Disney World’s Star Wars hotel — the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser — has been criticized for its hefty price tag of almost $5,000 for a 2-person, 2-night vacation.

Well, we’ve been to the Star Wars hotel, and we experienced everything from the food to the character interactions to the lightsaber training. With Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser starting its inaugural sailing TODAY, you might be wondering what are guests ACTUALLY paying for when they drop the five grand+ for their stay — so, let’s talk about it!

Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is a 2-night immersive experience that acts more like a cruise than a hotel. During the trip, you’ll be immersed in your own Star Wars story that changes based on your decisions.

$4,809 is the starting rate for 2 adult guests in a standard cabin ($1,209 per guest, per night). This price seems pretty steep for 2 nights in a hotel room, but similar to a cruise, the rate includes a lot more. So, let’s break it down.

We’ll be looking at how much each aspect of the hotel would cost outside of the experience to see how fair the pricing is for the Star Wars hotel. We’ll be using base rates; Disney World rates for hotels and park tickets can vary based on season, including for Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser.

Click here to learn more about the pricing of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser!

The Food

Your food is included on Galactic Starcruiser — you get 2 buffet breakfasts, 2 buffet lunches, lounge eats, and 2 all-you-care-to-enjoy family-style dinners – plus snacks and non-alcoholic standard drinks. On Day 2, you can even choose between eating a quick-service meal (with a non-alcoholic OR alcoholic beverage included) at any quick-service location in Disney’s Hollywood Studios or opt to eat at the lunch buffet aboard the ship.

All-you-care-to-enjoy casual buffet options around Disney World tend to cost around $30 per person for breakfast (like at Boma) and around $40 per person for lunch (like at Crystal Palace). Nicer, family-style, all-you-care to-enjoy dinners around Disney World tend to cost around $55 per person (like at ‘Ohana). Assuming a pair of guests takes part in all onboard meals, this value comes out to be around $500.

The suggested meal at Docking Bay 7 in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge of an entree and alcoholic beverage would cost a guest around $30. If both guests take part in this meal, the value comes out to be around $60. And yes, we DO recommend picking up this meal and having a second lunch at the lunch buffet on the ship. Might as well get all the food that you can!

Lounge eats are also included on the Starcruiser. Based on similar items on the Nomad Lounge menu, lounge eats tend to cost around $12. If each guest has one lounge bite each of the two days that the lounge is open, this comes out to a value of around $50.

Snacks vary between around $4 and around $12 depending on the snack, with the average landing somewhere around $6. Sodas and juices tend to range from around $4 to around $6; we’ll take an average of $5 for these beverages. If each guest has 2 snacks and 2 drinks outside of meals each day, this value comes out to be around $50.

Combine all of these different food prices and you’ll find that the value of food included on the Starcruiser for 2 guests is around $660.

Want to learn more about the Star Wars hotel food? Click here!

Park Tickets

The trip also includes your 1-day park tickets to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, so you can go on your excursion to Batuu during Day 2 of the trip. At base, these 1-day tickets typically cost $109, before tax and fees. For 2 guests, that value comes to $218.

But, remember that these tickets do change in price depending on the time of the year and the day of the week. For example, the price for a 1-day ticket on March 2nd, 2022 (when the Starcruiser officially opened) was $134 before tax and fees. So, this would come out to $268 for 2 people.

But, for the sake of this example we’re still going to stick to that base rate of $218 — just know that park tickets can and do regularly cost more at Disney World.

To see more about the excursion to Batuu, click here!

Cabin and All Onboard Experiences

So, pulling out the $878 food and park ticket value, your 2-person cabin and experiences still cost a whopping $3,931 for both nights or $983 per person per night.

A comparable (but still bigger!) room at Disney World’s most expensive hotel, Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, has a base rate of around $760 per night or $1,520 for two nights. Starcruiser costs significantly more than DOUBLE that amount.

If we take out the comparable price of a deluxe room, we find that you’re paying roughly $2,411 for 2 people (or $1,205 per person) to engage in the immersive experiences, activities, and entertainment onboard.

Remember, the Galactic Starcruiser experience is modeled after traditional cruises, not hotels, but it’s still HIGHLY priced in comparison to current Disney Cruises. For instance, a 2-night Baja cruise from San Diego from Disney Cruise Line would run 2 people around $1,460 — the Star Wars hotel costs more than 3-times that much.

Click here to see the Galactic Starcruiser rooms!

Even considering all of the inclusions, Galactic Starcruiser is VERY highly-priced for just 2 nights and definitely ranks as a more luxury experience at Disney World.

We’ll take an in-depth look at whether the experience is actually worth the price tag, so stay tuned for that post. And, keep an eye on DFB for ALL your Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser coverage!

Want to see our ULTIMATE guide to Galactic Starcruiser? Click here!

What do you think about Galactic Starcruiser’s pricing? Tell us in the comments! 

Disclosure: In nearly all circumstances, Disney Food Blog writers and photographers pay full price for their own travel, hotel, food, beverage, and event tickets. We do this because it’s important to us as journalists to ensure not only that we give you unbiased opinions, but also that you can trust us to do so since we’re paying our own way. On rare occasions, when we are invited by a company to attend a preview as media, and when we choose to accept that invitation, we will always make you, our readers, aware of that situation. Recently, we were invited by Disney World to attend their media preview of the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. Today, we are here on our own accord, but some of the photos in the post above are from said media event. Note that when we attend events as media we are 1) Not required to review that event/food on any of our channels, and 2) Not required to review that event/food favorably. You can always count on DFB to give you a 100% unbiased and honest review of any event that we attend, food that we eat, or beverage that we drink.You can see more in our Disclosure Policy. Thank you for reading. — AJ