We now know how Walt Disney World is going to use the defunct Star Wars Hotel near Hollywood Studios, and it’s not as “sexy” of a project as any fans would’ve liked. This covers details of the conversion of the hotel in space to office space, which puts to rest years of rumors, speculation, and wishful thinking about the future of the former Galactic Starcruiser building.
This is going to be a gut punch for diehard Starcruiser fans. Many were holding on to hope with Jedi-like power, that the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser resort building, which was once home to an envelope-pushing interactive multi-day experience, would be converted from a cruise on land into something, anything else.
They couldn’t be faulted for clinging to optimism. Around the time it closed, Disney Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro teased that “something will happen” with Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser down the road. That added fuel to the fire of fan excitement about the “future” of the Starship Halcyon, with many of the Starcruiser’s superfans hoping for an announcement. When D23 Expo came and went without any news, there was still optimism for the 2025 Destination D23.
When discussing Starcruiser, D’Amaro also indicated that “not everything’s going to work. What did work, though, is we took creativity and storytelling to a completely new level, to a level that had never existed before…It didn’t work commercially. And so, when we realized that, you just make a call and move on.”
Of course, “something will happen” is pretty meaningless on its own and open to projection of one’s own desires and hopes. The optimistic among us might think this is a hint of a reimagining into a regular resort, which would be “something” major happening with Starcruiser. The more pessimistic might think it’ll rot in plain sight, which is also not nothing.
There’s a vast expanse of middle ground between those two extremes. And now, it would seem that’s occupied by “reimagining” the Starcruiser into office space for Walt Disney Imagineering. Probably not on anyone’s wish list, but not a total out of left field surprise. Better than demolishing it or letting it rot in plain sight!
The update on Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser being converted to office space comes courtesy of TheWrap and journalist Drew Taylor (a friend of the site who is highly knowledgeable about theme parks–not just an entertainment reporter who is out of his element, as is often the case when the trades cover the parks).
TheWrap reports that several sources, including an individual close to the Walt Disney Company, have informed them that the building that formerly housed Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is being converted into offices for Walt Disney Imagineering.
WDI will be using the building as a hub for several expansion projects coming Walt Disney World, including but not limited to Tropical Americas, Cars Land, Villains Land, and Monstropolis.
This makes sense. Although Walt Disney Imagineering has permanent offices in Florida, the plan for a large creative campus in Lake Nona was scratched. And since so much of what WDI does is project-based and Walt Disney World is starting a massive new development cycle, it tracks that they’d need to scale up staff and office space at Walt Disney World.
This is often done via compounds that are adjacent to the expansion themselves–such as the trailer park that was built last year backstage at Animal Kingdom–but it’s also possible that project teams will need a centralized hub. And that this will serve as the compound for Monstropolis and other unannounced projects for Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
It’s also possible that Magic Kingdom won’t have the space for its own compound. I don’t really know. Imagineering needing more offices backstage at Walt Disney World in the near and medium term is not the least bit surprising.
TheWrap also reports that it had heard “rumblings” that the Starcruiser building was going to be utilized for a multi-hour dinner theater-type experience that would use the hotel’s lobby, bridge, bar and restaurant–and that the gift shop would also remain open. We also heard a highly credible variation of this rumor, and the wheels were supposedly already in motion on it.
Well, theWrap is also now reporting that it has now been told, “quite firmly,” that the building will not be accessible to guests at all. Taylor speculates that this is due to the difficulty of shuttling guests to the Starcruiser building, which is backstage behind Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
One source told Taylor that several Cast Member playtests had been conducted in the old Starcruiser building, but that the tests would be for a potential dining experience in the theme park, not in the Starcruiser building itself. This would presumably use the pad adjacent to Oga’s Cantina, which was originally intended for this purpose. According to Taylor, Disney is now circling back to that dinner theater idea.
To by crystal clear, I haven’t heard anything about any of this in a good 8+ months. To the best of my knowledge and recollection, those playtests occurred a while ago. I suspect Taylor has this mostly correct.
It was my understanding that the Starcruiser was never the intended long-term site of the dinner show for the exact reason identified: transportation would’ve been too costly and clunky. (Before you ask: no, a walking path from Galaxy’s Edge is not feasible.) Rather, the dinner show would be held in Starcruiser with actual paying guests for an extended period to test the concept and as a stopgap while building the whole thing in Galaxy’s Edge.
Our view was (and is) that this dinner showing coming to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge was (and is) an inevitability at some point in the future. Although Walt Disney World has been burned by Star Wars investments, the dinner show is still a license to print money. The space already exists for it, and it’s unlikely to be used for other expansion. The dinner show could be paired with a soft reboot of the land, which we’ve been mentioning as a possibility for a while.
Now, it would seem, Disney is satisfied in skipping the testing of the concept with paying guests. Without any inside info, I suspect this has less to do with transportation hurdles–a known quantity long before there were rumors of this happening–and more to do with the Starcruiser building being used as Imagineering office space.
No arm of Disney is as secretive as Walt Disney Imagineering, and I just cannot conceive of WDI being willing to share its space with any guest-facing purpose. Some overly-eager fans would’ve viewed it as a “challenge” to see what was happening within the halls of Imagineering, and the security presence required would’ve been significant–and costly.
The idea of doing guest-facing tests in Starcruiser might’ve died long before this. We started seeing renewed interest in Starcruiser and receiving an influx of questions last summer, leading us to publish What Went Wrong with Disney’s Star Wars Hotel? That was a direct result of Jenny Nicholson’s four-hour deconstruction (to put it charitably) of the project. Her video racked up tens of millions of views and brought the Starcruiser mainstream awareness.
It probably goes without saying, but Walt Disney World would just as soon people forget about the failed Starcruiser entirely. Doing a dinner show test in the venue might’ve been deemed more trouble than it was worth. It could’ve inspired an influx of copycat YouTubers to do their own pieces on the defunct experience, and brought more unwanted attention on the shuttered Starcruiser.
It doesn’t take much imagination to envision the sensational titles those might receive, and videos about the extinct/failed/doomed/abandoned/etc. Star Wars hotel would almost certainly dwarf those about a dinner show test.
Regardless, many Walt Disney World fans will view the conversion of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser as yet another stain on the already sordid legacy of this project. Not us.
For one thing, we have ‘warned’ again and again (…and again) that Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser could not be converted into a regular hotel. In fact, we started sounding this ‘alarm’ even before it opened. That came as its critics were cheering for its downfall, in the hopes that it would be converted into a standard hotel.
As we’ve cautioned repeatedly, there are many reasons why this cannot happen. See Why Walt Disney World Will NOT Reimagine Starcruiser Into a Star Wars Hotel for a non-exhaustive list. The bottom line is that Starcruiser being reimagined into a regular resort was never on the table. The building being converted into anything involving overnight stays was not seriously being considered.
We’ve also mentioned repeatedly that the most plausible outcome for the Starcruiser building was it being converted into offices.
Honestly, our hope was not for Walt Disney Imagineering offices, but rather, it replacing office space at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The park currently has a bunch of backstage support facilities that are in prime locations for expansion, and relocating those to Starcruiser–and building more around it–could be incredibly valuable for the long-term future of DHS.
This also isn’t a “sexy” use for Starcruiser and its surrounding plot of land…until you realize what this opens the door for. Long term, this is exactly what’s necessary for the footprint of Disney’s Hollywood Studios to be expanded, and walkways connecting Toy Story Land, Animation Courtyard, and Sunset Boulevard. That would be great for traffic flow, but it can’t happen due to what’s currently backstage. It needs to happen, though, to improve the capacity of the park.
This also will happen at some point. We’ve hinted that one of the reasons Monstropolis went to Muppets Courtyard instead of the more logical location in Animation Courtyard is because there are more ambitious long-term plans for that plot. While I’m skeptical of anything unannounced, this is absolutely the current thinking–to save Animation Courtyard for a bigger project than Monstropolis. Think of Monstropolis as this cycle’s Toy Story Land, with Animation Courtyard being home to this cycle’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
What’s been announced thus far is the 5-year plan, but there’s a bigger 10-year plan, and it involves a larger expansion into and behind Animation Courtyard. Whether that actually comes to fruition is anybody’s guess at this point (a lot could change in the next few years before anything is announced or construction starts).
Regardless, relocating offices is a necessary prerequisite to that and the Starcruiser campus could serve a pivotal medium to long-term role. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Starcruiser building is demolished at some point and replaced with a new structure that’s more efficient for offices, parking, training, etc., for Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
That possibility seems less likely given that Imagineering is now using the space, though. Instead, Walt Disney World will continue its rich history of repurposing buildings and shoehorning offices into them. Perhaps another building and parking garage will sprout up next to Starcruiser.
Beyond that, I wouldn’t be surprised if other elements of Starcruiser make their way into Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. The “what” of this really depends upon how much of the R&D is rolled into the accelerated depreciation of a whopping $300 million.
There’s a lot of tangible technology that was produced via Imagineering R&D that Walt Disney World and Disneyland might want to reuse for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge (or even elsewhere). Things like that fancy new lightsaber, the Yoda effect, and other showpieces.
There’s a chance of those being added to new entertainment along the catwalks in the land, Savi’s Workshop, Oga’s Cantina, and elsewhere. So much of this was originally intended for the land, and it’ll just be a matter of Disney expressing an appetite to invest more into the land.
Again, I could absolutely see that happening with a soft reboot that breathes new life into Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. It could still be the blockbuster land that they wanted. Disney announcing the New Mission featuring Mandalorian & Baby Yoda for Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run increases the odds of this happening 2026.
Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but I do not believe that’s the only Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge enhancement in the pipeline. I’ve heard nothing credible recently, but my hope and expectation is that Imagineering will want a marketable ‘package’ of additions, improvements, regimaginings, etc. for 2026.
That could include expanding the ‘universe’ to include legacy character meet & greets, new entertainment from Starcruiser, and the aforementioned dinner show. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if we get an announcement to this effect at the 2025 Destination D23.
Ultimately, most of this is pretty irrelevant to Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser being converted into office space/offices in space for Walt Disney Imagineering. But I wanted to take what’s going to come as depressing and disheartening news for some of you and offer hope. A New Hope, if you will.
That’s a massive amount of speculation, but honestly, it comes with the territory. I’d rather lay out what I think are the realistic possibilities rather than leave this open-ended and let fans get carried away with running through more implausible scenarios. Even long term, Starcruiser is not going to become a regular resort or even Disney Vacation Club. It isn’t going to be transformed into DisneyQuest: Star Wars Edition.
I’ve been a Disney fan for a while, and I already see history repeating itself here with the same type of speculation and wishful thinking that dragged on for years with the Adventurers Club and its diehard fans. Starcruiser parallels that interactive experience in a number of ways, and I hope that doesn’t extend to its superfans being strung along for too long with the false hope that the thing they love will return.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser being converted into office space? Is this heartbreaking, or is it more or less what you expected based on previous reporting? Think D’Amaro is sincere in saying “something will happen” with the shuttered Starcruiser? Are you expecting an announcement at the 2025 Destination D23? Do you agree or disagree with our assessments? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!