well the good news is, if they don’t care YET…they’re gonna. If the reports of the Starcruiser are true, things are about to get real dicey for D’amaro and Co.
Cause they sunk a ton of money into that and I think it can be considered a canary in the coal mine.
Which reports are these?
I think we all predicted they would eventually have to offer massive discounts to fill the ship. That price is just too astronomical for your average couple for a 2 night adventure.
Yeah that’s true for me. If it was maybe 1/2 as much or perhaps 2/3 I would have slotted it in for our 2023 trip. But at the current prices, I simply can’t justify the expense for 8 people in my party. That’s like $10K just for that, which I can’t believe I even considered for a moment.
Yeah especially if you consider the cost of the most expensive studio on property. Add in a 2 day dining package and 1 park ticket. You’re looking at maybe $2400 for 2 adults. The cruise starts at double that. I get they have a ton of staff to pay and You’re basically in a live action game the whole time, but yikes.
For us, it would have to be half as much and a day, at least, longer. It’s too short for me. All the reports I’ve read on it, it seems like you just don’t have enough time.
That reminds me that last year when the pricing came out, I tried to do a bottom-up estimate of the value. I used (expensive) tickets to The Cursed Child as the entertainment value, which I think is fair. I only got to $3800 for a party of four, which is over $2,000 less than what it would actually be. The prices are too high. I think they can cut them and still be profitable.
If you spent $10K for your family to spend two nights on the Starcruiser I would legit lose all respect for you.
That is an unconscionably huge amount of money and represents the triumph of herd mentality over imagination.
Although I personally will never go on the StarCruiser for many reasons, it is a dream come true for some. I fully support each family’s decision on what makes them happy.
I love your persistence in thinking you will ever make @sanstitre_has_left_the_building act right 
That’s quite a snarky point and unlikely to be true.
So if I sell my home and take on unaffordable debt to pay for a trip to Disney World, which will make my family happy, then you’ll support that?
I don’t know the detail of @Jeff_AZ’s finances but we’ve had some clues and I’m fairly sure that $10,000 is not a trivial sum to him.
To blow that on a two night experience would strike me as a pretty poor decision on his part. What else could he do with that money that would cause his family equal or even greater joy? I’ll wager he could take them on a safari in Africa and they’d remember that for the rest of their lives in a way that they would not with a trip on the Starcruiser.
I feel comfortable making these judgements because (a) Jeff has said that he’s not going to do it and so (b) this is wholly hypothetical.
Besides, we give each other advice all the time here. I’ve mooted trips I’ve been thinking of taking and sometimes posters have tried to talk me out of them. That’s what friends do. They don’t just mindlessly support each other’s decisions no matter what.
The people I know who have been on the Starcruiser are multimillionaires. Ten grand is trivial to them.
The part of the Unofficial Guide that most stuck with me was the observation that the experience at WDW that kids most prize and remember is playing in the pool. When I first visited the US when I was eight, the memory that most sticks with me is seeing a map of the US in a shopping mall and realising just how far from home I was. That, and breakfast at the Howard Johnson’s because there was so much to choose from and I’d never stayed in a hotel before. All this despite the fact we visited Niagara Falls and New York city.
There’s a guy in the UK known as the “money saving expert”. He’s very well known and kind of a hero. He once did an experiment with a bunch of six year old kids. Instead of giving them Play Stations he gave them a bunch of large, empty cardboard boxes and some crayons. They had a blast.
Like I said, spending ten grand on a two-night experience represents a failure of imagination on the parents part. Unless they are hugely wealthy, it’s also an irresponsible use of the money. Especially if the kids are young. They won’t remember it anyway.
I’ll double down.
Taking nine trips to WDW in five years, as I have done, also represents a failure of imagination, on my part, and it is probably irresponsible, too.
My best memory of WDW. The first night watching Tinkerbell fly during HEA. Nothing else at WDW has beaten that and probably nothing else ever will. Continuing to return to WDW to find that joy again is a fool’s errand.
Not easy to overcome the law of diminishing returns.
My hypothesis is they always knew that there was a limited audience for Starcruiser at $6k and that they planned to capitalize on that, then discount accordingly once that dried up.
I don’t think they consider it a failure as the blogs say, but rather as part of the plan.
I think this is true…although, I also think they likely didn’t expect demand to dry up QUITE so quickly. (Okay…“dry up” is a bit hyperbolic, but hopefully you get my meaning.)
One problem the Starcruiser will struggle with, unlike other hotels and such at Disney, is a case of “re-rideability” (and yes…not actually a ride). But I can keep going back, staying in the same hotel over and over, and create a different experience for myself. Starcruiser, while there are many paths you can take, is still more a “one and done” type experience. So, I can’t help but think that, long term, Disney will eventually water down the experience and make it less expensive…but also costing them a lot less to run (meaning, fewer character actors involved, etc), to attract new crowds (meaning, not as wealthy).
I am not being snarky. There are people in this community that have been on the StarCruiser. It was right for them. How each of us spends our money, is our choice and I will never judge anyone for that personal choice.
I will freely admit that this is a trigger for me. You just never can tell what is going on beyond this forum. I have not shared this story: At the end of May my mom passed away after a very long, slow, process. She worked hard her whole life and struggled as a single parent to five obnoxious children, especially when they were all teenagers. When she had money, she blew it. That was who she was. I never, ever expected anything from her. Suddenly, I discovered that crazy women had struggled to fund a life insurance policy (maybe the only bill she paid on time) and left each of us 10k- yes that exact amount. I want to honor her and spend that money on something fun, outrageous…… blow it in some crazy way. Would you assume I was making the wrong decision if I booked the StarCruiser (that is not on my list)?
I am so sorry for your loss. I remember though Covid how careful you had to be to see her and the efforts you made to take care of her. Anything spent in remembrance of her is money well spent.
So sorry for your loss. 
Sounds like a perfect way to honor your mother, based on how you described her.
Sorry for your loss