Prepare yourself. This is probably Minty's greatest adventure yet. Quite literally to a galaxy far, far away. I'm going to be a lot more descriptive with this, I'm far too excited to share. So lots of text! The short version is that I went on Disney World's Galactic Starcruiser!
If you don't know what this is, here it goes: A "cruise ship" style stay on a Star Wars vessel. Complete with an adventure you are swept up in. That's not a theme, it's the thing. That is, you are expected to BELIEVE it, because that's the way they treat it. You are "IN" Star Wars. Completely.
Here's the logo for the in-universe Chandrilla Star Lines. Out-of-universe, Disney cancelled this whole experience. It will stop soon. I was lucky enough to book a voyage in one of the final months, so I feel very lucky to have done this. I can say, without hesitation, that this was worth it. It did cost a ton, let's not ignore that. But as far as once-in-a-lifetime things go, it's quite an amazing adventure we got to be a part of.
Here's the room. The "cruise" is all day today on the ship, tomorrow we go to the planet Batuu, and finish back on the ship tomorrow night. The following day we depart. So 2.5 days, 2 nights. I slept on the top bunk bed, which was unexpectedly super cool. The bed was big and comfy, it's hard to see that from this sort of picture.
Space Toilet! I knew everybody would be interested. I think I remember an episode of The Mandalorian where they called it "waste extraction" or something.
The shampoo dispensers were full themed as well. Do they call it shampoo in space? How much of this do you think Chewbacca goes through?
In space, you get the rainfall head, where the water goes straight down. I gotta be honest, this was not very comfortable since we are not used to it. But... being uncomfortable on an alien ship in space kind of made it feel more like an alien ship in space, if that makes any sense.
It might have been a disaster if they used the alien numbers on the safe, so regular numbers there. But the fridge is called a Cooling Unit. That's not going to get confusing. Does it do the carbon freezing thing in there?
I edited our names out from the computer panel. Everything is translated into Aurebesh, which is the local alphabet. If you see text on a Star Wars movie or show, it's Aurebesh. Which is simply a fun substitution cypher that makes it look more like um... space. I practiced a bit, so I can kinda read these but not too fast. And yes, this was the "television" in the room, do they have TV's in Star Wars?
The "big" bed, for our wookie-sized friend, but typically a couple would sleep here. The two bunks in the wall, and another flip-out bed from under the TV, and this room can fit up to 5 people! There were four of us (five if you include Minty! Awww! But I don't need a whole bed) so we each slept very comfortably. You can't see, but the TV remote has regular text on it, but still looks like it belongs in space.
Our room was very close to the rest of the ship. Only a couple of doors in. So a lot less walking for us over the course of the trip. Was that a pun? Course?
Here's the room number, Deck 5, room 205. There were 3 levels with rooms, at one point we did the math to figure out how many passengers could be here, but I don't remember right now. I'm too excited to do math.
The dining area looks like both elegant cruise ship, and alien space ship. They were playing soft music in here for atmosphere, and you can be certain it was Star Wars-sounding alien music. You can see here that ceiling to floor, every bit of this thing is taken seriously like you are on a real ship, and not simply a room with some alien decorations.
There's Ouannii, pronounced "Wani", part of the entertainment. Like, not only part of the ship experience, but literally she plays the instrument thing for the show during the diner, which she is inspecting in this picture. She's a Rodian, and looks totally authentic. Why wouldn't she? She graciously posed for a picture with my friend.
Here's the Atrium, where a lot of the "show" happens. Up on the stage where everybody can get a good view of. Also a good place to just hang out. A lot of passengers were in full costumes, so it was not easy to tell right away who was legit part of the adventure cast.
You can look out into the bridge of the ship through that giant window there. Does it look like we are on a real Star Wars ship? I can tell you it sure felt like it.
The holo chamber thing was running an advertisement for Gaya, the intergalactic superstar who would soon show up and sing for us while we ate diner.
The ship's astromech droid, SK-620. That droid would play a big role in our adventure, as it held secret resistance plans, and the First Order would come looking for it. All the crew called it "Eskay" which I thought was cool because it sounded kind of like a Spanish name.
I'm on the bridge! How amazing is this? The view out of the window is... amazing. Part of me knows it must be some kind of screen past the window, but honestly it looks nothing like that.
My Aurebesh isn't too fast, so I took a lot of pictures so I could translate later. This panel is showing the Communcations Array.
This says Comms Encryption Status. This could be a teaser spoiler for the Resistance activity on the ship, if you could have read this, which I did... ha-HA!
Fuel Cell Status. Another bit of foreshadowing, as later we would find out we needed to smuggle some coaxium fuel to escape the First Order.
The Engineering stations were cool with all of the clicky buttons, switches, knobs, and more buttons. The display is showing the Airlock System Monitor. We came in through the airlocks.
Another picture of the giant window. They could legit film a show here. Am I in a Star Wars movie? Yes, I absolutely am.
This circular table is for the shield stations. Can't have a space ship without a big light-up table.
The console in the center of the bridge has a microphone for giving orders. Or like, broadcasting to the rest of the ship. This is your Captain speaking!
Look up, and see more screens. That's a map of where we are. Right now we are orbiting the planet Chandrilla, where the cruise starport is.
There's a bar on the ship, and these passengers are playing some kind of game. Not sure what it is though. We hardly went in here, which is a little strange.
There was a fish tank with a crazy alien fish in it. But we're in space, so I think I can just say fish. This is actually a terrible picture of the fish, but I guess I never got around to getting a better picture later. Oops.
The bar was super busy, so we didn't even stop to get a drink just to say we did it. At this point we were still overwhelmed by the whole thing, so we didn't want to slow down just yet.
Did I mention the phone ap? There was a necessary Datapad for your cellphone that interacted with the adventure. It received messages from the characters and scheduled events to attend, and did other neat things like translate big blocks of text. This story tells of the bottle used to launch the ship, which did not break, so they kept it as a good luck charm.
Back in the room to interact with the ship's resident helper droid, D3-09. Along with supplying some story exposition, she would talk to you in detail, and respond to your voice. Don't worry, they make it clear she is not spying on you. And she told us a couple of very excellent bedtime stories, of the greatest hero of the Rebellion, R2-D2. Along with his helper the Moisture Farmer Boy. Stay tuned for tons more pictures from our Galactic Starcruiser adventure!
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