atrium windows and all the passengers windows were synchronized so everything happened all over keeping the immersion. Apparently there were space whales if you were up late, but I did not see those.

The room felt like a cruise ship cabin, we didn’t spend much time there so the size was not an issue. They could have done for more plus though and maybe did larger rooms with larger closets since they expected cosplay…

Everyone was surprised everything was monogrammed except the robes!

The border lights around the port were so bright you could not sleep with them on, btu the room was pitch dark with it off so you either had to pack a night light or painters tape to tape the side lights, we went painters tape. So we got to wake up to being in space which was amazing. I do feel the designers didn’t spend a night in the room though or they would have caught those small hiccups.

Day 2 was “shore leave” to battu.

We grabbed breakfast, then grabbed a transport to battu (a cube van decked out to look like a shuttle with robotic driver, it was great, the lady next to us thought it was a ride!).

We did Rise and Smugglers Run before they could break, then went about doing missions as quick as we could so we could leave the heat.

We checked out the shops for future purchases, did Oga’s cantina, and got lunch at docking bay 7, then back to the ship!

When getting ready for our shuttle back to the ship, we got cold towels and water.

Again, the level of attention to detail, service, and planning for needs was exceptional by the crew.

Back on Lady H we did the drink session which was all in character and just a pure pleasure, I am so glad we did it. Each drink had a story of it’s home world and why it was made with a custom toast. I can only hope someone has it recorded somewhere.

There was lunch if you stayed on but we had already eaten, again if I could do the trip multiple times I would have loved to try it all as the food was so well done.

We learned to play Sabbac and participated in a know your co-pilot (newlywed game) which we got one wrong the rest right but still enough to lose! Still fun and again thematic.

Day two dinner was AMAZING, a beautiful presentation and absolutely tasty.

After dinner was more story progression and getting drawn thicker into the plots and getting to see some guest actors if you were lucky (Rey, Chewie).

This all culminated in the grand finale, then dessert.

I was a bit sad that nothing I did as first order could have made a real difference to the set story, but I assumed that going in, the good guys always needed to win. I still very much enjoyed it and confirmed the path when I saw how fun Raithe and Croy were.

I’ll try and find videos which summarize each experience and link them here as they are too much for me to write up, so much was going on. Suffice it to say you were *in* the experience as a participant, it was cosplay and larp and participatory theater in another galaxy. You got to live your childhood dreams of talking to Jedi, using the force, learning to wield a lightsaber and fly a starship.

It was heartbreaking for it to be over. But I am so glad I got to go.

The last day was breakfast and then departure, similar chaos to arrival, I hope in future iterations they can smooth that out as well.

We were able to get a complimentary lyft to our next disney hotel as we were then going back to magic kingdom and hollywood studios before going home. But that is another blog.

I hope Disney can see where they can be more efficient and cost effective but still have a great experience similar to this in a new form. I would love for the Lady H to come to California in some way, or another LARP of similar caliber but which was marketed better and at a price point that didn’t leave it half empty.

Was the price worth it (20k CAD all in for us) absolutely, but that is steep for many people, and would be higher for families, and it was also not marketed in such a way it was clear how much you really got.

Videos

Boarding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBgkbqPb1Ak

Muster https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQKjhUTl_u8

Gaya Dinner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QSxuhVvOdQ 

Engineering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ8hVo5TbGs 

Bridge Training https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ots4mQ2NMOs 

Lightsaber training https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsLpI-lAfM4 

Brig/Chewy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTITHkjwvqc 

Climate simulator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upi3EAjxw_w 

Cargo Hold https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pic63muf6fs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFTFTtQruGk 

Transport to batuu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyXjLChutBk 

Final Battle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW01SSUvYnw&t=2s 

I didn’t get to experience the holocron https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8SLglbchuc 

We were barely ever in our room, If we got to go multiple times I would have played with D#-09 in room droid more to try and find all the stories and paths! https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=starcruiser+d3-09 

I did NOT get this promo video did they stop? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdPQbjVj8qk