Oft Off Topic
Oft Off Topic is a humorous podcast where two men with no memory or attention spans attempt to talk about all the nerdy and geeky things they love.
Marvel at how they fail to stay on topic in the most entertaining ways possible. If the subject is The Ewoks, they'll wind up talking about Tarzans nipples or Alan Thicke the robotic love machine. Talking about Mr. T and theyll somehow wind up connecting his success to the Umbrella Corporations T-Virus.
How do they manage this?
Subscribe to Oft Off Topic today to find out!
Feel free to check out our website as well, for links to our YouTube channel and more!
https://oftofftopic.com/
Oft Off Topic
Star Wars Hotel Pt. 1 - A Nerds Dream Vacation?
Imagine a world where you can live out your Star Wars fantasies in a luxury hotel. But what if the reality doesn't quite match up to the grand promises? On this episode, we explore the hypothetical journey of Nathan Townsend and his family as they experience Disney's Star Wars Luxury Hotel, inspired by Jenny Nicholson's detailed account. We tackle everything from the origins of the hotel's concept to the peculiarities of droid butlers and exclusive park access, all while sharing Nathan's past Disney adventures and possible solutions for his motion sickness.
Feel free to check out our website for links to our YouTube channel and more!
https://oftofftopic.com/
Our host Nathan also does art in addition to this podcast, including having is own sticker store. Please check it out and purchase anything that strikes your fancy.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/stickersbytownsend
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Even if you didn't like the show, please do it, we appreciate it. You can also email us at OftOffTopic@gmail.com and let us know what you like or don't like, maybe we will even read your email on our show!
Thanks for listening and stay tuned for more Oft Off Topic!
The Jenny Nicholson Star Wars Hotel Experience, as will be experienced by Nathan Townsend and his family. So a few months ago, long-form YouTube content creator and Star Wars superfan, jenny Nicholson, recently uploaded a four-hour video chronicling her adventures at the famed Disney Star Wars Luxury Hotel, and I decided it'd be fun if I took her experience and stuck you, nathan, and your family, in the middle of all this and see how you would react to what she experienced on this hotel excursion. Nate, what do you know about the Star Wars Hotel?
Nate:I mean I knew they were making it and then I heard it wasn't very good, so that was. I mean that is the beginning and end of it, and me being obviously, if anybody's listening to this, they know I'm into Star Wars.
Shaun:so Yep, say, if you did have a bunch of money just floating around like you're rich, nathan Townsend, would you have taken your family to this hotel when it popped up? Of course you saw it and you're like, hmm, I got the money. Should we do this?
Nate:Oh yeah, absolutely Like if it was the world where I had a bunch of expendable income. They're like, hey, star Wars experience. I'm like, well, sign me up.
Shaun:Okay, cool, I figured that'd be the answer. I would have done it too, because, hey, why not? It's an experience, if nothing else. So are you ready, nate, to learn about the Star Wars Hotel? Let's go. We start back in April 2017, and, at the behest of Disney, swagbucks releases a survey to its users asking them if they would be interested in staying at a multi-day Star Wars-themed Disney resort, because, apparently, when Disney thinks of people with money to burn, they think of swag bucks users. The survey showed concept art of the hotel, along with mentioning things like swag bucks.
Shaun:What's swag bucks? Swag bucks is? It used to be a website. It might be an app now, but it's one of those where you go on there and you complete surveys and you get quote unquote swag bucks that you can use to buy gift cards. It's one of those set of things. It's something that very poor people use typically. Oh, yeah, yeah you know what I'm talking about.
Nate:I have the Google one, you know, but it's just like for Google stuff, yeah.
Shaun:Swagbucks was kind of like the original one on that, but instead of Google Play you could like get Amazon gift cards and stuff. But it was kind of a scam. It's not really the people you think of when you're thinking of a multi-thousand dollar resort that you'd peg for.
Shaun:Yeah fair Swagbucks was pretty big like I don't know 10 years ago or so. It kind of dropped off since then, but pretty sure they're still around. This Swagbucks survey showed concept art of the hotel, along with mentioning things like luxury accommodations and amenities set aboard a starship in the Star Wars universe. All meals would be included during your stay Buffet breakfast, lunches and signature evening dinners, featured entertainment and dinner shows and exclusive park admissions to the Star Wars themed land at the Walt Disney World Resort, which I think was a new thing that they opened just around that time, which I believe was one you went and saw down in Florida.
Nate:Correct. Yes, I had a serious problem with the Millennium Falcon run. I got like motion sticks along with with like just straight panic attack. It was awful. But the. And then with the star tours, I mean I went to it I was a kid and I went to it with my other two kids and it was like I got sick on that but that's like damn it, stop getting sick. But the, uh, the star wars, uh, riser, was it? Rise of the Resistance?
Shaun:Skywalker Rise of the Resistance.
Nate:yes, that was amazing. That's so cool Anyway.
Shaun:We'll actually go over those in a little bit later on in this episode. And also to non-drowsy Dramamine apparently helps people in your condition.
Nate:Yeah, I need to invest and get something like that, because I have that VR headset from PlayStation. I would love to play more than five seconds before I start getting sick. I don't know. Like there's the Resident Evil game I have on there, dramamine helps.
Shaun:Thanks to that tip to superfan Dave Moon. Hi, dave, anyways. Yeah, I need to check that out. The Star Wars Starship would also include amenities like a pool area, a water garden, a fitness area, an onboard cantina and even robotic droid butlers. And, of course, once you think robotic droid butlers at Disney, you immediately go back to thinking in the 60s, when Disney tried those monkey butlers and all those kids got mauled Good times. It may or may not have been made up by me right there.
Nate:I'm going to say, like honestly, I can't tell if that was made up or not.
Shaun:Honest to God, monkey butlers mauling kids in the 60s and Disney covering it up that sounds like something that probably happened. That's great eh.
Nate:I mean, I'm assuming they're like R2-D2 units or you know what are they? Astromech units, because they're not R2-D2. But Astromech units running around, because that's, I mean, hell restaurant around here. It's a japanese fusion restaurant I don't know what.
Shaun:I don't know. It's fusing too, but they have that little um robot that comes out and has a little tray, like here you go, so it has a little face on it. The concept art. I sent you one of the things that shows the inside of a cantina. Also google the concept art people listening if you want to see what we're talking about and when. The cantina scenes does show like a robotic bartender and like robots walking around holding drinks and stuff and little bb ball unit in the background I would wonder is like is it everyone's dressed for star wars?
Nate:is that mandatory?
Shaun:like okay, you know, if you stay in this hotel, this hotel, you must wear these, uh, cosplaying is optional but it's kind of encouraged because, as part of this immersive star wars experience, you get to live in the Star Wars universe and get to be part of a branching storyline featuring character actors that would come up and react to you and what you're doing on the ship and how you've been reacting to them. It basically be a Star Wars LARPing thing that you do or do not have to dress up for. Does that sound kind of interesting? Now You'd be going up to the bartender and he'd be giving you stuff like missions and this and that and talking to you like you're a real person in the universe. Yeah, pretty snazzy.
Nate:I don't know, I'm having a mixed feelings about that because, like, on one hand, I wouldn't mind like going up if I approach someone, they react to me like in, in character, fine. But if I have some dude roll up to me like hey, uh, the squirrel eats at midnight, like what?
Shaun:yeah, you're just gonna stare at that dude and just slowly back away.
Nate:Yeah, like I don't know, I don't know man.
Shaun:The guy's like you don't understand this part of the quest. Man, play along. You're like, okay, homeless person who looks crazy, leave me alone. So the survey asked if people would be willing to spend $900 to $1,000 on such a trip and, as an Advent Swagbucks user, nate, you stared at this concept with lust in your eyes and clicked the yes, I would do this button. Apparently, you were not the only one who did that, because three months later, at the 2017 D23 Expo, disney CEO Bob Chapik announced that the Star Wars themed hotel would be a reality. They showed some more concept art and used some buzzwords like immersive adventure experience and authentic. They use authentic a lot, but not much more. Basically, just some notes to get the shareholders and fans excited, including you, nate. You're getting a little more excited because you know this is going to happen. You're going to go.
Nate:Authentic.
Shaun:Authentic. What Authentic experience Authentic?
Nate:Star Wars.
Shaun:Authentically Disney Right 2019. Disney announces that Star Wars Theme Hotel will be a reality and will be open to Disney Hollywood Studios in Florida. Turns out there's a Hollywood in Florida too. Did not know that before I did this. This announcement goes into more detail about what everything will entail. We get more cool concept art Stuff, like you'll be showing up at a space terminal and then you'll be shuttled on a personal little private shuttle to the starship the Halcyon. There will be space windows, interactive environments, branching storylines and they tell you that this is your chance to live out a Star Wars adventure of your own. You'll get an immersive adventure experience the likes of which only Disney and its deep, deep pockets can attain. Still not a lot of info. Just the fact you're going to be as part of an immersive adventure experience Kind of like more stuff gets shareholders excited.
Nate:That sounds like a Westworld thing, like oh, we're going to take you up there, adventures, you can shoot stormtroopers, etc.
Shaun:This is actually kind of what they're building up. It's literally like a Westworld kind of thing. This is kind of what they're hyping it to be at this point. Also, they even have one fancy selling point for the hotel that comes up next A a commercial and it just has Ray standing there with a lightsaber, but just like in the movies, the lightsaber extends up from the handle. Just like in the movies, just like a vvvvv. You know just something that turns on this one very obviously. It's like zoom, kind of neat, kind of cool looking.
Nate:I mean that it I don't know I? I don't know, it's a selling point that they had to come up with. Yeah, I, I have doubts, but you know what?
Shaun:yep. And also if you're thinking to yourself hey, it'd be kind of cool to buy that souvenir. Nope, not a souvenir, it's going to be literally there, for demonstration purposes only. You'll get to see it but not touch it. It's like a strip club. The Star Wars.
Nate:Star Wars.
Shaun:You can look but not touch. Do not touch Psy's snoodle. She does not like it.
Nate:Well, it's one of two things she either doesn't like it or likes it entirely too much.
Shaun:August 2021, and the first real ad comes out. It's a short teaser showing a dad dressed as a Jedi and his excited family waiting for him to lead them on adventure. You see this name, you get a tear in your eye. You can finally live your dreams of being a Jedi and also overcompensate for your own lackluster childhood by forcing childhood experiences upon your own family, Because damn it, that's what Disney commercials say you're supposed to do.
Shaun:You had a crappy childhood. Well, better make sure your kids isn't, or you failed as a parent. Dun-dun-dun. Also, that same day they dropped the prices and uh, people are not impressed by these prices, uh, being a little bit higher than most would expect, and uh, but you know, nate, you can't put a price tag on happy childhood memories. And even though it's good to it, now you can live very vicariously through your children, like all Gen X parents do, as you go on this trip.
Nate:Hell of a price hike, you know, from like $900,000 to $1,500. I mean, what's that 50% more.
Shaun:Yep 50% increase. I would say, actually, that's exactly about a 50% increase.
Shaun:Yay so it's not about remove, about just like 50. And they also do a info dump on stuff that will actually be happening exhibits and whatnot that you can do on the ship. They show off a lightsaber training room where you get an actual lightsaber and you get a practice, you know, blocking shots like Luke Skywalker does in front of that little drone thing. Yeah, they're gonna have kind of one of those little flying ball training things, but you get to participate into it. That's kind of neat, huh. And then, uh, the Disney exec actually shows off how it works and he does like the most bland, stiff and mechanical looking display of the lightsaber thing you've ever seen. He just like literally stands there and just like stiff arm, moves his lightsaber left and right very slowly and looks pretty lame. But you think to yourself I'm not going to look that lame when I do it, I'm going to show how it's done. You have visions of twirling and doing backflips in your mind while you're blocking laser blasts yeah, you definitely would think you look cooler than you do.
Nate:I know that from personal experience. I'm sure you have too well. Like playing that, playing the fucking vr game oh what is it? Uh, beat, beat, saber, saber. Oh, my god, I was like I'm playing it. I'm like man. I bet I look awesome like I'm doing this I'm doing that I'm like this is pretty impressive. And then, little did I know, my middle child, ivy, took a video of me and I watched it.
Shaun:I'm like, oh my god, looks stupid as hell yeah, my favorite with vr2 is when you're not paying attention where you are and you've slowly moved across the room and you wind up punching a wall.
Nate:That's always alarming and painful well, I I've been seeing advertisements for that little uh floor thing where if you walk you stay still. You're talking about talking about.
Shaun:Oh, that thing, yeah, that new Disney thing, that thing's kind of neat. No, I'm just talking about when you're playing VR and you just kind of naturally move over to the side because you can't see what's going on. I'm talking about.
Nate:I'm sure at some point it's going to be released.
Shaun:Oh, that pad thing, yeah the pad.
Shaun:I mean, of course, living in, but yeah, it's still. Yeah, there's only like one or two of those in the world too. It's like a damn exclusive thing. One day we get one more promo coming up from uh, disney hyping up the whole thing, and this one includes hollywood superstar sean giamone or giabone you might not know him, but he's the kid from the goldbergs and he goes around showing you more stuff you do on the ship and what's actually kind of a really lame ad.
Shaun:Um, they show you the what basically this commercial culminates to. Uh, they show that you get to do the one thing every star wars person always dreamed of doing in the entire history of the series nate force, choke someone. Nope, he gets to quote unquote punch it to light speed and he gets to walk up to a console and slam a button and you know, the stars around go all woogie woogie and the ship goes woo and he runs around all excited. They're like, yeah, you'll get to do this at the hotel and it's actually kind of lame looking, but I guess, you know, I guess some people really want to punch it to light speed. Maybe that's their dream.
Nate:But I mean, there's the same people like. They're like oh, everyone loves han solo. Don't you remember when he pushed to the light speed or punch?
Shaun:the the last beat.
Nate:Punch it Chewie yeah that's yeah.
Shaun:Commercial ends with like a two-minute-long section of a Twi'lek singer just singing awkwardly at the camera. The ad was so bad. Two weeks later it was pulled from the internet. It's hard to find now. In fact, as far as pulled ads go, there was another ad that popped up later that was showing the storylines you can go through, and one of the storylines they showed is the fact that you could get Chewbacca thrown into jail. And this apparently got a bunch of outcry over people being like you can't throw Chewbacca in jail, he's a good guy. That's going to make my children cry. So they scrapped that ad and pulled it from the internet Because, yeah, apparently people are a little oversensitive about throwing Chewie into jail Because the to jail because uh. The main part of that ad was you could actually play with the uh empire. You don't have to be part of the rebel scum, see and that's cool.
Nate:I mean it's that is cool it would probably still end up being lame, but it's still it. It's like that's actually impressive, like that was my biggest gripe about the star wars battlefront 2 that came out. All the advertisers were saying, oh, join the empire, be this person. Look at this badass person going through shooting rebels. Yeah, you know, fuck those guys. And then almost immediately she's like oh, the empire is bad, I want to join the rebellion. Like I don't want to join the rebellion, I want to be the bad guys. Can we please be the bad guys?
Shaun:I have the cool outfits.
Nate:I want to live, yes cool star destroyers I don't want to be living with the Ewoks. You bastards. Oh, we don't want people to be upset about Chewbacca. Well then, just, I don't know, get over it.
Shaun:They also have a behind-the-scenes panel where they go into more details talking about the storylines and stuff and basically it breaks down to you can either be a spy, part of what is it? The Resistance or the Empire. So those are basically three factions you can go over or you can be part of. And one thing about this panel because they show you clips of it is they talk about a lot. One thing they keep saying is they're like and they'll maybe ask you to do stuff like smuggle some luggage or smuggle some plans across. They use the term smuggle like eight or nine times in about two minutes. So you kind of assume right there it's going to be a lot of smuggling missions going on on this adventure.
Nate:Yeah, I mean, I guess it's like you know, of the people they have, you know, particularly in the video games, you know you have several different. You have, oh, here's the force user, here's the soldier, and then here's the smuggler. And you can't really get people using the force because, even if it was fake, that requires a lot of setup and you know acting. But if you do the soldier, that require, like I don't know, specking people out. Hey, here's some armor and here's a gun. You know a fake gun, but a gun, and then the smuggler can just look like anybody. So like, yeah, you're a smuggler, yeah, that's the ticket, right.
Shaun:All right, we are at March 1st 2022, and the Star Wars Hotel has finally opened up. Nate, you have bought your tickets and you're ready to go there and have the immersive adventure experience of your life. By the way these tickets, it turns out, by the time everything showed up for, everything was done and the hotel got opened, the experience became a whole lot more expensive than anybody ever thought it would, including for you. So we're going to break this down. Okay, so here's the deal.
Shaun:Jenny Nicholson went there with her and her sister, so basically, I'm just going to extrapolate what cost her across for you know, your five family members. So, for this three-day and two-night excursion for you, your wife and three children, the total is going to come to $15,000 for the whole family to have this experience. You don't see me when I'm shaking my head? Ha, yep, it is $15,000. And it should also be noted, this is for the cheapest package available that you bought your family. You could have paid as much as four times the experience, too, for all, like the VIP packages and whatnot, and you would have gotten fancy rooms and some other stuff. But not only is this super expensive. Apparently, booking this thing was a nightmare, nate, especially for you, because you know why you could only book it by phone call. On top of that, once you called in, it wasn't just ask them some questions, it was like they hammered you with questions right off the bat as soon as you called up. They're like how many guests, what date this, that, what is your plans, what's your intentions?
Nate:tell us everything about you, yeah.
Shaun:Oh no, I made that part up.
Nate:I was going to say, jason, if you get grilled yo.
Shaun:And they say, you know, they're just like well, what kind of room do you want? And you go, well, what kind of rooms do you have? They're like all of them, what do you want? So it's just a nightmare to book the thing. And again, all through phone, there is no. Yeah, and all this was also after being on hold for a good long while because there was a lot of people calling at the time. But yeah, how do you do just phone call only? I mean, I don't know, Maybe there's just a lot of extra little things to nail down.
Shaun:And this was recent. This isn't like the 80s or 90s. I mean, this was like yeah right, this was five years ago. One thing they also get you on is a $169 upsell package that they call the Memory Maker Package Add-On. So they have roaming photographers that'll be going around taking candid photos of everybody on the ship. You know, during experiences like oh here they're in the middle of a quest, we're going to take a secret picture of them and then all those photographers will upload their pictures and you'll get tagged in all the pictures you're in. And if you pay this $169, you can go onto a website, find all the pictures you're tagged in, download them in super high quality and have them printed up. Yada, yada, yada. Sounds kind of neat, but you decide to do this because you don't want to spend time taking pictures. You're just like you know what Cool. Have somebody else take pictures. I don't want to live inside of my phone. You know, because you know how that kind of happens when you become a photo taker.
Nate:Yeah, you're so obsessed with taking pictures, mm-hmm. So you're like, hey, this is kind of cool, now I don't have to worry about taking pictures. Neat, you know. Kind of opposite happened to me recently where I would try to like not take you know what these are happening, actually watching them, versus like taking pictures on the phone. Now I found I actually don't have a lot of pictures like oh, what, how many pictures you have like I've got like two maybe you know like here I am and here's what was happening.
Shaun:Now I'm just gonna pay attention because, yeah, you also take a lot of pictures and you think to yourself, I'm going to look at them later, I'll show them to other people, but you never do no, I've actually.
Nate:That's another thing I realized, like it's just not very, very rarely are you ever whipping out the 2000 images you have on your phone right, never mind whatever you might have, say my computer and go oh hey, let me uh show you what like. Oh, I went there. Look at all my family pictures of me going to this place and doing that thing, like no one, no one cares, and so, yeah, you're wasting your time yes, exactly off topic.
Shaun:Life tip don't record fireworks and stuff like that.
Nate:Nobody cares well, it's like um that one comedian, uh, jim gaffigan. He's not my favorite, but I do like some of the things it says. And uh, no, it's not, jim gaffigan is it my pocket yes, that it is him, and he was like um, I have more pictures than my dad even looked at me this yes, this is so yeah that was actually one of the things I heard that made me think, you know, maybe I don't need all these pictures because I mean, because I've looked.
Nate:I was scrolling through my pictures the other day. I'm just like I I've got well over a thousand pictures in here and I have no fucking clue. And of course there's. There's pictures of, like, the kids, and but along with pictures of like, I took a picture of what's in the grocery cart to make like, hey, jenny, is everything here that we need to get? Or like I took a screenshot of a movie I was to go see and it's still just mixed in there. Yeah, I just never get never deleted it. So, yeah, it's just yeah. So I paid for the product, so I. So basically, what happened was I paid for the privilege of someone to take pictures of me and then give it to me later? Correct this is correct.
Shaun:Okay, so everything's booked and all of a sudden you get your email that encloses a schedule in it and you realize everything here is going to be very strictly regimented because you know there's going to be events and shows going on and this and that and quests to do, so they have everything planned out for you. The schedule is pretty much like this Check-in is at 1 pm on day one and out at 10 am on the third day. Your schedule is going to show you events that happen around and uh guide you around the hotel from the moment you wake up and tell, the moment you go to bed and uh, once you go, once, uh, there's a bedtime, quote-unquote. Once that happens, like all the actors go to bed and it's just becomes a standard hotel. You can wander around if you want, you know oh, so that's, that's bedtime.
Nate:Yeah, okay, yeah, it's quote-unquote bedtime.
Shaun:You don't have to go to bed. It's not like they lock you in your room and shut off the lights and like good night yeah, I was wondering about that.
Nate:Like no, you must go to bed. This you paid for a full experience. A part of this experience is get your ass to bed yeah, yep, but meals are regimented.
Shaun:Meals are at such and such hours. Story events are at these exact times. Be there, be square. Uh. On the second day you get shuttled to the hollywood studios star wars attraction for seven hours in the middle of the day to do some adventuring there. And uh, the cool thing too is they advertise you getting taken there from the hotel, or sorry, from your ship, to the park in a space pod complete with droid pilot. That sounds kind of neat. You know your own little shuttle going there.
Nate:And you also get a free. Are you on top of a bus?
Shaun:You'll find out in a minute. You also get a free fast pass to the Millennium Falcon ride and the Rise of the Resistance and you also get the promise of more immersive adventure experiences as you do quests around that park for those seven hours. So you look over the schedule and you realize you know, since it's all strictly regimented, you can kind of break down how many hours you're going to be there and you can break it down into how much money you're spending per minute there. So Jenny Nicholson actually did this math. So naturally we're going to deduct some showering time and sleeping time and the such. But here's how the hours break down.
Shaun:Day one from 1 pm to 8.45 pm, you're going to be doing 7 hours, 45 minutes of fun time. Day two 7 am to 11 pm 16 hours of fun time. That's a long day 7 am to 11 pm. Day three 8.30 to 10 am 1 hour 30 minutes. That gives you 25 hours, 15 minutes of activity time and at $3,033.44 per person divided by 25.25 hours and you get $120 an hour or $2 a minute per person. So for your family of five you'll be paying $10 per minute while you're at this hotel. This entire immersive adventure experience will be $10 per minute. Even if you're just staying there waiting in line $10 per minute while you're at this hotel, this entire immersive adventure experience will be $10 per minute If you're just, you know, even if you're just staying there waiting in line $10 per minute. I know it sounds expensive, but, as Disney and its army of influence will tell you, a Broadway play isn't cheap, luxury resorts aren't cheap, and this is like both of these smushed together, and you're the star of it, nathan, not them.
Nate:You star of it, nathan, not them you now tell me ten dollars a minute sounds pretty cheap at that point, doesn't it, man, like ten dollars?
Shaun:a minute like that's that I don't know, like ten dollars per minute.
Nate:Yep, so after seven minutes you could buy yourself the new star wars outlaws game oh right, right, right, because you're ten dollars by itself, like, oh, it's ten dollars, you're, that's, that's high, that's $10. But that's high, that's low enough, like, oh, that's only $10. But also high enough to maybe go. Do I really want to get that? $600 an hour, apparently? Yeah, I mean once you start actually, once you kind of internalize, it's like no, it is $10 a minute.
Shaun:A minute.
Nate:yeah, I know it really hits home when you're like per minute and like fair a minute, as long as you think it is, but it's not. It's still a minute, it's not that long. Yeah, it's not that long.
Shaun:Especially if you know. It's like you're sitting at dinner waiting for your dinner to show up and you're like, wow, this is costing me $10 per minute. I'm sitting here for me and my family. So now, uh, with a dramatic music sting, it zooms in on one email that's been addressed to you and from the Disney hotel Cause, apparently, uh, you never got this email or you never saw it.
Shaun:But there was another option that uh email that showed up that gave you even more upgrade options stuff like the $30 per person upgrade at the captain's table for dinner. And uh, another Stuff like the $30 per person upgrade at the captain's table for dinner. And another thing that would upgrade to your own personal photographer that would wander around with you for a half hour for $400. But you never got this email, so you never had a chance to upgrade to those things. Why did I not get this email? Actually, we never find out actually. Oh, yeah, that's one of the great mysteries of this episode. For Jenny Nicholson. Yeah, she's just like that email never showed up. I don't know why. But yeah, private photographer for 30 minutes for 400 bucks, that's kind of expensive too. That's actually a lot.
Shaun:But yeah, I mean, professional photographers are expensive, but for 400 bucks, I feel like you'd get one for an afternoon or something.
Nate:Not 30 minutes. If you're paying $ for professional photographer like your wedding.
Shaun:400 is reason. Yes, you know, but if you're 30 minutes, uh, where they're being hustled to take pictures of you and yeah and they're.
Nate:They're not getting to know you, they're just like okay, I'm here, click, click, click, click. All right, cool bye, because they're 30 minutes are perfect.
Shaun:Your professional photographer shows up for the 30 minutes and you're in the can the entire time.
Nate:How professional. I highly doubt they're going out there and interviewing people and looking at resumes.
Shaun:These aren't the photographers from Vogue, I'm guessing?
Nate:Yeah, my guess is it's some college kid who needs some money and they're like here's how you use a camera, there you're a professional. They go out there, take a picture You're getting paid for.
Shaun:Go out there, you're getting paid for this so you're technically professional. Yeah, technically, if you get paid for anything, you're a professional, even if it's once and you do a bad job. Professional doesn't mean good, it just means you make money off of it. So the time has come, nate, it's time to go to the hotel, to your star wars immersive experience. You grab your wife and three kids and you boogie off to the the ultimate immersive adventure experience at the star Wars galactic cruiser. Uh, there was a bit where they had like, uh, influencers like trying to hype up the thing for people but they couldn't just say the star Wars cruise of the star Wars hotel but like, contractually they're obligated to say the ultimate immersive adventure experience at the star Wars galactic cruiser. And you know how awkward that sounds when people try to say that casual conversation at the Star Wars Galactic Cruiser, and you know how awkward that sounds when people try to say that in casual conversation, like they were doing yeah, every time.
Nate:Like you can't say just the Star Wars Hotel, you have to say all that.
Shaun:Yep, every time they did they actually did kind of like a little jump cut of all the influencers trying to make it sound natural. So you think about all the wondrous things that await you ahead, all the splendid memories to come, and finally you arrive at the starport where you shall wait in luxury until a shuttle ship whisks you away to your destination, the grand ship Halcyon. In case you're wondering why they picked the Halcyon as the ship that they're going to do, because you know it's not a hotel, you're on a spaceship. But anyways, they picked the Halcyon because it was in all three of the trilogy time frames. So if they wanted to like retool the ship to be in different eras, they could pretty easily. They wanted to be during the prequels or the standard era or the later ones.
Shaun:So hmm, Also, it kind of makes it like a center point for stories, I guess.
Nate:Fair.
Shaun:Yeah. So you arrive at your luxury starport that they promised you, where you get to wait in neat sci-fi aesthetics oh wait, did I say a luxury starport? No, actually, when you get there, it turns out the waiting area is a concrete parking lot in the back areas of the Disney lots, and you are standing there in the concrete area in the scorching Florida heat as the sun beats down on you and your family. You are also surrounded by tons of other people who were expecting to be in a nice air-conditioned starport, but nope, just a lot of people looking really hot and pissy, with impatient, bored kids running around, and Just a lot of people looking really hot and pissy with impatient, bored kids running around and you look at the schedules you were given.
Nate:Yeah, it's hot and muggy and everybody looks pissed. I bet you more than once a minute you hear someone going I paid a ton of money, Yep, I mean you're in line for $10 a minute at this point. Yeah, like y'all need to do something.
Shaun:You look at your schedule you were given. It reads as follows 1 o'clock arrive at terminal. 1.15 to 1.30,. Launch pad to Star Cruiser 1.45 to 2.15, ship orientation 3 to 3.30, light refreshments 3.30 to 4, sabacc lessons. So you see how scheduled this is for you. Now. 4 to 4.30, and it says muster, which in this context means meetings, I guess. So like probably a story thing 4.30 to 5, captain's reception 5.30 to 7, dinner featuring live music 7.15 to 7.30, outer rim regala 7.30 to 8, unexpected story moment 8 to 8.45, bridge training 8.30 to 8.45, special atrium entertainment 145 Special Atrium Entertainment. And some of these do have little gaps in between where you can give you time to get from point A to point B so you can go see the ship and experience some certain things. And naturally you don't have to do all these things on this list. You could hang out and just chill if you want, but you're paying $10 a minute. Thank you, you actually pretty much stole the next line, right?
Shaun:out of my mouth, oh sorry. No, that's good because you're on the same page as me. So about 40 minutes you're in line waiting to get inside the starport, listening to kids scream and adults bitch. Somewhere along the way, the Disney overlords see you in feigned pity and they send down space, dasani, to cool you down. As you sip your George Lucas-flavored Dasani, you look at your family and see how they're handling the combination of heat and boredom. A blank, neutral expression covers the faces and they stare silently at nothing.
Nate:I just picture your family just being like goddammit. Oh yeah, they'd be so annoyed and I guarantee you, more than once they'd be like under our breath Dollars.
Shaun:We could be home in an air-conditioned house right now. Oh my god, finally you make it inside to see why it takes so long to get into your spaceport. So, basically, this spaceport to get into your space pod to go to the ship. The space pod is just an elevator and you're all just standing in basically a waiting area with like two elevators in front of you. So you stay in line for 40 minutes to get funneled into this tiny little lobby where you just hop on an elevator and it takes you up to the Halcyon Neat.
Shaun:So, yeah, that's your space pod. It's an elevator and also the space pod only goes to the second floor. So, oh, no, sorry, I should have looked further down. It's only one elevator and that's why it's a long line. Thankfully you're towards the front of the line because you got there kind of early, but there is a line, as long as you can see behind you, of people on the elevator. You can intro video. That's basically there to to explain to you that there's a real emergency alarm and a story, emergency alarm and the difference between between the two of them. And apparently this is a good thing because, uh, other themed LARPing parks don't necessarily do that, because they'll have, like you know, a storyline alarm and then a hey, shit's really going down.
Shaun:Alarm and if they don't discern between the two of them, they sound close enough, like that you know they'll put off the story alarm that people will be running around, be like oh my god, we're gonna die so they explain to you that there is a real emergency sound and a fake emergency sound, and they also, uh mention something about if there is a real emergency, about, uh, not trying to escape the fire, getting in a closet and something or another. But don't resist, and they just jam you on an elevator and up you go to the second floor. So now you're on the second floor of the Starship Halcyon. Don't resist, you'll see in a minute what they're talking about.
Shaun:Okay, as you get off the elevator, you're greeted by staff and they hand you these little bracelets called M-bands, and these are little RFID bracelets that ID you as a guest. They also work as your room key and you can attach a credit card to them to make buying stuff easier. Because if there's one thing Disney wants you to be able to do, it's buy stuff easily, and I guess they had these at Disney Parks too. So nothing too fancy here.
Nate:Yeah, they definitely had that.
Shaun:Somebody escorts you to your room and gives you some fun facts about the ship and Star Wars history in general, and you know, one example is they show a picture of the little critter Yoda-sized guy who designed the ship and they're like, hey, he's about the size of Baby Yoda and there's one of the little doors you use to get around. There'll be like a little foot tall door and whatnot in the corner. Wait, what? Huh, who? Oh, they just give you fun facts about the ship, like apparently the guy who designed the ship was a like little Muppet-looking alien guy and they'll give you like a little backstory on him and be like, oh, look, here's like the tiny little doors he installed in the ship so he can get around easier. And they'll just point at like a little door painted on the wall.
Nate:I thought you were. I thought for some reason my brain translated You're talking about like Salicious Crumb or his, like his people.
Shaun:I'm like what that's just a standard small little guy I said about baby yoda sized, but okay, well, that then that seems small, that's small, even I'm not this.
Nate:So I don't know, I don't. I mean, they're making their own shit up, why not?
Shaun:yeah, I could just picture you be on this tour and be like wait, wait, stop. Who built this ship? No, no, no, no is really like sharing this poor old worker on delicious crumb.
Nate:There's a funny little um robot chicken sketch where these mice are like walking through this corridor and this, uh, the wall slams shut and like kills one of them, like no, and they, they gather a bunch of their friends and they're like, with this door, like this thing has been a bit a plague upon us, we're gonna stop this. And it starts opening up and they're working so hard to keep the door from closing all the way, like to kill, kill them all and it cuts to. It's the door at the end of Star Wars.
Nate:No, I lost it Rogue One, where Darth Vader's going to slaughter all the people. They're trying to escape with the plans and the mice are keeping the door from opening all the way up.
Shaun:I can't say I've seen that one.
Nate:Yeah, it's pretty, I mean it's humorous. I wouldn't say I've seen that one. Yeah, it's pretty, I mean it's humorous.
Shaun:I wouldn't go so far To say it's hilarious, but it's pretty, you know it's pretty. I got a sensible chuckle Out of that skit.
Nate:Yes, that's exactly what it was.
Shaun:It was a very sensible chuckle. You chuckle and go. Oh, very good, yes, very good.
Nate:I applaud your creativity. Now moving on.
Shaun:Ha. So they take you on a tour of the ship, and the first room you enter is the main room known as the atrium, and here's where a lot of the story beats take place. There's a balcony around the top of the room for the actors to do their thing, so you know you can see them and hear them better. You can't get up there, but you know they can. There's some cool glass tubes in there that have like actual holograms inside of them playing in-universe ads, like ads for the lounge and the singing act in the restaurant. Kind of neat little atmospheric stuff like that.
Shaun:As you look around, though, you are amazed by the amount of perfectly shin-height tables and couches and such things. As you're thinking about this, you see some stranger's kid bang their shin into the tables and yelps in pain. Ha, dumb kid, you think, and then you immediately get karma as you trip over on those short couches. Those short couches but no, seriously, outside this little blurb I did all the couches are literally like two or three feet tall, with like little shin height tables that people were running into constantly, because you know you're not really looking down that often A lot of people getting tripped.
Nate:Yeah, I can see that I mean, yeah, I definitely. I've got some scars on my shin.
Shaun:Yeah, Another thing they got in there is a scale model of the ship Nice and high quality, Pretty cool. There's a little snack bar in the area too, where you get bites between meals like cereal, granola bars, goldfish and the such Snacks for kids. Cake pops are there too.
Nate:Scale model. You can actually go in and do things, or it's like just oh no, this thing's like a foot long kind of thing. Yeah, that's the scale part.
Shaun:OK, yeah, keep in mind you're on the actual ship itself, so you're just looking at a tinier version of the giant ship that you're on now, which is actually just a hotel.
Nate:Yeah, I feel it though. Yeah, it's a scale model, it was in the name.
Shaun:Yeah, that would be awesome. Like here's a hotel ship Now here's the west wing of it. That's the ship, or a model of the ship that you're in.
Nate:What is this? A ship for ants.
Shaun:Yeah, as you're being led around this room, though taking as much as you can, you kind of realize that this is basically just a big old windowless hotel and instead of windows they just put big old flat screen monitors on the walls and those are basically just showing space scenes stars going by, with the occasional ship floating by and again they're kind of all synced with each other. So that's kind of neat, so like you can watch one asteroid pass through a window and go through the other one. But you also kind of realize that it's all on a loop too. After you watch it for like 30 seconds Like oh, there goes that same ship again going around the whole thing, which it's kind of cool.
Shaun:But it's also disappointing because if you look at the concept art, all the stuff they show is like these giant windows, like the size of walls and everything showing you these giant, huge, open vastness of space, you know, with planets off in the distance you can look down on. But nope, this is just a bunch of like 60 inch tvs like on the top end of the uh hotel room, which probably one of the things they did that for, so people weren't like banging on the tvs all, the entire time and damaging them. I don't know. Yeah people.
Nate:Yeah, people are dicks.
Shaun:Yeah, they really are. That's the way it is.
Nate:People are dicks.
Shaun:if they're going to have a, if they have some way to break something, especially if it's not going to fall back on them, they're going to do it Kind of a bummer too, because if you want to take in the space atmosphere, you kind of just have to crane your neck up and is pretty sure doing that pretty quick. And every once in a while over the intercom you'll hear going warp speed, followed by the warp speed sound effect being played over all the speakers and then the stars on the windows do that warp speed effect. You know where they go? Whoop, and that's actually. Yeah, that's literally. It just says going to warp speed, plays a noise, shows the sight gag effect thing and there's like no haptic feedback, no like vibrations on the floor or nothing you know. And honestly it feels like it'd be really easy for them to like throw in a couple subwoofers under the floor or something to, you know, give a little bit of vibration.
Nate:You know help it make it feel like the ship was doing something.
Shaun:But yeah, it's just like going to a warp seat and the stars just go whoop.
Nate:Yeah, sell it. You know you can't just be like oh no, it's this. I mean. At that point you might as well be like children in a playground. No see, I got you.
Shaun:Honestly, that's kind of what it's like you might as well just be the kid on the jungle gym just screaming warp speed. Yeah, one thing you also notice too is how nice and luxurious this ship being grim and gritty. And then all of a sudden it clicks in your head Most of the grim and gritty stuff in Star Wars is on the good guy's side. You're in a nice, high-end ship. You might actually be one of the bad guys. That's actually a good point that you brought up in this.
Nate:It's is very true. Even in the most recent oh is it, uh and or I mean the same thing where it's just like that was the thing, the bad guys were all very clean yep, yeah, everything was clean and sterile and quote-unquote evil, I guess I don't know.
Shaun:But yeah, everything else, all the you know good guys are poor and dirty and you know, as you think about this, you think to yourself are we the baddies? Sure hope. You think to yourself are we the baddies?
Nate:Sure hope so you answer to yourself that's what I signed up for. I better hope so. Yeah, right.
Shaun:As you pass through the atrium you can see the bridge. It's actually inaccessible until the story unlocks it for you, but it sure looks cool in there Big windows and lots of buttons to push and monitors and stuff and you're really excited to see what goes on in there. Pretty soon On your tour you get passed by the gift shop. Naturally there's a gift shop there. Nate, it's got in-world clothes shop where you can buy if you want to cosplay on the fly. Quality varies, but a lot of stuff sold out real fast. So if you didn't get in there right off the bat, you didn't get anything really. And also one really weird thing they don't sell plushies at this gift shit out of luck.
Nate:I mean to be fair. My youngest has too many plushies that it's like.
Shaun:This is true.
Nate:They're probably doing a favor for the parents, but, that being said, they definitely would want a plushie. We would probably still get them one if they want one, but yeah, the fact that they don't even have it as an option, that's pretty shitty.
Shaun:You do find yourself a badass $200 remote-controlled droid you decide to buy as a souvenir and, because you don't want to hold onto it for the entire trip, you take it to the Disney shipping area and have it shipped safely to your house through the Disney packing experience or the Disney shipping experience. I guess you can do that. If you buy souvenirs at Disney, you can have them shipped to your house so you don't have to like lug them around everywhere. That's kind of neat, really nice replica of the lightsabers for sale. You think to yourself that'd be really cool to buy it and carry it around the ship as part of my cosplaying, if I decide to do it. But one of the clerks overhears you and informs you that if you buy the lightsaber, you're only allowed to take it out of the package for one photo shoot and then you gotta take it back to your room and leave it there. They're not allowing people to carry around those particular lightsabers. Why what? I don't know. She never got an answer either.
Nate:So I mean, is it supposed to be like?
Shaun:well, we don't want bunch of jedis running around, but still I mean maybe we can just assume that they are actual, real lightsabers and they don't want people getting their arms cut off. Yeah, we'll go with that. They're real lightsabers. They don't want people, like, cutting up the whole hotel, like but then it goes to like okay, then what's the?
Nate:we're all we, okay, we all know this is not real. Like let's go ahead and establish that this is not real. So I think we all get behind the idea of hey, um, maybe we can have lightsabers, because jedis aren't real and well, think of it this way.
Shaun:Maybe they're saving you, uh, time and money. Because how many minutes would it take for you to pose and take pictures of that lightsaber? That'd be like 40 minutes, $40 worth Overall. Yeah, it took you four minutes to take those pictures. That's $40. Because, remember, those are all $10 a minute. At the other end of the atrium is the lounge. It's small, a few tables in there. It does have some cool displays like creatures and floating tubes and the such and some nice effects going on. You know lighting effects and this and that and it's probably the coolest looking room on the ship aesthetics wise. And that's also where the public restroom is, in case you need to do your space coke. Head downstairs and you come across the climate simulator, which is actually an open air garden for people who get claustrophobic being in a windowless hotel all day. It's got fresh air plants and plaques and displays and you know it's got like quote-unquote in-un universe plants with little plaques telling stories and stuff and is it legit outside?
Shaun:or is it like, yeah, it's like an open area, courtyard kind of thing, because they realize that, you know, some people do need to see the sun every once in a while. So, yeah, you go in there and it is actually. You look up and it's the sky. It might be covered up with glass, though, in case it rains and stuff so. But also in the middle of this room is a display with piles of rocks on top of a giant rock. Looks to be something story oriented and do you think to yourself and you'd be right, you never actually get to see it for yourself. But I guess there was like a use the force activity if you did the right storylines in there. And they have people just like stand there and concentrate, and then somebody would hit a button and a little magnet would move the rocks around to get the kids to be all excited, be like, oh ooh, look, I used the Force.
Nate:It's kind of cool If they're going to do something like that, it's better off. Like there was a pretty cool, like one of the only cool things that happened Mandalorian yeah, the Mandalorian, where they're like one of the dumber episodes, where they like follow the Doctor for some reason on Corsica and like, and that's that's the thing. Everyone lives on top layer and you know, if you go star wars, lore like that does go. The sub layers are basically like where the dregs go, the lower you go towards the planet they stole that from final fantasy 7 you know I, you know what I'll get behind that why?
Nate:not why not? But yeah, so that would be cool Like, oh look, you know, this is the tippy top of the planet below, because we're so high up.
Shaun:I mean it wouldn't make sense on a plane, I guess. But you know, our ship is just stationed right over this mountain peak.
Nate:Yeah, I guess that's true. It is on a ship.
Shaun:Never mind Disregard, although I get what you're saying. That would be like a cool little thing to do?
Nate:I mean it'd be like, oh, but yeah, you're right.
Shaun:I mean, if you're supposed to be on a ship, then that doesn't make any fucking sense you also get to pass by the brig and that lightsaber training room where you get to do you know the little training ball thing, and also down and around that area is the areas the engineering room and the cargo hold. Both of those are locked because they only open during story mode things. But you excitedly ponder what might happen in those rooms, especially the cargo hold Nate, because lots of exciting Star Wars moments take place in the cargo holds.
Nate:That should kind of do. I'll never forget that scene where yeah, the cargo hold.
Shaun:I mean the end of the original Star Wars that was in the cargo hold where what's-his-name got cut down. I mean pretty much the cargo hold is where they're always getting on and off the ships, I believe. Think of all the entrance and exit scenes done on those cargo holds, nathan, I guess I never really thought of that, I guess that reminds me of the cargo hold.
Nate:I never really, I just knew it was happening on a ship.
Shaun:Well, I mean, you're not a nautical guy, so guy, so you don't really know what these different places are.
Nate:You just know, poop deck makes you giggle. I do and it does.
Shaun:And that's going to do it for this episode. Tune in next episode when Nate and his family finally get to see their lodgings for the next two nights, as well as learning about their exciting upcoming activities. All this and more on next week's Off to Off Topic.
