The Ghost of the Galactic Starcruiser

You just can't keep a good ship down.

For as long as humans have traversed the seas, since the first ape man lashed a crude raft of logs together and ventured out into open water, morbid tales of ghostly, sea-going vessels have been recounted in hushed tones around fires and seaside pubs. Sailors - a notoriously superstitious breed of men - have long whispered stories of boats listlessly drifting about the open ocean with their crews nowhere to be found, or ethereal apparitions haunting mist-choked or storm-wracked seas. Lady Lovibond, Eliza Battle, Mary Celeste, Ourang Medan, The Flying Dutchman - names that are synonymous with mystery, intrigue, fear, and death. Stories of such vessels are myriad. Some are steeped in legend. Others occupy the liminal space between myth and reality.

There are, of course, less inexplicable, but no less disturbing or eerie stories of ghost ships that are less spectral, but rather, tangible. Take the example of the disappearances of the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror. While we’ll never know for certain the events that played on the ice of the Victoria Strait in 1845, given the circumstances of their voyage through the Arctic circle, I think we can hazard a rather safe and educated guess as to what horrible fate befell the men of the Franklin Expedition.

A wendigo got them.

Naturally.

And, sure, people theorize that they may have been poisoned by the lead used to seal their canned provisions - remember folks, if you’re about to embark on a trans-Atlantic voyage, never rely on the lowest bidder to prepare your survival rations - or fell prey to either the elements or a polar bear with the munchies, but, in our heart of hearts, I think we all know that when you name your ships after the Greek god of darkness and a synonym for horror, you are basically writing a check that will inevitably be cashed for a cruel, strange, mysterious, and likely preternatural fate. If you name your ship the fucking Terror, by the law of nominal determinism, a wendigo will seek out your ship, and, come hell or high water, it will slowly consume your crew and stalk the survivors on the ice, picking them off one by one.

Another story of a drifting ghost ship that doesn’t have anything to do with wendigos - probably - is the story of the SV Twenty-One Friends, which, I’d like to add, is a a delightful name for a ship. When I hear that name, I envision a sloop made of graham crackers, frosting, gumdrops, and other sweets, with a merry band of Care Bears at the helm and sailing upon seas of orange marmalade.

Don’t worry, the pink bear isn’t overboard, he’s just taking a pleasant swim with the sour gummy dolphins :)

Unfortunately, the reality is that the Twenty-One Friends was not, as you probably already suspect, staffed by a colorful cadre of fuzzy ursine friends of a cheerful disposition, nor did they plough through waves of candy syrup and fizzy pop. Instead, the ship was financed by a group of Quakers from Philadelphia, who refered to each other as friends. Not because they were friends, but the official name for the Quakers is The Society of Friends. No guesses as to how many fellows they had financing this boat to come up with a name with twenty one in it.

In 1872, Captain John Jeffries was given the ship by shipwright Samuel Gaskill of Mays Landing, New Jersey. While hauling lumber from Georgia back to the North-East, the Twenty-One Friends was tragically rammed off the coast of North Carolina by another ship called the John D. May… more like John D.-Saster, or John D. May-hem. Like, come on, man - the ocean’s big, how the Hell do you just happen to ram another ship on accident? Now, I’m no mariner myself, but I can only assume that the bitter and resentful crew of the John D. May were spurned because their ship was named after some lame guy and not the power of friendship, and they were deeply jealous of the Twenty-One Friends’ crew's comradery, brotherhood, and magical adventures upon the high seas. Fortunately, no men or Care Bears were killed or injured in the collision, but, much to everyone’s chagrin, especially First Mate Gumdrop Q. Twizzler, Captain Jeffries made the difficult decision to part ways the Twenty-One Friends. He packed his crew into the lifeboats and abandoned the ship to its fate at the cruel and capricious of Neptune.

While Captain Jeffries managed to get his crew back to shore without any further incident, it turns out that Mr. Gaskill was no slouch when it came to his trade; the guy must have made a bad-ass ship, because the ship's story didn't end there. That, or it was kept afloat by the power of friendship imbued upon it by the eponymous Twenty One Friends of Philadelphia. Either or.

For two years, reports came in from ships traveling the Atlantic, reporting a lonesome ship, devoid of crew, solemnly and silently floating across the seas, before, finally, the Twenty-One Friends washed ashore on an Irish beach. This must have been a big day for the locals - not only did they ‘salvage’ the cargo aboard (read: steal), as the Irish are wont to do, but the enterprising Hibernians wasted no time refitting the ship, repairing it, and commandeering it themselves as a fishing vessel. Not only did they get the booty out of the ship’s stores, but they also got a perfectly sea-worthy vessel out of the ordeal for absolutely free. That’s what I call a score. I can only imagine the lads, all of them four feet tall, red-haired, and clad in green overalls and silly hats, must have cracked open a few bottles of Guinness and performed some merry jigs down at the local tavern that night in celebration of their epic loot drop. Not the Irish ever need an excuse to get blackout drunk.

I digress.

There was also the Teignmouth Electron, which sounds like either the greatest rock opera outfit never made, a bad ass sci-fi movie, or some kind of hypothetical subatomic particle that could, like, be harvested to open up portals to alternate dimensions, but in reality was the name of a trimaran that belonged to the eccentric British businessman Donald Crowhurt. Crowhurst was an amateur sailor that competed in the 1968 Golden Globe Race. Again, the name leads me to imagine a colorful cast of whimsically and comically quirky characters compete in a madcap, screwball race to circumnavigate the globe, all the while pulling cartoonish hijinks upon one another with zany gadgets and devious ploys. Kind of like Wacky Races, but in boats, and also real. Sadly, there wasn’t much comical about Crowhurst’s disappearance 242 days into the race, though, I suppose one might say it was somewhat wacky in the strictest sense of the term. After another 200 some-odd days after his last communication, the Teignmouth Electron was found adrift outside of a shipping lane in the Pacific. On board, investigators found Crowhurst’s logbook, in which the last entry of which ended with the following lines - Now is revealed the true nature and purpose and power of the game offence… I am what I am and I see the nature of my offence… It is finished—it is finished IT IS THE MERCY.

Frankly, if I found a missing boat adrift at sea and read that in the logbook, I’d rig the thing with explosives and overnight it to Davy Jones Locker because that bitch is cursed with a capital K. That is, like, the number one thing you really don’t one want to read in a logbook on a derelict vessel. You also don’t want to find a rambling 25,000 word manifesto on the nature of space-time and time travel left behind as a final testament by the missing captain. You just know some demented shit had to have gone down.

Needless to say, it seemed clear to investigators that Crowhurst, after facing much more difficulty than he ever anticipated at sea, financial ruin upon his return home if he failed to complete the race, and a mental state slowly eroding from stress and isolation, suffered a total emotional meltdown, jumped in the ocean, and resigned himself to the briny deep for eternity.

I have other theories.

I mean, if I was on a little boat by myself for two hundred plus days, I’d probably go on and take a dip with the first fish-tailed strumpet I saw, too. You know. Just to shake things up a little bit.

But y’all ain’t ready for that conversation. So, we’ll just go with that the official narrative. For now.

Now, like I said, I would have sunk the damn thing before it could claim another life. Of course, that isn’t what anyone did, because common sense, not so common, so on and so on. The thing was repaired and sold, changing hands several times and generally being an unreliable pain in the ass that was always breaking until ultimately washing ashore on Cayman Brac, where it remains to this day - a sun-baked, skeletal corpse, decaying slowly in the Caribbean sun.

Like I said - Kursed.

The crazy thing this kind of stuff still happens. People still find boats just drifting around the ocean like toys in a bath tub. Like, all the time.

In 2011, a Japanese fishing vessel, the Ryou-Un Maru - literally Fishing Luck, in English, which, like just about every other name on this list, seems ironic in hindsight - was knocked free of its mooring in Aomori, Northern Japan, during the devastating tsunami that struck the region in 2011, and ended up drifting along like some sort of sea-bound specter in the Pacific before turning up all the way in British Columbia.

I know if I saw this hunk of rusted out junk just floating listlessly in the waters, I’d give it a wide berth. Despite salvaging attempts, the U.S. Coast Guard scuttled the vessel to prevent it from becoming a shipping hazard once it entered American waters in 2012. As it turns out, the ocean has roads, too, and much like you don’t want a stalled out car sitting in the fast line, they can’t really have abandoned ship bobbing around in the middle of a high traffic shipping route.

Or so they say. Now, I’m not claiming that the Coast Guard discovered that the ship was… less empty than it appeared, or anything. I’m not saying that it was sea-faring wendigos in canoes. I’m not saying it was man-eating mermaids. But - hear me out.

Wendigo mermaids.

It just makes sense. It would also be a sick as Hell, but, at the same time, the only thing worse than a mermaid is one that’s also some kind of demon wolf cannibal thing, and the only thing worse than a demon wolf cannibal thing is one that can get you in the open ocean where you can’t run away or post up in an abandoned hunting shack and wait until the sun comes up, so I really hope I'm wrong on this one.

But, again - y’all ain’t ready for that conversation.

Oh, and, for the record, I already have Wendigo Mermaids of the North Pacific copyrighted and trademarked, so, if you were thinking of filching that pitch to make a killer horror flick, don’t bother; I have it in the works. Well, I have to get through my backlog and finish I Was A E-Girl Werewolf and Fifty First Dates (With A Shoggoth) first, but - look, just make your own low budget exploitation creature feature Lynchian elevated horror-rom-com musical, damn it.

Wendigo mermaids aside, there’s a new ghost ship floating aimlessly on the block, and one who’s crew was categorically not devoured by raven-haired seductresses with glowing, hypnotic gazes, razor-like teeth, and the just the most adorable little wolf ears you ever did see. The most curious thing about this ghost ship is that it isn’t out drifting on the high seas. There are no minxy fish-tailed maidens lurking beneath it’s rusted, barnacle-encrusted hull, waiting to make tasty meals out of the well-meaning rescue crew and singing catchy and jealously copyright-protected musical numbers with crabs and fish and tentacled-things to lure more sailors to a dark and watery grave, and the only ghosts that wander its dark corridors are those of the broken dreams of what could have been once held by misguided, foolish Redditors and Disney stockholders. The only storm that claimed this ship was one of poor financial decisions. The tale of this ghost ship is not regaled in hushed tones in the dim, candle-lit corners of storm-battered pubs scattered along the English coastline in remote fishing villages, nor told by weathered and grizzled seafarers wearing salt-crusted, weather-beaten coats, but rather one dictated in sterile discussion threads in the shallows of Reddit’s most popular boards and spoken of by rambling YouTube videos made by goony manchildren in papier-mâché masks who make a living spreading rumors and fabricating lies leaking insider information about the inevitable demise of Woke Disney… and me.

No - this derelict hulk lies moldering beneath the Florida sun, far from the briny blue, just outside of Disney’s Hollywood Studio and Epcot. The name of this ghost ship is the Galactic Starcruiser.

In May of 2023, I wrote a piece about this ghost ship, shortly after Disney announced that it would be scuttled and put out to pasture after failing to offer any meaningful return on investment. The themed attraction, touted as an immersive Star Wars experience that would allow guests to live out their own unique, interstellar journey alongside familiar franchise faces and a slew of Storm Troopers, colorful aliens, and intergalactic denizens, would shutter after only a little more than a year of operation. What was meant to be a two-day deep dive into the Star Wars universe was more like a two-day prison sentence, where guests were corralled into windowless shoe-boxes and hurried from one end of the hotel from another to watch overwrought dinner theater while sipping on thirty dollar cocktails, eating mediocre food, and being harassed by guys in Storm Trooper get-ups, while budget Rey and dollar store Kylo Ren whacked each other with plastic lightsabers in the background. The most high-octane activity on offer, if reports were to be believed, was the once-in-a-lifetime chance to play bingo with Chewbacca, though I’m sure more than one guest’s breath was simply taken away when they saw the final, eye-watering bill for their brief dip into the world of Star Wars. Revised numbers suggest that the average two-night stay would run a visiting couple a staggering $4,809 dollars, and a family of four could expect to pay upwards of $6,000. And that’s not including food, drinks, merch, and probably some of those pesky hidden fees that hotels only drop on you after you’ve already committed to stay, like the fucking vacation tax they have the audacity to charge when you book a place in San Antonio, Texas.

Oh! And wouldn’t you know it - Orlando has a vacation tax, too! 6% of your total stay, just for the privilege of breathing that tepid, muggy, soup-thick Central Florida air. Ain't that just a kick in the head.

The more I discover about this whole thing, the more it seems like some kind of sick, cruel joke played on Star Wars fans. They kind of brought it on themselves, but still - unconscionable. Funny, but unconscionable.

For the low, low price of a two months rent, you, too, can experience what it’s like to be an overworked factory thrall in Zhengzhou who can only afford a tiny, windowless apartment in a joyless concrete building.

By the time the Galactic Starcruiser made its final voyage through the simulated stars of another galaxy, Disney was left with four hundred million dollars worth of egg running down their collective face, and nothing but a giant, windowless concrete structure on the outskirts of the park that offered little in the way of utility. I imagine that, when it was all said and done, the final price tag was far beyond the original four hundred million that was allotted for the thing. Between having to pay a small army of performers to harangue guests, perform maintenance, clean, cook, and do all those other hotel things, it’s a foregone conclusion that the entire endeavor quickly unraveled into a black hole of money, resources, and manpower. As shocked as I and many others were that it lasted but a scant year, in hindsight, I think that we should have been more surprised that it lasted even that long. For that and a multitude of other reasons that I explained in my previous article, the Galactic Starcruiser as an experience wasn't dead on arrival - it has passed on before anyone even called an ambulance.

When the doors finally closed, the lights went off, the last toilets were unclogged, and the underpaid performers took off their latex masks and washed away inches of caked on makeup, speculation abounded about the fate that would befall the remains of the Galactic Starcruiser. For a while, there was chatter that it would be converted to a more conventional, budget friendly hotel, or perhaps repurposed as a storage warehouse, while the guts of the attraction would be taken and integrated into some sort of fancy new destined-to-fail embarrassment at the nearby Galaxy’s Edge wing of Disney’s Hollywood Studios - you know, the place that now has a reputation by Disney park enthusiasts as the most reliably empty place in the entirety of Disney World, and one that’s more useful for taking a load off and getting some quiet time to relax than it is for having fun or making memories with your family. After all, when the only two real rides are chronically malfunctioning and refuse to work most days, what else is there for one to do but sit and chill with a glass of overpriced green milk? From everything I’ve seen, the most entertainment on offer at that dearth of joy that is Galaxy’s Edge is watching a coked-up Boba Fett get his freak on.

This merc’s come to claim a bounty on the dance floor, and you’re his target tonight, honey.

There’s also been rumors that Disney’s crowned heads, in all their infinite wisdom, are discussing keeping the damn thing an immersive experience, but trade the Star Wars theming for a fresh coat of Marvel Cinematic Universe paint. Because if you don’t succeed with a four hundred million dollar money sink… try, try again, I guess. Surely, if people weren’t willing to fork over a few bands to futz around with Storm Troopers and play bingo with costumed characters that looked worse than cosplayers at your local Comic-Con, they'll definitely pony up the cash to play grab-ass with Captain America at the hotel bar, or maybe engage in a riveting game of bingo… but with Thanos this time.

I’d love to see them try it. Really, I would. It would be like watching Charlie Brown try to kick the football being held by Lucy, and it would get funnier each time they screw up.

While doing research, I found an interesting article that went into detail on why the property’s prospects as a hotel, conventional or otherwise, are unlikely. I’d recommend you give it a look just to get some more insight into what exactly made the hotel so unfit to be, y’know, a hotel, but the skinny of it is that the place only hosts a scant one hundred - even - rooms, which is a pretty limited pool of rooms, none of them have windows and balconies, there’s no pool (which seemed to be a common complaint), no gym, no amenities, or anything that would really justify the price for a stay at a luxury hotel, since there’s no luxury amenities available. There weren't even vending machines at the end of the hallway, so if you were hankering for your daily fix of high fructose corn syrup sodie pop, well, that’ll be ten dollars at the bar for a 8 ounce glass of off-brand junk at the bar, please. (No free refills.)

I just did a quick Google search, and you can book a room at the Ritz Carlton in downtown Dallas for $650 a night. The Four Seasons in Seattle will only put you out around $591, and there you'd get all those things and more. The other thing about the Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton is that - wonder of wonders - you can leave the hotel at any given time, which is kinda nice. In the Galactic Starcruiser, you were basically trapped inside for two and a half days straight. Not only can I not stress how insane it must be to spend two and a half days in a windowless fucking concrete hulk, but there was also only one bar and one restaurant. If you wanted to eat, you had one option, and most reports say both were too small to accommodate the crowds during busy hours (though, to be fair, breakfast and lunch consisted of open buffets available throughout the day, dinners were held at pre-planned times and staggered to avoid overcrowding).

And those were your only options for sustenance. You wanna ring up a Big Mac from Doordash after the buffet wraps up for the night? Tough luck, bud - Doordash doesn’t deliver to the Star Wars galaxy.

Yet.

Other hotels on Disney’s property boast multiple eateries and watering holes a piece, so, even if they did open this one up again, you’d be pretty strapped for options if you want to get a midnight G&T if you stayed there.

Also, it would be disingenuous to say you would never see the sun on the Galactic Starcruiser. There was one single amenity available, apparently, and it was called the climate replicator. Because, aboard the Galactic Starcruiser, there is an area that’s designed to mimic terrestrial climates through hyper-advanced screen technology. Just any case any little starfarers get a little homesick for terra firma.

Really, this was just a dinky enclosed sunroom near the back of the place. The Imagineers really went popped off with this one. Those boys cooked.

Just like home, right? Nowhere to sit. Nothing to do. You can’t read the plaque on the rock enclosure, which I assume was built to keep those rowdy rocks from getting out and about, but it says Do Not Climb on it. What can I say? It’s just a thrill a minute on the Galactic Starcruiser! Maybe the rocks bite. I dunno.

Still, you can’t actually go outside, but rather just gaze longingly at the sun and yearn to feel it upon your face again like some sort of caged animal while you reconsider all the life choices that lead to you to pay the equivalent of a car’s down payment to sequester in a manchild daydream. I know if I ever found myself on that rig, I’d be spending a lot of time commiserating with the stones, since I imagine it was probably one of the few places you might be able to escape the tight, claustrophobic hallways, mobs of caterwauling children, and costumed performers hunting you down so they can make sure you’re properly entertained.

Other reasons stated by the article is that the former hotel is in a rather poor, unflattering, and unsightly location of the property, which butts up against a major road, the thing just generally looks like an uninviting, brutalist concrete prison from the outside, and, most notably, the fact that Disney has just left former attractions to sit and rot before.

Discovery Island on Bay Lake has been closed since 1999. The island served many different attractions, at various times being a zoo, a Treasure Island themed park, and, at one point, was being considered to host a puzzle-solving experience based on the game Myst in cooperation with the developers, Cyan Worlds, which would have been awesome. Alas, it was shuttered, and pretty much everything on the island was left where it was, and sits there to this day. The only thing the place has done over the years is serve as fodder for Creepypasta writers and stand as something as a holy grail for urban explorers.

Needless to say, Disney runs a tight ship, and their security is pretty good about catching and turning away interlopers before they ever set foot on the island. Kinda… makes you wonder what it is they’re hiding. I mean, I’m sure they’re not really hiding anything at all, and the only reason they really care to keep people out is because the place is a moldering deathtrap made of rusted metal and abandoned structures that are just one big liability waiting to happen. Or maybe there’s really some demonic spirit that cursed the island, or something. Who’s to say.

There was also the infamous Disney’s Pop Century Resort.

The Pop Century Resort was a project that began in 1997, and intended to be a hotel on Disney World’s property that would be easier on guest’s wallets than their usual offering. The hotel was designed to be divided in two parts, with each segment being themed to a certain decade of the 20th century, as you can see in the monuments within the photo above representing different eras of American popular culture. Yet, during the development and construction process, there was this little, er… well, it was just a little thing that happened, I guess you could say. It wasn’t that big of a deal, you probably never heard of it before, but back in 2001 there was this time when, y’know -

The original Xbox dropped. Yeah, man - when this beauty burst outta the gate, ain’t nobody cared about Ricky Rat and his rinky-dink park. Paying a small fortune to pose with some lousy princesses and subject yourself to the mental anguish that is It’s A Small World? Yeah, right. You suckers have fun palling around with the fish chick and Cinder-whatshername; real ones will be spending quality time with Master Chief.

Attendance plummeted. Michael Eisner wept.

Oh, yeah, and there was that whole thing where some lunatics flew planes into the Twin Towers on September 11th and irrevocably altered the course of the 21st century, igniting a cultural backslide and starting two forever-wars in the Middle East with knock-on effects that continue to this day. That kinda put a damper on things, too. Not many people were going to Disney World in the aftermath of that, because people were afraid to even get on planes for fear of them, also, being hijacked and flown into the side of a skyscraper. There was also the fear that, even if they did make it to the hallowed halls of Walt’s cartoon utopia, some jihadi would turn himself into a fireworks display in front of Cinderella’s Castle and paint Main Street with organs, viscera, and burning shreds of Mickey-branded paraphernalia.

2001 was a rough time for those in the tourism biz.

After a lengthy delay, half of the resort, representing the Classic Years between 1950 and 1990, was completed in 2003. The other half, however - dubbed the Legendary Years - sat on the other side of the lake, in full view. Waiting. Watching. There was serious debate on whether or not the structure would ever be completed, or if Disney would just eat the loss and tear it down. There were also plenty of rumors that people had died working on the project, employees had been found swinging from the rafters, that it was haunted, cursed, so on and so forth. Again - Creepypasta authors had a field day with this one. There’s still people who think something malicious was going on, but we have it on good authority that there were no wendigos stalking the narrow corridors of the empty husk of a hotel. That’d just be silly. Everyone knows wendigos don’t venture that far south. The heat and humidity wreaks havoc on their delicate fur.

Ultimately, in 2012, the building would be repurposed and finished, altered into the grotesque self-parody that is Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, which is one mouthful of a name. The resort is Disney’s cheapest on their property, with Google-chan telling me that the average night runs about $250. According to Disney park fanatics, this hotel has a reputation for being tacky, gaudy, and slathered in Disney IP iconography, which is kind of what everyone complains about when it comes to Disney World in general these days. I’ve read that, to some, it epitomizes the Disney park’s current lack of creativity, originality, and over-reliance on pre-established IP’s. All style, very little substance.

But hey - can’t argue with that price! Especially when the more tasteful, classic, and esteemed Grand Floridian and Villas will run you over a thousand bucks a night, by contrast. If you don’t feel like coughing up a grand to stay in a real hotel, you can always stay here and sleep in a Finding Nemo-themed room where a plexiglass Dorie statue bolted to the wall will watch you sleep. But be warned! Not only do the phantoms and specters of all the poor, underpaid Latino laborers that gave their lives to build the place still wander the halls to this very day, but Perfidious Pongo and Perdita keep a a watchful eye on the happenings within the resort grounds.

They say that rowdy and boorish guests that disrespect the property have been found mauled to death in their rooms, with pieces of them scattered in 101 different locations across the resort.

The two dalmatians are said to never blink nor sleep. They have no blind spots, and they are known to be vengeful wardens with little patience for foolishness. I hear that there’s biweekly midnight child sacrifices to Ursula, too. She prefers redheads.

I just can’t imagine looking out my window and seeing this first thing in the morning. Or at night, for that matter.

The whole place feels mocking in a way I just can’t articulate. If you want a laugh, I recommend going through the guest reviews on Google. Most of them are glowing, but there’s a handful that stick out.

Love the mental image of trying to sleep beneath your 101 Dalmatian sheets in a Lightning McQueen-shaped bed and listening to the guy in the next room over violently grunting and the horrifying squirting noises that follow.

So, yeah, Disney has a track record of just not doing anything with various attractions, buildings, and half-finished hotels, so there’s a strong possibility that a whole lot of nothing will be happening with the Galactic Starcruiser for a long time to come.

Oh, Disney also used it as a tax write-off. They only got $300 million off their yearly bill, which is probably more than the entire country of Tuvalu generates in an entire year, but hey - that’s $300 mil that those undeserving bastards at the tax bureau didn’t get their grubby little mitts on, and $300 million bucks that the government doesn't have to actively make your life worse. It's all about the little victories.

That all being said, I think it’s safe to say that the Galactic Starcruiser - not worth the ticket to ride, yeah? I didn’t need to drop a few thousand bucks to verify it, but, in spite of that, as I did research, I discovered that there was a not insignificant amount of people who weren’t just sad to hear their favorite manchild playground was closing - no. They were devastated.

While reading this article by clickorlando.com for research purposes, I came across a curious passage. In this article, former Disney Imagineer Ryan Harmon offers his own critique on what could have and probably should have been done to liven up the experience. Mr. Harmon, it seems, may be a bit biased due to his former corporate loyalties, but this bit caught my eye. Forgive me for screencapping, but clickorlando.com appears to be one of those sites that doesn’t allow you to copy text, because fuck me, I guess.

This little tidbit took me off guard. Swimmer? Floater? What was Mr. Harmon talking about? Was this some sort of inside joke among Disneyheads that I was unaware of? Jargon among the Cult of Disney Adults? Did someone drop a floater in one of the other resort pools?

Another former Imagineer, Joe Lanzisero, goes on to clarify. Floaters is internal Disney parlance for guests who may be familiar with certain IPs, and may even like them, but don’t really engage with them all that often. You know - normal people. Why they equate them with a slang term for - and please forgive me for being crude - a particularly bouyant turd is probably out of spite. Swimmers, conversely, is a much more flattering term for people who do consider themselves fans of an IP, and will lay down a little cheddar for some overpriced swag in the souvenir shop with Baby Yoda or Spider-man slapped on it. Now, swimmers are a big deal, but they’re not the end of the spectrum. Oh, no - there’s a bigger fish in the Disney aquarium, you see. These are the Divers. These are the people that I assume buy several sets of Mickey Mouse Ear Hats with their name monogrammed on it, or walk around the park with a high-end, realistic Baby Yoda doll strapped to a papoose, and a gaudy sleeve-tat with their favorite Disney characters inked into their skin. This is the category most Disney Adults fall under, I’d have to guess.

Lanzisero goes on to postulate that the Galactic Starcruiser, if not the entirety of Galaxy’s Edge, made the mistake of being geared towards Divers rather than Swimmers and Floaters. When Galaxy’s Edge first limped out of the gate to middling fanfare, the press surrounding the event was largely incoherent babble about deep Star Wars lore, detailing all the cool hidden story bits woven into the fabric of the park and how they tied into the planet that Galaxy's Edge was supposed to be where it fit into the larger Star Wars mythos. It was all things that only the most dedicated Divers who plumbed the deepest depths of Star Wars lore would really care about.

Did you know, if you come at approximately 7:26 PM on the third Wednesday of every month and if the moon is waxing and Jupiter is in ascendancy, a dwarf dressed like Glup Shitto - a character that only appeared on Page 10 in Issue #17 of Star Wars: Chronicles of Poo-Poo and Pee-Pee - will make a surprise appearance and sign your forehead? Bro, you have to check the fourth stall in the westernmost bathroom in the park - if you look at the toilet from a 73 degree angle and tilt your head just right and squint a little, they totally encoded a secret message in Jawanese script that will reveal the backstory of Rebel Extra #97 who got shot and killed within two seconds of being on screen in The Force Awakens!

Epic, right?

In fact, Disney’s most expensive animatronic went into Galaxy’s Edge, and is located in the queue for the Smuggler’s Run ride which is both constantly down for maintenance and - get this - super underwhelming. It cost ten million dollars to bring this fan favorite to life, and doubtlessly costs the average GDP of Kansas to keep functioning and properly maintained. Who is this character, you ask? Chewbacca? Darth Vader, Boba Fett, even? Could it be Baby Yoda?

Why, it’s none other than… Hondo Ohnaka! Yeah! You know! Hondo? Ohnaka? Yeah… you love that guy, right? We all love us some Hondo, that… that lovable rapscallion. That veritable culture touchstone. He's just unmistakable. He is, as the kids say, truly #iconic. Who among us does not need a little Hondo Ohnaka in our lives?

Sure, he was a minor character in that butt-ugly Clone Wars series that only showed up for a couple episodes and he looks like a shriveled up, desiccated kangaroo scrotum, but, hey - you ‘memba him, right? Right? And, you know what, even if you don’t, I know you remember the Disney Adult code, right?

Ahem.

Returning back to normality for a moment, while there were Divers that doubtlessly spilled soy and pogged so hard they to have plastic surgery to get their mouth out of an O shape when they saw the Hondo Ohnaka animatronic jerking around on stage like it had an advanced case of Parkinson's, I can't imagine most Swimmers had consoomed enough of Dave Feloni's Clone Wars trash to be able to pick out the character from a line up of other aliens that appear in the background of various Star Wars scenes, and if the Swimmers didn't care, the Floaters certainly weren't going to be drawn in to see Disney's latest and greatest animatronic if it was some minor character from a show 99% of them didn't watch. Nor were they lining up to meet the ostensible protagonist of the paper-thin story connecting the disparate bits of Galaxy's Edge - a character conjured up solely to serve as a walking exposition dump of extraneous lore and hobnob with park-goers to make sure they were properly ‘immersed’¹, because the characters from Star Wars that people actually like were unavailable.

They couldn't use Luke Skywalker as a walk-around character, or Darth Vader, or Han Solo, or anything like that. And, no - it’s not because Mark Hamill has better things to do than put on his jedi robes and shuffle around Disney World, and Harrison Ford has made it explicitly clear that he’d rather eat a bullet than continue to put on the Solo vest. Disney has walk-around staff for characters from other live action properties. For instance, Princess Giselle, played by Amy Adams in the movie Enchanted, shows up in the parks to bolster Disney’s murderer’s row of fantasy princesses. She’s actually not considered a canonical Disney Princess in the line, despite being an actual fucking Princess, which doesn’t make sense to me when Mulan is despite not being royalty in any way, but, whatever. The point is, of course they don’t pay Amy Adams a mint to put on enough layers of crinoline to smother a horse every time they decide to take the character out for a spin; no, they just send out one of their small army of college interns to do it, instead. It’s actually not a bad gig. Did you know the top salary for Disney park cast members is $68,000 a year? I mean, the effort-to-salary ratio seems pretty decent to me. I’d do it, but for as progressive as Disney is these days, I don’t think they’re ready for a Princess like me. A shame, really.

No, no, no - they can’t have any of those legacy Star Wars character walking around Galaxy’s Edge because Han Solo got shanked by his son. Luke Skywalker, er… joined the Force, or whatever. Darth Vader croaked. They’re dead! Gone! Pining for fjords! We can’t having dead characters from the old movies would break the lore! Galaxy's Edge takes place AFTER the original movies and DURING the events of Episodes 7 and 8! What are you, some kind of imbecile? We stick the LORE here, god damn it! It absolutely must be canon compliant to keep the lore speds happy. It’s the same reason you’ll never see Obi-Wan of any age, pre-BBQ Anakin, General Greivous, Mace Windu, or any other Clone Wars-era character, either.

But don’t you burn your mouse ears in disappointment yet, my friends. Forget the old Star Wars crap - that stuff’s for old fogies, anyways. No; this is a new era of Star Wars. You can pose for a picture with the one, the only, the death-defying and vaunted hero of Galaxy’s Edge… Vi Moradi.

Can I get a HELL YEAH, people?

Okay, look - the chick doing this is putting in an honest day’s work for honest day’s pay, so, I have this self-imposed rule about casting ad hominems against people who show up in my articles that are just doing a job and didn’t set out to make themselves an object of ridicule… but I will say that the wig the actress is wearing? Atrocious. I've seen amateur cosplayers do better than that, which is kind of sad when you consider that a fifteen year old living with their parents can out perform resource-rich and money-flush Disney on a shoe-string budget and access to a Joann or Michael’s craft store. It’s worth noting that Vi Moradi looks different almost every time you see her in the parks, too. Despite being in a galaxy far, far away, the planet of Batuu is still beholden to American labor laws, and Vi Moradi is legally entitled to two days off a week and a fifteen minute break for every four hours that she works, so there’s a couple of them on the park’s payroll. Exciting, right? You’ll never see the same Moradi twice.

To return to Lanzisero's comment about Divers, he correctly surmises that, there were a lot of people who enjoyed the Galactic Starcruiser… but not enough to keep the lights on and the engines going. The Galactic Starcruiser, Galaxy’s Edge - these aren’t for Floaters and Swimmers. It’s for Divers. And, of course, the further you go down the spectrum of Fans, the smaller and smaller the population becomes as you approach the extremes. There simply aren’t enough Divers to keep the whole endeavor solvent, and the Floaters and Swimmers just don’t care enough to engage with material that’s really only Mega-Fan friendly. If it ain’t got Baby Yoda on it, well, they just ain’t bitin’. And there was naught Baby Yoda to be seen on the Galactic Starcruiser. Aside from those hauled in by fans, because every picture I’ve seen of the thing features at least one thirty plus year old white woman with a Baby Yoda doll.

However, I don't think that Diver is the final level of fan.

Oh, no. There’s another tier still. If we have floaters… well, Floating on the surface of Disney’s waters, Swimmers frolicking about in the mesopelagic zone, and Divers plummeting all the way down into the bathypelagic levels… well, much like horrible, twisted, ugly mockeries of fish still scrape out in existence in the frigid darkness of the abyss, so too are there ghastly abominations that lurk in the lightless deep of Disney’s abyss; things that were once men, but no more.

These creatures, I call the ones who know not light.

These are the lost ones. Mysterious and strange, these are the ones that have adapted to life in the abyss, and have been warped by evolutionary forces and the crushing pressure of the dark depths to become wicked, hideous things that strike fear into the hearts of those that are familiar with the light of the sun. You look at that scary-ass fish and you tell me that thing was made with even a shred of goodness in its being, and not a beast crafted from sheer malice and hatred, fueled by voracious, sucking hunger. Look me in the eye and tell me that thing is not something dreamed up and sketched out by Satan himself. When God recalls all his creations home to sing with him, will this wretched thing be a part of the choir?

Well, probably, but I really hope he doesn’t have me standing next to it.

The same questions could be asked of these poor, poor creatures. And, much like the nightmarish things that dwell within the deepest bowels and darkest trenches of the ocean, these people, I assume, would also explode into a gory mess from violent and rapid depressurization if removed from the natural environment they’ve adapted to. And their environment was the Galactic Starcruiser.

Believe it or not, there weren’t just people who enjoyed the Galactic Starcruiser. For as much trash as I’ve talked about the attraction, I’ll admit - I can believe that there were people who didn’t hate their time within the cramped hallways and windowless pods. I don’t get it, but different strokes for different folks and all that. If you look up reviews from people who went on Reddit, you’ll find most responses are raving. Because, I mean, of course they would be - it’s Reddit. I would be surprised if I saw anything less. But, my point is, it was not a universally loathed attraction. It had its fans.

There are even people who leave ribbons, trinkets, and, er - other heartfelt tributes on the now-shuttered gate that was once the route to the Galactic Starcruiser in Galaxy’s Edge in memorium of the dearly departed theme park attraction. There’s no shortage of Redditors eulogizing the loss, and even more lamenting the fact that they never got to go at all. And you know what? Scathing as I’ve been, I’m glad that a lot of the people who did get to go felt as if they got their money’s worth. Given the fact some of them had to take out a loan to visit, or scrimp and save for months to afford it, I would hope they did.

But what I do have trouble grappling with was that there are people who paid to do it multiple times. These people most likely spent more than the average household income in some states to live out their own personal Star Wars fan-fiction. And, you know what? It’s their money. They can do with it as they please. It’s not my place to tell them what to do with their cash.

But… I will say, during a time in America where it seems like most people are barely scraping by, the middle class is eroding by the day, and foreclosures, bankruptcies, and general financial hardship are all flavors of the now… well, it makes you feel a certain way when you think about a guy who’s working himself to death to keep two jobs and getting no sleep just to make a sure a haphazard, leaky roof is over his family’s heads while these jerk-offs are blowing the down payment of a house to watch bad dinner theater and LARP out their Star Was fantasies. And it’s not a good feeling, either. It’s kind of like watching Taylor Swift take a jet to get from one side of St. Louis to the other while people across the country are cutting back on their driving because gas is just too damn expensive. Like, sure, I wouldn’t want to drive through the blighted urban wastes of St. Louis, either, but, c’mon. Really, Tay-Tay? That’s not very cash-money of you. You can afford bullet-proof window glass for your limo.

This small cabal of people with more money than cents (see what I did there?) they call themselves Galactic Starcruiser Superfans. Not inaccurate, but I prefer the much more descriptive and medically accurate term, which would be clinically retarded.

How many of these superfans haunt the abyssal waters of Disney’s ocean? Hard to say. Finding numbers for these things isn’t easy, but I can’t imagine it’s very big. However, small in numbers though they may be, this little population of superfans is robust, passionate, dedicated, and willing to blow some serious money on their newfound favorite thing in the world, if nothing else.

They have a site of their very own, called Heroes of the Halcyon. I should have mentioned that, technically, the Galactic Starcruiser is just the name of the attraction - the name of the actual spaceship that guests were pretending that they were on was the Halcyon, so, that’s where the name comes from, if you were curious. To return to just how many superfans there are, the Heroes of the Halcyon Xitter page boasts only a scant 122 followers. Their YouTube page has 234 subscribers, and the uploads of their videos average between thirty to fifty views per episode. That’s not indicative of much, but it is a hint that their numbers… well, I believe in the field of zoology, that’d classify that as critically endangered.

On one hand, the devotion these people show towards the attraction is somewhat admirable. It’s always equal parts strange and fascinating to see such niche things like this attract such a small but lively fandom; it’s like catching a glimpse of one of those little critters that only live on one small island in Indonesia and absolutely nowhere else, that are so fine-tuned in their biology to that one specific spit of land that they flourish there, but would get snapped up by a garden snake if you let them loose anywhere else, or keel over if there was one excessively warm day that they’re not used to. It always makes me feel as if I must study them for science before the last one inevitably croaks and I lose the chance forever.

Heroes of the Halcyon are a particularly vibrant bunch. Here’s the great minds behind this website.

Each one of them has their own Original-the-Character (Do Not Steal) with a full backstory that they played out when they were at the attraction. And elsewhere, apparently.

Hondo Ohnaka mentioned!

Here’s Drew - sorry, Dru, posin’.

Yo, someone needs come get their uncle - he had too many green milks and he’s wilin’ out in sunroom again².

The tremendous trio host their own Galactic Starcruiser-centric Podcast that has a staggering 93 episodes. And counting. Given that this attraction is, y’know, dead, it kind of boggles the mind that they can still find so fucking much to talk about when it comes to something that’s offering nothing new to talk about. There are episodes with content that make sense. They interview cast, crew, designers, and other miscellaneous staff that worked on both the Galactic Starcruiser and other Star Wars projects, which, I get that - if you just had the time of your little life at the Galactic Starcruiser, or you’re just generally interested in the inner-machinations of what such an endeavor would entail, that could be worthwhile, interesting content you might want to hear. They also seem to do a lot of collaborations with other Star Wars-centric podcasts, and interview other superfans, in which I assume they just circle-jerk over their mutual love for the Galactic Starcruiser and swap bits of lore about their super-awesome-mega-cool OC characters they larp as.

Their more recent, output, however…

My diagnosis: the Reddit brain rot is terminal.

Yeah. Content seems to be wearing a bit thin for the Galactic Starcruiser crowd. It’s like they’ve almost divorced the entire thing from Star Wars and have made the Galactic Starcruiser it’s own separate thing. Really, the only word that comes to mind to describe this self-indulgent. Almost to a masturbatory degree. There’s no real audience for this - or, at the very least, it’s a negligible one, so minute that niche seems like an overstatement. There’s no real demand for this content. They’re not saying anything of value, either. I actually listened to some of the above episode, just to get a feel for what it was for an honest appraisal. Yes, you’re welcome, and no, tips are not expected, but appreciated. Basically, it came off as some friends who like to hear themselves talk, sperging out over something only they care about and tossing it out into the internet for anyone else who might be interested in hearing them literally just say Wouldn’t it be cool if so-and-so played whats-her-face in a movie and breathlessly coming up with fan fiction-tier plots for hypothetical movies. There’s very little of interest or substance, even for people who do like the Galactic Starcruiser, because it’s only even tangentially about the stupid thing.

And, really… that’s fine. They’re not hurting anyone when they do this. It’s silly, yes, and extremely, almost sinfully self-sybaratic, but at the same time, I can’t say their causing any harm to anyone in the process, and the only thing it puts them out at the end of the day is the opportunity cost of the three hours they spent flapping their gums about effectively nothing.

It is, however, morbidly fascinating to me to see just how much these people got wrapped up in something that, in the grand scheme of things, so small. There’s an entire Disney parks enthusiast community that’s much larger than you’d ever anticipate it to be, but it also makes sense that something like that exists. Though Disney is now running into serious competition from a resurgent Universal Studios, they’re still the undisputed masters of the theme park world, and have been for generations. It makes sense that a community of Disney aficionados and addicts would glom together over time, as like-minded people tend to do.

But the Galactic Starcruiser was only ever in operation for about a year. It would make more sense if these people were more focused on Star Wars as a brand, but instead, they’ve hyper-fixated on this one tiny, almost negligible piece of the overall whole to the point that they’re trying - and perhaps failing - to keep a community on life support that I’m not sure was ever really alive to begin with. Like I said, I don’t think they’re really hurting anyone doing this, but at what time does this obsession with something so trivial become deleterious to themselves or others in their lives? This, I think, speaks to the intensive fracturing of pop culture over the years, as more and more people divide into smaller and smaller cliques banded together by a mutual, obsessive interest of trivial minutiae.

For example, these people aren’t just Star Wars fans, they’re specifically Galactic Starcruiser Superfans that eschew the whole to obsess specifically over narrow slice of the overall pie. There are segments of the Star Wars fandom that similarly divide themselves between specific movies, television shows, video games, and even the expanded universe material of the books. There are people who don’t consider themselves Star Wars fans, but rather Fans of Old Star Wars that only includes the first triology of movies, just as there’s a bloc of fans that identify as fans of Dave Feloni’s (awful) work in the franchise. Hell, there’s scads of fans who consider themselves Mandalorian fans - not of the show, The Mandalorian, but rather the race of people called the Mandalorians, which basically has a fandom unto itself.

None of this is inherently wrong, mind you, but it does speak to this ever increasing trend of social atomization in broader society manifesting in a similar fractilization within fandom as people seek to identify themselves with a rapidly swelling bank of labels, names, and niche affiliations. I think the causes are multitude, and probably more than I could succinctly list here. For one, it’s a mirror of greater Western society rapidly disintigrating social cohesion. For another, I think it’s just another symptom of social media poisoning and the almost pathological need for terminally online individuals to make themselve unique; for instance, a guy who used to pride himself for being the de facto Star Wars expert in his social circle discovers he’s not so special once he gets on Reddit and finds that there’s at least ten thousand other nerds that know more about Star Wars lore than he does, so, in order to reestablish some credibility (and no small amount of pride and purpose), he throws himself headfirst into some trivial side-project within the Star Wars universe. If he can’t be Reddit’s unquestioned Star Wars authority, well, at least he can be the last word on Star Wars: Ewoks…

In my opinion, most of this phenomenon comes down to matters of purpose, community, and identity - or a lack there of. All three are things that have never been harder for the average American to find for themselves. Is it any wonder we see these patterns playing out, then?

This self-imposed division and artificial segregation drives more and more people to congregate in increasingly smaller pods of like-minded people that will eventually get so niche that there won’t be any like-minded people to find. This kind of division in fandoms isn’t totally uncommon, but it always ends the same way; with the communities fracturing and splintering and breaking down into smaller and smaller units until there’s nothing left to split, and the individuals that make up the fandom landscape pretty much disappear up their own assholes from being high on the smell of their own gas and collapsing into a singularity of self-indulgence.

I don’t want to baselessly speculate on the lives of The Heroes of the Halcyon crew outside of their Galactic Starcruiser fixation. I don’t know any of them, and I could not bring myself to listen to enough of their podcast to even get a hint of what their personal lives look like, but one must wonder if there is some sort of event-horizon in the near future where a strange but harmless fixation on a defunct ride begins to manifest adverse effects in their lives and those around them. After all, it’s all fun and games to enable Uncle Dru’s juvenile fantasies until he spends your cousin’s college tuition to visit the Starcruiser for the fifteenth time in one year. Not that it will happen, since, y’know - it closed, but still.

It also really makes one wonder what else is going on in these people’s lives, and if this isn’t one large exercise in finding some kind of greater purpose when there’s a dearth of it in their day-to-day lives. Again, I don’t mean to cast aspersions against these people, but, well… I just don’t think this kind of specific hyperfixating is something a well-adjusted person would really do. Not to this degree, at least.

As a brief aside, as odd as this whole fandom around a Disney attraction seems, it’s actually not as new or unique as you’d think. The Disney parks enthusiasts divide along lines of their favorite parks, favorite rides, favorite you name it, there’s a splinter group who identifies first-and-foremost as a fan of it. The Haunted Mansion is a big one, with a devoted fanbase that uniquely follows news and developments around the various iterations of the ride and maintain an entire fan wiki dedicated to it. There are three - count them, three podcasts about just The Haunted Mansion I found on Spotify in a brief search. Go look for yourself, if you don't believe me. One of the more prominent voices in the Disney Park Community, known as Offhand Disney, is a self-proclaimed Haunted Mansion Superfan. Listening to him talk about the attraction, even briefly, you can get a sense of just how much real estate this one ride takes up in his mind.

Epcot, Frontierland, Tomorrowland, the Country Bear Jamboree, and dark rides all have their devout followers. There’s an entire community dedicated to simply keeping up with the food on offer at various restaurants in Disney World, and really focus on nothing else about the parks. Some people go to the parks just to eat, like others go just to make sport of hunting down the walk-around characters and snap photos with them. Seriously, there’s a whole website that obsessively documents every single character that’s ever been at the parks, is at the parks, and they can probably divine which characters will be at the parks, and what time they were there and what time they will be there.

I highly recommend you give this site a skim. After you finish this article, of course. It’s a trip, man. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the newest character - Meilin from that one red panda movie that was a metaphor for menstruation³ and uh… yeah, it’s something.

You see, there’s tags that the characters are sorted by. Take a look. I’ve highlighted my favorite.

Ah, yes - when I go to the Disney parks, I definitely want to seek out characters with mommy issues that are classified as booty shakers. Isn’t Meilin supposed to be, like, thirteen? Obviously, the actress with the ten-pound furry tail strapped to her ass is not thirteen, but, still - maybe we don’t classify a twelve year old character as a booty shaker. Just a thought. But, don’t worry; if you’re too much of an antisocial and awkward incel loser to know how to conduct yourself like a respectable member of polite society with Miss Meilin without spilling your spaghetti or losing your fifty-dollar lunch of overpriced turkey legs and green milk all over your shoes, EveryCharacter.com has you covered with some helpful tips and tricks on how to properly and respectfully engage with her.

I’m sure the actress will really appreciate it if you come up from behind her and scream 4*TOWN 4EVER!!! in her panda ears. Disney security, however, will not take kindly if you are also tagged as a booty shaker and decide to shake your booty for her, or if you ask her to show you how they do it in Toronto and shake her panda-tailed yuan-maker for you. I may or may not be speaking from experience here. I had too many green milks at Galaxy’s Edge to remember what really happened before D-Sec threw me in a cell down in the utilidors with ball-peen hammer-wielding Chip and Dale, but I do remember Princess Giselle being much more receptive to my booty shaking proposal, and Chip did say something about teaching me how to show some respect before breaking my right hand. Go easy on the green milk, kids. It’s stronger than it tastes.

This all to say that the Disney Park fandom is on an entirely different level than almost anything I’ve seen before. You do not see this kind of slavish devotion for Six Flags, Universal Studios, Great Wolf Lodge, or really any other amusement park chain, period.

Believe it or not, the Galactic Starcruiser isn’t even the first shuttered ride has developed a fandom unique unto itself, separate from the rest of the park. Another defunct attraction that commands a lot of respect, engenders a lot of discussion, and lives rent free in the minds of many is Epcot’s Journey to Imagination.

Journey into Imagination opened in 1983 and quickly became a fan favorite among park visitors and attracted something of a cult following. The ride’s mascots - a purple dragon named Figment and an eccentric inventor… magician… guy called Dreamfinder - were immensely popular with guests, to the point that many would go out of their way to meet the walk-around characters when they were on shift. There’s an argument to be made that Figment and Dreamfinder were the two most popular park-original characters in Disney’s roster.

In 1998, the attraction would be retooled into Journey into YOUR Imagination, which would see the original animatronics stripped out and replaced by a 3D movie-ride featuring Monty Python-alum Eric Idle, with Figment and Dreamfinder nowhere to be found, while the ride itself was drastically shortened to meet budgetary constraints. This did not go over well with fans, and the ride quickly developed a reputation for being a solid pass for most visitors.

In only four short years, the ride would once again be overhauled in 2002, marrying both the original and the current iteration to put a heavier focus on Figment, who know appeared in the ride’s film alongside Eric Idle, who was tapped to film another movie featuring the purple dragon. Even though the ride is still not as beloved as the original incarnations, it’s still running today. Though Dreamfinder is absent from the ride, the character has seen renewed interest and gained a second wind recent years. In 2023, the character appeared at Disney’s yearly expo, D23, and, even though he has yet to return to the park, Figment now has his own meet-and-greet pavilion, which leads many to believe Dreamfinder will follow in due time.

For years, there were numerous petitions and campaigns to have the original ride restored, some of which predate the internet, the advent of which kicked such campaigns into overdrive. The only reason that Dreamfinder returned in any capacity was simply because fan demand was so large that Disney realized they were leaving money on the table by keeping the beloved character on the shelf.

Might the same happen to the characters of the Galactic Starcruiser? Will the demands of the superfans be acknowledged, or will they fall on deaf ears? Well, while I highly doubt there’s any way that the Galactic Starcruiser will ever return in it’s original iteration, and I don’t think the business model was ever, in any way, going to be financially viable, it’s certainly possible that the characters may appear in Galaxy’s Edge. One of the reasons that I feel like something like Heroes of the Halcyon exist is because of the cast of characters that were original and unique to the Galactic Starcruiser, and the self-contained story that was presented in the attraction, which helped foster it as an experience rather than just another ride. Perhaps, one day, these characters, like Dreamfinder, will return to the parks, even if it is only in a meet-and-greet capacity.

I doubt it, though.

Dreamfinder and Figment were introduced in a different time and into a cultural landscape vastly different and more unified than today’s. They were also original to the Disney parks, and become something of unofficial mascots for Epcot as a park until 1998. Star Wars, being a much more broad IP, has plenty of other characters to tap or draw upon if they really get into a pinch and need to make some quick cash. It may not be lore compliant, but if they need to get asses in seats, Disney knows they can suit up an employee as Darth Vader, send him to Galaxy’s Edge, and the manchildren will come in droves. I don’t think anyone will ever be clamoring for a reintroduction of Vi Moradi the same way they do Dreamfinder. More importantly, when it comes to characters from the Galactic Starcruiser, the vast majority of Star Wars fans don’t even know who they are. The thing about Dreamfinder and Figment was that they were featured on a ride that everyone was able to access, and most people visited when they came to the parks. These were characters that tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, were introduced to at very formative, often better times in their lives, and one that many hold a special nostalgic fondness for. There was no barrier to entry when it came to seeing and meeting to Dreamfinder and Figment.

But to meet any of the characters featured in the Galactic Starcruiser, well - that was a more exclusive club. Simply put, there isn’t a large contingent of fans stomping and screaming and crying out for the return of the Captain of the Halcyon, Riyola Kaveen, because they never got introduced to her. They didn’t have the money. The Captain of the Halcyon is a busy woman, you see, and her time does not come cheap. She ain’t got no business to do with broke boys.

Again with the shitty wigs! Christ, Disney - get it together!

Call me crazy, but I don’t believe the bellyaching of a maybe two hundred Galactic Starcruiser Superfans is going to move the needle with Disney execs.

But… never say never. In fact, as we speak, the superfans are mobilizing to express their love for the scuttled Halcyon in a very unique manner. This is not a group that will let their favorite Disney attraction sail into the mists of history quietly. For as long as they can, they will fly the flag of the Halcyon, and they will keep the dream alive. You see, in January of 2024, it was announced that in October of this year, there will be the first ever Galactic Starcruiser Fan Event. This year, Halcy-con 2024 is coming to Kissimmee, Florida.

The staff of the Heroes of the Halcyon have not been idle. Oh, no - since the closure of the Galactic Starcruiser, they have formed their own outfit under the name of Starship Aurora, which they describe thusly:

Starship Aurora, LLC founders Kristine and Martin Smith are Star Wars and Disney Parks superfans, as well as two of the hosts of Heroes of the Halcyon, a Galactic Starcruiser Superfans Podcast. Also known by their Starcruiser aliases, Twi’lek space pirate Captain Ma’Li Ficent and galaxy-famous holovid director Jorg Sacul, Kristine and Martin created Starship Aurora, LLC to produce exciting fan-based live events. Building off their two sold-out Muster Meetup live events in 2023, they look to work with creative members in the superfans community to raise the bar in what live fan events can be!

So, yeah - the Smiths have been doing yeoman’s work to keep the small community alive with two previous meet-up events in Florida, but this will be chugging along with their first foray into the convention space. As someone who’s been to over a hundred conventions in their time and has friends who’ve worked for many of them… well, I hope these guys know what they’re getting into.

Fan conventions are notoriously difficult to organize, and, more importantly, keep organized. The best run conventions still have their hitches and unforeseen problems, and even those that appear to be going well, I’ve learned, are usually one accident away from spiraling into disarray, and only a thin veneer hides the carefully and tenuously managed chaos roiling behind the scenes. There’s a reason con staff and volunteers have a turn-over rate worse than the average Amazon warehouse. I have a friend who got decked in the face by a belligerently drunk guest in an elevator while he was working one in Austin, and that poor guy has probably had to clean up every bodily fluid known to man at some point in his long history as a con volunteer. I remember he, along with Austin PD, had to respond to not one, but two suicide attempts one year. Because, y’know - if you’re gonna neck yourself in a hotel closet with a belt, no better time to do it than the nerd equivalent of a Bacchanalia. These things get wild in a way that’s hard for people who’ve never been to one find difficult to grasp.

Fan conventions, to put it bluntly, are almost always a shit-show.

Still, Halcy-con 2024 is not just going to be your average convention. Oh, no - the Galactic Starcruiser superfans… they like to go one step beyond. Not only will this be a convention, featuring the usual gamut of panels, vendors, and events, but it will also be what the organizers describe as a boutique playground, in which the attendees will be encouraged to come in character and stay in character. Basically, they’ll be larping a good percentage of the time, just as many of the most devoted acolytes of the Galactic Starcruiser did when they attended to attraction. Seriously, you read some of these people’s profiles, and not only do they have their voyages down to the date that they went on them, but it clearly illustrates that they were pretending to be Zillyhoo Bluntensmoken from the moon of Ganjaweed the whole time. These people take their roleplaying very, very seriously.

I pity the hotel staff who are going to have to put up with this for two days, but, at the same time, I desperately wish I could fly down to Kissimmee, post up on some balcony overlooking the convention floor, and just, y’know…

Really. I would. I’m sure there’s going to be some interesting goings on, especially in the hotel bar after hours. Seeing someone dressed like a wookie deck a guy square in his Stomtrooper mask for hitting on his girlfriend in a budget Twi’lek cosplay would make the price of airfare to Florida worth every penny.

Unfortunately, if you, too, were hoping to get in on the ground floor of what’s sure to be an out-of-this-galaxy, rip-roaring, lightsaber-slashin’ good time, the event sold out within hours of going live. Only five hundred tickets were allotted, and, despite Heroes of the Halycon having significantly less followers than that on all their social media platforms, they had no issues filling their roster with guests. I suspect that many people who attend will not be Superfans, so much as Star Wars Divers that never had an opportunity to go on a galactic star cruise themselves, this is basically the next best thing. As with their previous meet-ups, cast, crew, and staff from the original Galactic Starcruiser will be present, and events are being designed to mimic those available on the attraction. For all those that were heartbroken that they would never get to play bingo with Chewbecca, well - it would appear their time is now.

Looking at the suggested line-up of events, I see we’ve got a veritable smörgåsbord of Star Wars themed delights.

Chalk murals? Special photo opportunities? Sabacc tournaments? Meditation?

Oh, and if you, like me, were wondering what the fuck Sabacc is, apparently it’s just Blackjack. Yes, you could play it on the Galactic Starcruiser. No, you couldn’t bet money. What the point is, then, I’m not sure. I also wasn’t sure what the Ryloth Slide Flash Mob entailed, so I looked that up, too, and… well… I’ll just let the video speak for itself.

Love the kid in the Akatsuki coat from Naruto. That really just ties the thing together, doesn’t it?

Imagine paying $6,000 for a family of four to visit this piece of shit ‘hotel’ and all they have on offer is a god damn off-brand Cha-Cha Slide that’s even more embarrassing and humiliating than the original. And, yeah, I know - if you’ve ever been on a cruise before, you know that the entertainers rely pretty heavily on the perennial elementary school favorite of the Cha Cha Slide, and you’re liable to hear that song enough times to drive a man to jump overboard while you’re on the ship, but, as I explained in my previous article, you could take a family of four on an actual cruise, go actual places abroad, with access to a buffet, a swimming pool, and all sorts of other amenities for roughly half of what you’d pay on the Galactic Starcruiser.

I mean, what? They couldn’t even bother to make it a Star Wars themed Cha Cha Slide knock-off? You’re telling me that, with all the resources at Disney’s disposal, make their own stupid little dance song? They couldn’t even, like, wheel out some dudes dressed like those butt-headed freaks from the cantina in A New Hope and have them, like, play some jizz music? And, yes - before you accuse me of making a typo, that’s literally what the music is called in-universe. Jizz. I presume someone was taking the piss (or maybe jizz) with that one.

But, still, for as immersive as they claimed this whole thing was, the more I see of it, the more it seems very… shoddy. Half-assed, even. Honestly, watching that video makes me feel as if the Heroes of the Halcyon and the Galactic Starcruiser superfan cadre - all twelve of them - are so adamant about singing the praises of the attraction not as a labor of love, but more like a group people who realize that they’re running defense for a lackluster, slap-dash mistake and are too deeply invested to admit that they, by proxy, made a mistake themselves. People trying to justify their own sunk cost. Like, one time, I took an ex-girlfriend of mine to a nice dinner at this famous resturaunt in L.A., right? It sucked. I dropped a couple hundred bucks, which, at the time, was a big fucking deal for me, and the food was terrible. I knew it. She knew it. But we both left talking about how awesome it was to keep ourselves gassed up and ignore the fact that we knew we’d just wasted money on the culinary equivalent of a car crash, and we couldn’t admit it until we were on the plane to go back home. That’s… kind of the impression I get from these guys. Except they can’t let the whole thing go, because, unlike me and my poor dining experience, Star Wars is not something they get the privilege of leaving. To them, Star Wars is not a brand they like - it’s part of their identity. It’s part of who they are. If even a fraction of their identity is contingent on staying firmly strapped to the Star Wars train, and to admit wrong-doing on Disney’s behalf would cost them not just the community of like-minded fans that they’ve befriended, but leave them with a gaping whole in the very sense of who they are…

I’m not sure if it explains everything. But it explains a lot. Not just about them, but the entire battered wife that is the greater Star Wars fandom, and their absolute, steadfast refusal to abandon their beloved property even as the Corporate Mouse continues to abuse it and abuse them.

But I don’t know for sure. I don’t know these people. I don’t know what’s in their hearts. Like I said - if they really did enjoy themselves, I’m glad they did, but good God almighty, did this whole attraction suck hot ass through a straw.

Yet, good or bad, quality or not, the Galactic Starcruiser, against all odds, continues on - if not in a tangible form, then, like a true ghost ship, in spirit. Long after the Flying Dutchman was claimed by the forces of Poseidon and consigned to rest in the muck at the bottom of the sea, its story continued. From now until the end of time, it still travels the waves of the immaterial, a ghostly and ghastly spectral phantasm that haunts the fevered dreams of mariners and landlubbers alike. So, too, it seems, will the legend of this ill-fated pleasure cruise through another galaxy persist persist; a dream to some, a nightmare to others, the Galactic Starcruiser, though shuttered, dark, and silent, will continue to sail the starry void in legend, in myth, and, now, in fan conventions, surviving in some intangible form through the tales of those who once traversed it’s windowless halls and the wistful desires of those who always wished they could, and never did.

And myths, legends, and dreams - even the bad ones - do they ever really die?

1. Immersed and all of its forms is Pee-Wee’s Word of the Day.

2. And, no, this isn’t a violation of my previously stated ad hominem rule - it’s all in good fun, all good natured. I shouldn’t really need to spell this out, but, even though I’m poking fun at Mr. Dru here, I don’t hate the guy. I don’t even know who he is.

3. The movie is about thirteen year old girl who begins to turn into a giant red panda when she gets emotional, it's a curse that runs through all the women in her family and it's literally called Turning Red. Thwy were not being subtle about the subtext, here.