Posted on 08/15/2023 8:00:27 AM PDT by NohSpinZone
Scrapping the infamous Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser hotel cost Disney $250 million, the company announced in its quarterly earnings call last week. With only 100 guest rooms, that breaks down to $2.5 million per room for the failed venture.
The Galactic Starcruiser in Disney World was billed as a one-of-a-kind “Star Wars” experience. Each two-night booking was meant to feel like boarding a cruise ship in outer space, and guests were given a “mission” involving characters from the most recent “Star Wars” trilogy. It was a gamble on a relatively niche — and expensive — concept.
But at about $4,800 for a two-person “cabin,” the cheapest tier offered, Disney fans complained that it was simply too much for two days. In May, barely one year since opening, Disney announced it was shuttering the Galactic Starcruiser.
The company is now in the midst of writing off the expensive flop. At Wednesday’s earnings call, Disney attributed a dip in the theme park division “to a decrease at Walt Disney World, primarily due to higher costs (inflation and accelerated depreciation related to the planned closure of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser) and lower volumes.”
Interim Chief Financial Officer Kevin Lansberry said the company is looking at an “accelerated” depreciation of $250 million for the Starcruiser, which is in line with the earlier numbers given by Disney Parks Chair Josh D’Amaro; in May, D'Amaro estimated $100 million to $150 million in depreciation in both of the final two quarters of 2023.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I don’t pretend to understand all the financial calculations. But, why close it down? Just rent out the rooms for a more reasonable price. At least then they recoup some of the investment, and not just write off the whole thing.
Possibly because the bean counters determined that the tax benefits of the write-off exceeded potential profits.
If Trump would have had illegal aliens sleeping in those AOC would’ve been outside the building crying.
CEO’s are about the quick profit, so they can cash their shares.
They could do like Elon and accept low-end profits for years on end before it gets better, like he did with Twitter.
I guess there aren’t enough rich men willing to wast their money on Star Woke. The older generation of men that has enough money to spend on the Star Wars hotel probably hates the latest movies because they got man-hating vagina all over them.
Disney groomers suck.
Their cheapest two-day, “hamster cage” stay works out to $100/hour.
people like “Normal”
The bottom line:
I’m not staying there unless the door openings and closings actually “whoosh”.
Taxes...write off goes to “less income”...they must have been in tax “no man’s land”.
Still...Disney needs to be financially destroyed. Stockholders...time to bail out. Families go somewhere else. End the mouse “Eara”. They be done.
I suspect the number of rooms per overall square foot of the hotel is extremely low relative to a normal hotel because they were building the overall experience. Trying to convert some of the wasted space is probably too expensive. It looks like in the initial design they would have had a plan to convert it into a more normal hotel with a Star Wars theme if the experience didn’t work out. That should have been a question a board member asked during the initial approval presentation. What is the backup plan?
I suspect the Disney board was more focused on woke and also was too arrogamnt at the time of approval thinking they couldn’t fail.
Your average after softball keg party could produce better ideas than these idiots put forth.
Because the cost of keeping it open almost certainly exceeds the revenue that would be generated by renting the 100 rooms at a more reasonable price.
Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.
Great. I spend $5G+ for a relaxing, two-night stay on a cruise ship in the Star Wars universe--and then I get press-ganged into Jacky Kennedy's Rebellion and have to go on some "mission" to thump the Imperial Patriarchy.
Why travel to Florida and go to Disney to get the same experience you could get in any gay bathhouse in a Democrat city?
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