Viral YouTube video lambasts Disney's Star Wars hotel via a 4-hour opus

It did not seem fun.
By Tim Marcin  on 
thumbnail of jenny nicholson making face at starcruiser hotel
Credit: YouTube / @JennyNicholson

Disney's massively expensive and spectacularly wrongheaded Star Wars hotel closed last year. But in the previous week or so, a video went viral detailing just how bad it really was.

The reason? Well, it's an incredibly detailed breakdown, and it was released on YouTube by Jenny Nicholson, a popular creator with over 1 million subscribers. The video is over 4 hours long. That'd be like watching the entirety of The Irishman and then an episode of The Office.

I've seen reactions to this video, especially on my TikTok FYP, even though I am neither a Disney Person nor a Star Wars superfan. That's because Nicholson's video did a fantastic job breaking down what happened with this ill-fated experience.

Full disclosure: I have not yet had the time to watch the entire 4-hour-long video. One, I have to work, and two, because the time commitment is a bit much for a non-Disney person. I did bop around the review, which is broken down into 20 sections titled by what they cover. And I've got to say, this place did seem like a scam.

In case you have never heard of it, the gist is that it was a hotel called the Galactic Starcruiser designed to look and feel like a spaceship from the Star Wars universe. You are supposed to be immersed in the Star Wars universe, completing missions and interacting with folks totally in character. In practice, you are paying thousands of dollars for a mid-tier hotel experience, some boring "missions" where you scan QR codes, and, in Nicholson's case, a "story" choose-your-own-adventure that ultimately didn't work at all.

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In short, Nicholson's experience seemed like a bad bed and breakfast combined with a lousy mystery dinner for the price of a luxury hotel. Nicholson walks through the tiny rooms and barracks-esque living quarters — at a $3,000 per night cost. I've embedded the viral video, which has racked up nearly 6 million views in just nine days.

Folks online have responded to the video. On TikTok, people posted comments about how badly Nicholson destroyed Disney, for instance.

Some parts of the video were even made into memes. Or folks responded to the video itself with memes. Again, I saw this even though I am not a Disney fan.

If you get the time, it's probably worth perusing Nicholson's video, "The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel." I enjoyed it, even though I am not the target audience.

Even if you don't watch the video itself, at least now you understand why it might be all over your corner of the internet.

Topics Star Wars

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Tim Marcin

Tim Marcin is a culture reporter at Mashable, where he writes about food, fitness, weird stuff on the internet, and, well, just about anything else. You can find him posting endlessly about Buffalo wings on Twitter at @timmarcin.


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