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Credit: Steven Miller via FlickrTake a look at what’s left of Disney’s infamous Star Wars hotel.
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Walt Disney World is known for being expansive, featuring four theme parks, two water parks, and an outdoor shopping and dining area known as Disney Springs. From Magic Kingdom to Hollywood Studios, there’s really no end to all of the magic and fun guests can have during their time at Disney World, though they’ll need a place to lay their heads after a long day at the parks.
Luckily, Disney World has dozens of different hotels to choose from, ranging from value-priced rooms to deluxe resorts. Some of Disney World’s most iconic hotels include the Polynesian and Contemporary, as well as newer additions like the Riviera.
However, none of Disney World’s hotels is as infamous or interesting as Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser.
New Look at Disney’s Permanently Closed Galactic Starcruiser
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Nearly two years after its closure, Disney World’s Galactic Starcruiser is still sitting where it used to, now being used as office space for Walt Disney Imagineering.
Avid theme park photographer bioreconstruct recently snapped an aerial photo of the Starcruiser, revealing that it still looks exactly like the intergalactic ship guests once boarded when it was operational.
Aerial photo of an Imagineering office building, south of Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Originally: Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser.
Aerial photo of an Imagineering office building, south of Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Originally: Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser. pic.twitter.com/nQONsYM0ti
— bioreconstruct (@bioreconstruct) May 9, 2025
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Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser was and perhaps will always be Disney’s most ambitious and exciting experiment ever. Blending the world of Star Wars with the all-inclusivity of a cruise, Galactic Starcruiser was Disney’s way of providing immersive, highly-themed entertainment outside of its theme parks, allowing guests to continue their adventures.
Opened on March 1, 2022, Disney’s Star Cruiser was a first-of-its-kind experience for Disney. It was envisioned as a way for the company’s craft of storytelling and immersion to continue in the interstitial time between park days. Once guests dropped their luggage off at the main port, they would find themselves transported into a totally new world.
Guests would board a bus, which was designed to look and feel like a shuttle, transporting them to “outer space” where they would enter the fictional Halcyon Starcruiser. Every piece of this process was designed to be as immersive as possible, with some guests likely not even knowing they were simply riding in a resort bus.
Once guests “docked,” they were greeted by the Halcyon’s main lobby, which offered a futuristic yet modern aesthetic and relaxing seating areas. This lobby, similar to the top deck of a cruise ship, would be where several activities would be held throughout the day.
Once guests were set up with the Starcruiser app and made their way to their rooms, their three-day, two-night adventure began.
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Despite being one of Disney’s most immersive and ambitious projects to date, the Galactic Starcruiser seemingly fell way below the company’s predictions. In 2023, Disney announced that its Starcruiser experience would be closing permanently in September, just a little over a year after it debuted.
While exact details aren’t known, one of the biggest factors likely leading to its closure was the overall cost of the Starcruiser. A family of four could expect the three-day adventure to cost around $6,000, an incredibly steep price that many likely weren’t willing to pay for or simply couldn’t afford.
Disney’s closure of the Starcruiser was by far one of the company’s biggest and most surprising in its history. The company poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the project to create, produce, and market it. However, the warning signs were there from the beginning, with bookings remaining wide open for weeks on end. Many assumed Disney would drop the prices and readjust, but the company decided to pull the plug completely.
While it’s great that Disney found another use for its Starcruiser, the fact that it still stands exactly how it used to when it was actually open to guests is bizarre and somewhat funny. The building, despite being used for offices, still very much resembles an intergalactic vessel. No official photos of the inside of the Starcruiser have been shared post-closure, but it’s strange to think computers and desks have been brought into the hotel’s former rooms, kitchens, and other spaces.
Did you get a chance to stay aboard Disney’s Galactic Starcruiser?