May The Flop Be With You: The Star Wars Hotel with Jessi Cruickshank and Moshe Kasher | 60

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You're sitting down to your first dinner on a vacation that you and your friends have waited for years to go on.

Hmm.

Blue shrimp?

Odd, but sure.

Blue dumplings filled with bantha beef?

That doesn't sound appetizing, but worth a shot.

And after a long day of running around the Star Wars Hotel, or should I say, Star Wars Galactic Star Cruiser, you need the calories.

The itinerary has been punishing, unforgiving, dense.

Maybe it's this packed for the hordes of kiddos running around with boundless energy, but for grown-up Star Wars nerds like you, it's brutal.

But hey, this little excursion cost you a couple of grand, and you're going to have the immersive experience you paid for.

Starting with the Alien Cabaret everyone's been talking about.

One problem.

You don't know what's happening.

There's an app on a loaner phone that has more info, but you can't get it to work, and you can't flag down any customer support.

Everyone who works here seems to be fully into their character role.

Wait.

Why are you being told to leave the dining room and go into the atrium?

What's going on?

Oh, it's a staged fight.

Over what?

It's impossible to tell.

A little while later, you're exhausted.

It's time to retire to your cabin and get some shut-eye.

As you lay out your Star Wars-themed outfit for the next day, you look out the window.

Or rather, the screen that looks like a window with a view of space.

It's bright.

Does it have a dimmer?

If not, sleep's going to be a bit tough.

You dream of being in a galaxy far, far away from here.

Like a beach, maybe?

The Star Wars Galactic Cruiser officially opens in less than a week, and as you can imagine, it is packed with things to do.

Nothing's ever been done like this before.

It's even hard to describe.

One of the most innovative and immersive experiences we've ever created.

Stories brought to life by actors who never break character.

Is it a hotel?

Is it a resort?

It's more like a cruise ship.

I'll be interested to see how it does.

Breaking news from Disney this afternoon: one of its newest hotels at Disney World is about to close its doors for good.

We

are on a

single ship.

From Wondery and Atwill Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time.

I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar and head of a Wookiee Dum fan fiction blog at Don't Cross a Gay Man.

And today, we're talking about Star Wars Galactic Star Cruiser, an underwhelming starship staycation with convoluted gameplay and a price tag that was truly out of this galaxy.

What if I told you that the crime of the century is happening right now?

From coast to coast, people are fleeing flames, wind, and water.

Nature is telling us, I can't take this anymore.

These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet.

Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups, and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it.

This is Lawless Planet.

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On our show today, making his triumphant return to the pod, it's none other than comedian and author, Moshe Casher.

Welcome.

Thrilled to be here, ready to flop again.

Let's do this.

Yes.

Also on the show, we have a fabulous comedian.

She's the host of the podcast, Phone a Friend, and you can stream her special minivan Money Now on Veeps.

It's Jesse Cruikshank.

Welcome.

Why, thank you.

I am so excited to maybe learn a little bit about Star Wars as we discuss this flop.

Mm-hmm.

Same.

Okay, Jesse, you're not necessarily a huge Star Wars nerd, but how do you feel about immersive theater experiences?

Listen, the word immersive is the hottest word to come out in the last five years.

Everybody likes to talk about how everything is immersive.

I'm surprised that you didn't pitch this podcast to me as like, come on an immersive podcast experience where I take you into the worlds that flop.

Like, that's all it is now in Marketing Speak is immersion.

Moshe, as our resident Star Wars expert, out of all the Star Wars characters, who would you pay to spend two days hanging out with?

Are we talking sexually or just friendship platonic?

Oh, I want to know both.

All of the above.

Yeah.

Okay.

If I could spend two days hanging out with any Star Wars character, the funnest person to hang out with would definitely be Han Solo because you know things are going to get buck.

But the biggest learning experience would obviously be with Master Yoda.

You'd learn a lot of stuff.

But I'm going to go probably, I'm going to probably select Princess Leia because she was played by Carrie Carrie Fisher, and that's probably the most interesting person.

So I'm picking all three.

Final answer, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Master Yoda for the win.

Nice.

Well, the Star Wars Hotel cost Disney hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development and is now one of their biggest flops.

Even though its name is technically the Star Wars Galactic Star Cruiser, we're just going to go ahead and call it the Star Wars Hotel, like most people on the internet do.

Oh, thank God.

I mean, we don't care how crazy making that might be for the Disney marketing overlords, but deal.

Perfect.

Iger's pulling his final hair out.

Well, to find out how this hotel came crashing down within months of opening, let's go all the way back to about nine years ago, 2015, when literally everything in our world was different.

Our main character is Bob Chapec, a reserved and analytical sort of guy, but also an absolute shark.

So, over the course of his career, Chapex climbed the Disney ladder with a plum, zigzagging from Buena Vista Home Entertainment to Disney Consumer Products to now, in 2015, becoming chairman of Disney Parks and Resorts.

Big job.

Chapek is responsible for all of Disney's famous parks, resorts, and attractions all around the world, running development and operation for every child's favorite birthday location.

And he has to operate all those reimmers centers for Disney adults who want to get back into the stream of society.

It's like a rehab situation where they have to learn how to talk to other adults about adult stuff.

That's a difficult job, too.

Uh-huh.

Oh, and even though he's pretty important, there's one other Bob that's a tad more important at Disney, Mr.

Bob Iger, the CEO.

Now, keep his name in mind because there's going to be some Bob drama later in this episode.

Now, kids loving Disney is nothing new, but Chapeck knows that adults fall for the magic as well, especially Disney's diehard army of adult super fans.

Are we Disney adults?

I think I might be considered a Disney adult, but this is only due to the volume of times I've gone to Disneyland.

I spent four days just a few months ago at the Disneyland Hotel.

Four days and five days in the parks.

That's too many days.

That's a lot.

Wow.

I also have, I don't want to brag, guys.

You're not.

Don't worry.

You're not bragging.

Okay, perfect.

No, thank you so much.

Okay.

I did go on the Disney Wish cruise, which is the newest ship.

Oh.

It's a coveted cruise, Unlike the one we're going to continue to discuss.

Oh, yes.

So you're more like Disney royalty.

Well, these super fans, they're like big kids with big wallets and zero parental oversight.

And of course, one of the biggest groups of adult super fans in the world are Star Wars fans.

The question isn't if they should make a Star Wars park, it's when, how, how much is it going to cost?

This is made all the more urgent with the growing success of Universal Studios, who have just opened the first section of the wizarding world of Harry Potter, which is siphoning off Disney's customers and eating Disney's Mickey-shaped waffles.

Have you gone to Harry Potter World?

Yeah, my children have the wands, which if anyone has been to Harry Potter World and knows you're supposed to point these wands at various castles and things and they're supposed to do magic, the wands don't work.

Did you ever consider the fact that maybe it wasn't the wands, but it was your children not nailing the spell?

Never, never, never.

How dare you?

Something to think about.

Expeliarmus.

Expeliamus.

Misha, I have not gone to Harry Potter World, but I've gone to a sister park, which is J.K.

Rowling World, about her political activism.

It's a much darker park, and there's a lot more Voldemort energy going on there.

Then imagine.

Well, Chapec's vibe is chill, but he's not afraid to take some big business swings.

And in April of 2017, Chapec commissions a ridiculously named company called Swag Books,

who offer gift cards for survey answers to do some really serious research.

Their job is to survey Disney World visitors and figure out if they'd be down for an immersive Star Wars resort.

The job seems so simple.

You're asking Disney adults whether or not they want to go to an immersive Star Wars hotel.

I mean,

ask no further than the company Swag Bucks.

Let me just say, when you said Swagbucks was the name of the company, I went ahead and Googled Bob Chapek just to get a vibe of what he physically looked like.

And I wouldn't say he looks like a swag bucks kind of a guy.

Swagbucks sounds like a SoundCloud rapper.

He definitely definitely looks like he promotes UFC fights.

Well, what would your answer be on the survey?

I would be the wrong target demographic for swag bucks in this moment.

I have never seen a single Star Wars film.

And this has become sort of a badge of honor for me.

Like I actually don't want to see a film because it's the most interesting thing about me.

I have never seen a Star Wars movie.

So sorry, Swagbucks.

I'm not your girl.

Jesse.

Uh-huh.

You gotta, you just, come on.

What, immerse myself?

Yeah, you gotta fully, become fully immersive in the world of Star.

Okay.

I love Star Wars.

They're maybe my favorite movie franchise of all time.

And I still don't think that I would be the target demographic to stay at a Star Wars-themed galactic hotel.

Why?

I don't know.

It doesn't, I'd rather, I, have you guys ever heard of The Four Seasons?

Heard of it?

That's an immersive experience as well.

You get to stay with people like Bob Chapek and Bob Iger who are not staying at the Star Wars Team Hotel.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So at the 2017 annual D23 Expo, Chapec unveils his big idea.

The full name of the event is actually D23, the ultimate Disney fan event, started by Bob Iger.

Speaking of Bob Iger, while Chapec is sweating it out on the Expo stage, Bob Iger is in the wings judging.

He has been the CEO of Disney for so many years, so he's on the hunt for his replacement.

And Chapec may or may not be the key to him finally retiring.

Chapec's big idea is a brand new Disney park called Star Wars Galaxy's Edge.

Capitalizing on the popular movies but not cannibalizing them, Galaxy's Edge takes place on a brand new planetary outpost not yet mentioned in any of the franchise's existing properties.

Interesting.

And there's apparently there's in Galaxy's Edge, there was going to be like a red light district where you could do Galaxy's Edging.

A much

more adult theme.

That was an Iger suggestion, though.

That was

Iger came through.

Speaking of adult Star Wars Entertainment, you should check out our episode on the Star Wars holiday special.

That had some moments that verged on Galaxy's edging, let me tell you.

But back to Galaxy's Edge.

There's one more thing that gets all the Disney Star Wars fans hot and bothered, and that's, of course, the hotel.

pitched as a Westworld for Star Wars full of droids and aliens whose purpose is to make your vacation awesome.

Are you familiar with Westworld?

Sure.

Yes.

For any of our listeners who aren't already familiar, Westworld is a place where paying customers go to explore their deepest, darkest fantasies in a park populated with realistic androids.

Wait, is this how they actually pitched it?

Yeah.

Okay, that's funny.

This is what Chopac said?

Chopra.

Deepak Chopra.

Wow.

Isn't the whole thing in Westworld that the androids rise up and murder the clients?

It is absolutely a cautionary tale.

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How hard is it to kill a planet?

Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere.

When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

Are we really safe?

Is our water safe?

You destroyed our town.

And crimes like that, they don't just happen.

We call things accidents.

There is no accident.

This was 100%

preventable.

They're the result of choices by people.

Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime.

These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet.

Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it.

Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Cut to 2019, two years after this big D23 expo.

Galaxy's Edge, the park, finally opens to an extraordinary amount of fanfare.

But everyone is still thirsty for deets about this hotel, which should be opening any day now.

In a bizarrely stiff presentation, Chapek unveils plans for the Galactic Star Cruiser.

It sounds like a ride, but it's not.

Or is it?

To learn more about the Star Wars Hotel, let's play a game.

I'm going to ask you some questions about the Star Wars Hotel and you will answer them, okay?

First question.

The Galactic Cruiser will be an immersive experience that will last a fixed amount of days.

This might be a bit confusing for folks since hotels are usually booked for however long people want, whenever they want, but how long is the trip?

Is it A, two days, B, four days, or C, one week?

I'm going four.

To truly, as someone who knows a lot about immersive experiences, to truly immerse yourself, you need four days.

I would go four days too, but this podcast is called The Big Flop, so I'm going for the floppiest number, and that's got to be a week because that is simply too long to be in an immersive experience.

One week.

Too long.

No,

it was two days.

Oh.

As a part of the hotel experience, visitors get passes to Galaxy's Edge where their story begins and then will be shuttled in a launch pod to the Galactic Star Cruiser for a two-night stay.

Wow.

Next question.

This launch pod, as well as the entire fake ship, will be blanketed in fake windows.

What can you see through those fake windows?

Is it A, a big battle?

B, ads for upcoming Star Wars movies?

Or C, the profound endless void of space?

You gotta go see the profound endless void of space because if we are truly prioritizing the immersive experience, no matter how badly we want to market the rest of our shit, we're going space.

I'm going space as well.

It's got to be space.

Ding, ding, ding.

It is space.

Although, to be fair, it won't be completely empty.

It is full of fake Star Wars ships and planets.

All right, can I just say, at this point in the podcast, I'm very much in.

I want to do this.

This is sounding awesome.

Okay, next question.

The Galactic Star Cruiser is actually not the in-world name of this ship.

What is it really called?

Is it A, Crestor?

B, Nexium, C, Halcyon, or D, Lunesta?

Most of those are prescription drugs.

So I'm going to go with A.

What was A again?

Crestor.

The thing I can't get over is that it's very hard for me to even remember Galactic Star Cruiser as the name of the hotel.

And now there are multiple names for the hotel.

So if there was another answer that was just, I hope this isn't true, I would go with that.

That's because, Jesse, you didn't grow up hip-hop like I did.

You know, you got Biggie Smalls, a notorious B.I.G., Big Papa.

You know, you got, it's all these different names for the same thing.

Crestor, we got Crestor, Galactic Edge.

Listen, Moshe, let me put you in your place for a damn second.

Sorry.

I grew up with the Backstreet Boys, and I know that Howard Durrow is actually Howie D.

I know that Brian Luttrell is actually B-Rock, so I have my own version of this as well.

Thank you very much.

I am so sorry.

That was total boy band erasure, and I apologize.

Absolute erasure.

Well, the answer is not Crestor, it is Halcyon.

Now, Halcyon means idyllic, but it's also a brand of tranquilizer, which is why the rest of the options are brands of medication.

Next question.

In addition to lightsaber training, guests receive instruction in something called Sabak, so that they can play in a Sabak tournament the next day.

What the force is Sabuk?

Is it A, a dangerous racing sport?

B, a high-stakes game of chance?

or C, a type of performative telekinesis.

It's a type of performative telekinesis.

I gotta say, it's a racing game because that's in the Star Wars universe already.

I don't know if they called it Sabek.

It's a high-stakes game of chance.

Wow, wow, wow, wow.

It's a card game, sort of like Star Wars-y poker.

Unbelievable.

For this last question, I'm going to tell you everything a trip on Star Cruiser includes, and I want you to tell me how much you think this costs.

Closest wins.

You and your no crew will be locked in for one day at the theme park, two nights at the hotel, and one goodbye breakfast on the final morning.

On top of the lightsaber and card game training, the whole time you'll be living in your own unique story, featuring unexpected moments with characters and special cabaret performances during dinner.

All meals are included.

With a great mailbox with your own sense.

So, Jesse, how much do you think this all costs?

So, I'm going to say, is this a per-person cost?

Per cabin.

Per cabin.

I'm going to say this is $4,000 per cabin, Bob.

$4,000.

Okay, okay, Moshe.

Well, you said that they force you to watch cabaret, so I'm going to guess that they pay you $100 a day.

Is that right?

Sure.

Yep.

If I had to guess what this all in is gonna cost i'm gonna go six thousand dollars wow wow okay

not that much um jesse you were kind of close a cabin on the star cruiser costs a minimum of thirty three hundred dollars

And is this, can I bring 10 of my nerdiest friends or is like, are we pricing it per person or it's just per cabin?

So, well, we can share the cabin.

It sleeps up to five people if you count Murphy beds and stuff.

So, you know, know, that's still a minimum of $660 per person.

Gotcha.

There's no Murphy beds in space,

Bob.

So let's not get ahead of ourselves.

It's only 2019.

There's still no opening date, but rumor has it that the hotel will have 100 cabins of various sizes.

That's good because they're going to need to recoup the cost.

Reports vary, but it seems like Chapek and the Disney Overlords are going to spend at least $300 million to build the hotel and as much as a cool billion.

I mean, you can hear Scrooge McDuck having a quacking fit somewhere in the background at a billion dollars.

So a year later, Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, he's about to to step down.

And who else but Bob Chapek rises to the top of the Disney cream barrel, replacing Iger as Disney's king of wizards or whatever.

I believe Disney cream is what they have a lot of in the red light district.

Is that correct?

That's correct, Jesse.

You're absolutely right.

Thank you.

Chapek, he doesn't question Disney's nefarious preferential treatment of people named Bob.

He's being handed the keys to Cinderella's castle.

I mean, he's on top of the world.

You know what they say, though?

Nowhere to go but down.

Because this is now February of 2020.

And March is just around the corner, aka the bad times.

Now, before Chapec can finish framing his latest promotion letter, all of Disney's parks empty out amidst the pandemic.

And suddenly, Chapek's beautiful galaxy's edge needs to shutter, which means the Star Wars Hotel can't open.

And this isn't just another pandemic causes the flop.

Flop, there's more at work here.

Ah, well, you know what, though?

It is actually connected to the pandemic because they renamed Halcyon.

Do you guys hear about this?

What?

Yeah, the Pfizer Cruiser.

Let's take her to light speed.

Put the booster in.

So now it's October of 2021.

That survey Chapec commissioned half a decade earlier doesn't seem as relevant anymore.

I mean, before COVID, people would love nothing more than to be locked inside a fully enclosed space with no view of the outside world and chock full of interactive buttons and screens crawling with strange germs.

So Chapek, needing to prove he can handle the responsibility of being CEO and to please his shareholders, pulls that blaster trigger.

And on October 28th, 2021, also known as Halloween times, reservations for the Star Wars Hotel finally go live for the following March.

Now, with any big launch, you need big ads.

But for some reason, the ads Disney releases to tease the experience seem to be bypassing the Star Wars core audience entirely.

And instead, they go straight for families.

Families at this time, October 2021, are desperate to get away from each other, not spend two days immersed in each other's shit.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, they want to send their children to a galaxy far, far away.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

By the time the hotel actually is ready to open, the prices have gone up.

from the starting cost of $3,300 a cabin.

And they're a lot closer to those guesses that you had earlier.

So you were just post-inflation in your guesses.

That's right.

I saw the pandemic coming.

I saw the mistakes that were going to be made, and I did futures.

For a weeknight departure in the offseason, a two-guest cabin will be $4,809.

No, why?

A three-guest cabin will be $5,299,

and a four-guest cabin will run about $5,999.

Which is $1 short of

$6,000.

There he goes.

What families are we targeting?

Is it the families of Bob Iger and Bob Chapek exclusively?

Yeah,

because that doesn't even include flights or extra days in the park or other hotels because this one only lets you stay two nights.

The family that could afford that vacation but would pay it only for their children to have a delightful time.

Like if you're going to spend that kind of money, you're going to go to the place where the adults can probably have the fun too.

Yeah.

Like the four seasons Maui at Wai Laya.

Now, we can't forget the add-ons.

For $30 a person, visitors can sit at the captain's table where there might be a few more snacks the plebes at the normal tables can't have.

And for $219.99, they can get their own hand-built lightsaber.

By the way, that lightsaber that you bought, you have to keep it in your room.

I mean, I honestly don't even want to know what is being done with those lightsabers in those rooms without windows.

Now remember, cosplaying is encouraged and you can purchase themed clothing during your trip at the Chandrala Collection Boutique.

Go ahead, get that Amadala cloak.

It's only $150.

Then treat yourself to a $150 gold-ish industrial chic bracelet and matching neck wrap for $175.

Do you think this upselling bothers anybody?

Disney in general are the most masterful money extraction entity I have ever seen.

They make Las Vegas casinos look like amateurs.

Like Like you, it's part of the experience to buy this stuff.

So I'm not shocked by this pernicious behavior.

100%.

I feel like if you arrive with your suitcase full of tunics and then you see the tunics available at the Chandrala collection boutique, you will trash your Amazon version and you will spend the $175 on a new tunic.

And also, if you're dropping $6,000 to be there, what's another $275 on the custom lightsaber, you know?

But, father, I want a gold-plated tunic from the boutique.

I want it now, daddy.

Yeah, I mean, we are talking about people who can't wait to pay $6,000 to leave their homes and catch their first cold since 2019.

Right.

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The first two months of ticket sales is, to quote Chapek, phenomenal.

So, see, Chapec's doing great.

Let's please let him keep his job, please.

There are some initial detractors, like not everybody cares for the windowless experience.

Then, there's the itinerary, which is extremely tight.

Once you arrive at the terminal at 1 p.m.

on day one and get transported via launch pod pod to the Star Cruiser, there is a new thing happening every 15 to 45 minutes.

By the way, that launch pod is a windowless container on the back of a flatbed truck.

Oh, wow.

They stuff you in there and then you don't know that you're on the back of a truck.

Does have those nice windows playing some space videos on them, though, to keep you entertained.

Sure.

Now, itinerary highlights include an orientation, light refreshments, which you don't want to miss or you'll be starving during the reception with the captain, and we'll have to wait until dinner featuring live music.

Now, there's 30 minutes of outer rim regalia, meaning guests are asked to strut on a runway to model the outfits they've either made, previously purchased, or have been coerced into buying on the trip.

This is just Chandrala's collection boutique trying to earn a little, trying to put a little pressure on you.

You gotta walk a runway.

And then at 7:30 p.m., they get what they have been waiting for, an unexpected story moment.

At 7:30 p.m.,

like a character might pull them aside and ask them to hide a stowaway.

I mean, and then depending on how they respond, they'll be put on one of a few possible paths, like the resistance white hat path or the first order black hat path.

I gotta say, if it's well done and the story was good, I would be actually kind of excited at this point.

I will say that if I had made the terrible mistake of bringing my wife there, she would be filing for divorce and or calling the valet.

We are literally leaving right now.

Yeah, I mean, it's like a very expensive game of mafia.

Like you are, you arrive and you're told what part you're playing and you have no control over that.

Is that, I mean, is that right?

Yeah.

Here's a cute clip where a member of the evil First Order pulls a group of visitors into a room for a quick cooperative mission.

Let's watch.

We are going to power down the coal power systems and sabotage the house here.

Oh, gosh.

You're going to be okay?

We will be fine.

Okay.

That's all I care about.

Excellent.

Coolant systems over here.

I need another group of three or more.

Is there anyone who would like to pair up together?

Excellent.

Can I just say I hate the guy doing bits?

There's always that guy

in the group.

We don't need you.

Let's get into the Star Wars universe.

We don't need you riffing with the cast member that you understand this isn't really happening.

But can you imagine being in character for 48 hours?

Oh, these guys love it.

Are you kidding me?

This is their ME moment.

That one moment where that guy doing the bit challenged our performer to improvise.

He answered and then he, in his mind, he's like, I fucking nailed that.

I did so well.

Like these guys are living for it.

I mean, I can speak from experience.

Years ago, I worked at a theater in Pennsylvania that was on a resort, very much like Dirty Dancing.

I was casting the murder mystery, which was an entire weekend long with the same group of guests, the same like 200 guests.

But I understand and you're absolutely right.

We always thought we crushed it.

But it was 300 million to build your theater company back.

Yeah, that was the initial investment.

It was just like $4 trillion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was sort of early Chapec, right?

That was sort of proto-CHAPEC when he was just getting his ears wet.

Proto-Chapek.

Now, this might come as a shock to you, but it turns out the characters, they're very hit or miss.

There's a guitarist character that sometimes is an alien and sometimes is not, probably depending on if the makeup artist have enough time to fix him up.

There's something called Saja, which is either a character or a religious group.

It's unclear.

And that's because guests clock a few different people dressed similarly who call themselves Saja.

Maybe a few plain-looking actors are playing the same role in Disney figure nobody would notice or care.

There are a few movie characters who show up, but they don't interact with the passengers.

Wow.

Basically, these are all new characters, all new location.

We're just forgetting about the movies.

Wait, so there's no, I'm sorry, there's no like Han Solo, there's no Princess Leira, all of the people that Moshe, you know, kicked our conversation off saying that he would want to spend time, they are not represented at all in the galactic ship cruiser.

No.

Star cruise.

No.

No.

I literally have never seen Star Wars and I'm disappointed.

I'm like, there's not even a Han Solo.

Yeah.

Now, thankfully for the actors, most interactions are done through the data pad, which is just Disney-owned iPhones loaded with the Play Disney Parks app.

There, visitors toggle between two very important tabs, comms and events.

The events tab just lets you check your very complicated schedule, but comms is where you'll get messages from characters and receive instructions for your very specific game, freeing up the real people to perform rather than babysit confused tourists.

They just get DMs on their special iPhones from a guy going, look, I'm a character actor.

I moved to LA eight years ago with a dream and now I'm stuck in this fucking galactic uniform and I can't get out of character.

Do you know an agent?

Do you know anybody?

So there are a number of issues guests experience when they arrive.

For one, they can't tell when and where the interactive elements are supposed to be taking place.

Like, if they want to trigger a path down the dark side, are they supposed to wait for something to happen or sneak around the ship?

Will that get them in with the dark side or just kicked out for trespassing?

One will never know.

Then, assuming a guest understands how anything happens in the first place, the app is extremely glitchy, and it prevents people from accessing those interactive elements they do happen to find, kind of like your kids and their Harry Potter wands, Jesse.

I mean, maybe the Imagineers were too busy getting high on GlitterStim to figure out better tutorials.

Yes, I did Google in World Star Wars drugs.

Really good, Misha.

Really impressive.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Now, good thing, there are employees everywhere, but, oh no, they can't break character because that'll ruin the vibes.

So they literally can't actually help people who are extremely confused.

So if you're just having a technical issue with your app and you approach any of the people who work there and say, like, hey, can you help me with it?

They would have to reply like, your application is not at hand.

And

they're in character.

Yeah.

Frozen it is.

Yeah.

Frozen it is.

Restart it, you should.

Yeah.

Some visitors, they think the whole thing is worth every penny, while others who are less fortunate, whose app glitches glitches out or who have a bad view of the alien performers or who realize the shuttle pod is just a flatbed truck they're not very happy and another thing the food is out of this world in a bad way let's see what's on the menu whoa

blue shrimp scissoring yes blue scissoring shrimp have you witnessed a c-section mosha from behind a curtain well if you were brave enough to peek over that curtain, Mosha, they remove some of the internal organs to take the baby out.

That's what it looks like is on this plate.

It does.

It is what lies behind the curtain of a C-section.

You know what the C and C-section stands for, right?

I don't.

Crustacean.

So that, my friends, is the iced blue Fallucian shrimp cocktail.

Fallucian is absolutely the tube that the baby travels through to exercise.

Yeah, it is arguably the most talked about dish at the hotel.

It took half a year to develop.

Now, normally if your shrimp is blue, you toss it, but at Disney, you paid for it, so you better eat it.

One blogger said nobody at the table enjoyed it, not even the person who actually likes shrimp cocktail.

Although the color comes from butterfly pea flour and it's not synthetic food food coloring, it still looks pretty gnarly.

Would you try it?

Well, I'm Jewish, and so it's not the blue coloring and it's not the disgusting taste.

It's the word of God that would keep me away from that dish.

I'm a vegetarian, and I became a vegetarian from looking at dishes that look like that.

Well, the kids' menu does exist if you truly can't stomach it.

But Chapek's success doesn't hinge on these little touches.

It's the overall experience.

If guests go home feeling underwhelmed or cheated, there is no amount of blued food coloring that'll save this billion-dollar venture and, by extension, Chapec's job.

Turns out, Bob's survey vastly overestimated the number of people who would be willing to shill out for a windowless hotel in which you're expected to be in character for 48 hours.

Are you telling us swag bucks got it wrong?

Possible.

Surprisingly.

Wow.

Disney bloggers start to notice that few of the Star Cruiser Voyages are sold out.

And looking further out in the calendar, the online sleuths notice that voyages in 2023 are starting to be canceled one by one.

So then come the deals.

30% off for pass holders, $700 off for Disney vacation club members, nothing like a sale to let people know that nobody is buying.

Am I right?

But Chapec doesn't get the chance to save his Star Wars hotel because, uh-oh, he's replaced as CEO.

No!

Oh, Chapec.

Think about the biggest career or life mistake you've made and how much stress you're under.

Now, imagine it costs $1 billion.

Think about the level of rock bottomness that feels like when your billion-dollar gamble doesn't pay off in any way.

Oh, woof.

And you're just staring at a table full of blue shrimp, going, Where did I go wrong?

So he's out, but where are they going to find another Bob on such short notice?

And right before Thanksgiving.

Hello?

Is this the Bob Iger residence?

Is original Bob home?

Because new Bob isn't bobbing enough.

Iger guts Chapek's legacy quickly.

By May of 2023, Disney announces that no voyages to or on the Halcyon will be available past September 28th.

Jesse, you might be excited to know that when Iger came back, he did sing, Iger's back.

All right.

I thought that might do it for you.

Oh, my God.

Wow.

And with one mediocre joke, you won me back, Moshe.

I thought that was my best work.

It was your best work.

It was your best work.

Wow.

Yeah.

He cancels it.

He doesn't even try to make it work.

He doesn't even try a pink shrimp, perhaps.

I know why so hasty.

It did cost a billion dollars to develop, so shouldn't they just give it a few more months?

Apparently, Disney doesn't think so, especially when the experience doesn't know how to market itself or to whom.

Now, the pandemic was a huge blow.

That's true, but it's the looming recession afterwards.

It definitely makes folks uneager to drop 6K on a two-day live-action roleplay adventure.

Sorry, Misha, just to correct you, did you mean un-Iger?

There you go.

Thank you.

That's why you're the professional.

At the very least, he could have roped in some hardcore fans by utilizing characters from the older films as part of the experience, maybe, rather than new made-up ones.

What was the thinking there?

They own the IP to the most popular character.

It's not like they have to license it.

Just get some guy to say I'm Han Solo.

Follow me for the Blue Shrimp Buffet.

And it was all the way.

It was like a ship that doesn't exist in a location that doesn't exist with characters that don't exist.

Strange.

I don't understand.

In the mind of Chapec.

He said, if I did Star Wars, this is how I would have done it.

Why wouldn't you just take this hotel that you've built that you've invested millions in to look like a Star Wars world and make it a regular ass hotel with windows that look outside, with check-in and check-out times, without an itinerary or blue shrimp.

Just let me sleep in a

galactic world without telling me who I am and who I have to go kill with my $782 lightsaber from Chandra Lee's collection boutique.

You mean like all of those other hotels Disney have that are extremely popular?

That's what I mean.

Weird.

Why not pivot, Bob?

Yeah.

Well, in June of 2024, a notable pop culture vlogger named Jenny Nicholson posts a four-hour deep dive on the hotel's flables.

In 20 video chapters, Nicholson chronicles her experience, which include glitchy data pads, limited vegetarian food options.

I'm so sorry, Jesse.

That's actually why I didn't go.

That's why I didn't go.

Yeah.

Tons of confusion over the gameplay and even obstructed views of live entertainment from her table.

Her video currently has over 10 million views.

Now, even though only a few thousand people went to the hotel, the whole world can know it was a failure.

I was gonna say, like, who is sitting down to watch a four-hour video?

And, but I actually know exactly who is sitting down to watch a four-hour video about a failed Star Wars hotel.

It's all the angry Star Wars fans who wished they could afford to go there and couldn't.

Now they can all band together in their tunics and, you know, laugh at the failure of this hotel.

Let's do a little, where are they now?

So after 29 years at the Walt Disney Company, Bob Chapek took a bit of a sabbatical.

In 2024, he booked his first job since the ousting, a board position at Massimo, a medical tech device company.

Oh, poor guy.

Well, don't feel too bad because he did receive compensation on his way out.

Again, reports vary, but it seems like it was at least $10 million in assets, if not $20 million.

Wow, that is such rich people's shit.

You lost us a billion dollars, so you only get 10 million.

You gotta go.

His son also is an executive at Marvel.

Is he also named Bob?

Yeah, probably.

Recently, Bob Iger, the current CEO of Disney, has been hinting that he wants to be set free.

He says he's obsessed with finding his next successor.

It's one of his biggest priorities, apparently.

Jesse, you pitched such a good idea of them pivoting.

I got a real cool idea for who his successor could be.

And I think it's you.

That's what I was hoping you would say.

I think it's me.

I actually think I was born to have the job title Imagineer.

Yeah.

The hotel itself sits empty.

Whoa.

A few fans of the hotel started memorializing the entrance after its closure, but Disney created a blockade and took down all of those ribbons.

Additionally, Disney has been cagey about its plans for the structure itself, but for now, it seems to be another giant tax write-off and nothing more.

I think we just have to go back to the part about how fans of the hotel were placing flowers outside of the closed entrance like it was Princess Diana.

Well, here on the big flop, we try to be positive people and kind of end on a high.

So are there any silver linings that you can think of that came about from the Star Wars hotel?

I could see Jesse's vision coming true someday.

One day,

five bobs from now, you know, when all the previous bobs have been forgotten, Bob the Ninth is going to open a door to a building that he hasn't been in in 20 years and go, wait wait a minute, there's a fully built out Star Wars space hotel.

We should do a Star Wars hotel and charge $200 a night to regular people that can afford it.

And the dream of Chapec, though he will be long dead, will finally be realized.

Yeah.

Think about all those happy children staying at that $6,000 hotel.

They have no other, I mean, they were destitute.

Yeah,

those are the best children in America, that's for sure.

For sure.

Gosh.

Well, now that you both know about this fully immersive failure, would you consider this a baby flop, a big flop, or a mega flop?

I would say anytime a venture fails that could have solved homelessness in Los Angeles with the amount of money they invested in it, I'll call it big flop.

I was going to say baby flop, but now you really make me feel like an asshole when you bring up homelessness.

But I'm going to stick with baby flop.

I think when the person who was at the hands of the multi hundred million dollar flop still gets 10 million on their way out, it can't be that bad.

Well, thank you so much to our out of this galaxy guests, Moshe Casher and Jesse Cruikshank, for joining us here on the big flop.

And thanks to all of you for listening.

If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review.

Next week, it's out of the frying pan and into the fire for some of your favorite celebrities.

In the Ultimate Celeb Restaurant Breakdown, we're covering Britney Spears' Nyla, Guy Fieri's American Kitchen, and Eva Longoria's She.

Bye.

Bye.

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The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and At-Will Media, hosted by Misha Brown, produced by Sequoia Thomas, Harry Huggins, and Tina Turner.

Written by Anna Rubinova and Luke Burns.

Engineered by Zach Rapone with support from Andrew Holtzberger.

Managing producer is Molly Getman.

Executive producers are Kate Walsh and Will Malnotti for At Will Media.

Legal support by Carolyn Levin of Miller, Korzynik, Summers, and Raymond.

Producers for Wondery are Adam Azaraff and Matt Beagle.

Managing producer is Sarah Mathis, and the senior managing producer is Callum Plus.

Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freesong Sync.

Theme song is Sinking Ship by Cake.

Executive producers are Lizzie Bassett, Dave Easton, and Marshall Louie for Wondery.

We are

on

a sinking ship.

We

are

on a sinking ship.