Kristin Baver had the amazing opportunity to board the Halcyon and take a tour on Galactic Starcruiser, giving us a chance to peek behind the curtain at an experience like no other.
When I boarded the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser for an abbreviated play test last week, I expected to choose between the First Order and aiding the Resistance — although the General Leia shirt I chose for the day tips my hand in terms of allegiance. But I never expected to feel like Luke Skywalker himself, taking my first steps into a larger world with the Force as my guide. That’s the magic of the new immersive two-day experience opening at Walt Disney World Resort in March 2022. If you’ve boarded a cruise ship or touched down on Black Spire Outpost, you have a sense of what to expect. But the reality is a unique, personalized adventure that takes you on a journey into a reality all its own as a passenger aboard the Halcyon starcruiser.
The itinery of your stay aboard the Halcyon is packed, givnig you plenty to do and plenty of options on how you do it, and here Kristin reveals another surprise when a familiar furry face appears.
There’s so much activity that my eyes don’t know where to focus until I see a familiar swatch of brown concealed behind a support beam on the deck just above. Chewbacca has arrived, taking refuge as a stowaway. When he opens his mouth, a cacophony of Wookiee howls and chortles emits from his safely masked features. Word quickly begins to spread that we must help hide Chewie from the First Order, and I spring to action, stretching my arms out as nonchalantly as possible to extend my five-foot-five frame while the Wookiee tries to make himself small behind a wall of like-minded passengers. Working together, we manage to sneak him out of the atrium while another guest distracts the First Order with questions. And safely in a corridor we learn the language of the Resistance, a passcode that will help identify others along our journey. “Ignite the spark,” the captain says, and we respond in unison, “light the fire.”
What starship journey would be complete without leaping into hyperspace?
We use our recently acquired skills to blast our way out of there and make the jump to hyperspace. It’s an unexpectedly awe-inspiring feeling to be standing on the bridge of a starcruiser when it makes that leap into the starry abyss. Even if you’ve experienced it second-hand in a movie theater or even first-hand safely strapped in on Star Tours or Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, neither can adequately prepare you for this moment. The blue streaks of hyperspace whiz by, reflected on your face as you stare up at them from the bridge. There’s no question that you are in the story, living out all your dreams of stepping into the Star Wars galaxy.
In her next article over at StarWars.com, Kristin looked at 31 things we learn about Galactic Starcruiser, one of which is how Disney themselves view this incredible experience.
In the words of Ann Morrow Johnson, executive producer and creative director for Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, it’s a piece of immersive theater, coupled with a signature dining experience, and select elements of a standard cruise. “We’re developing a thing that hasn’t been done before, at least not at this kind of scale and not this kind of level,” adds Trowbridge. “I think that’s consistent with the kind of innovation we’re always striving to do to find ways to create these experiences and bring our guests closer to the stories and characters we care about.”
Finally, a sextet of characters were introduced in a range of production art images, giving us a closer look at just a few of the characters we will be meeting aboard the Halcyon.
