A tale of two Disney cities and their hotels

Last week, Disney opened a new hotel in Anaheim and closed one in Orlando, Florida. The timing probably had more to do with the start of Disney's corporate fiscal year on Oct. 1 than anything else, but the proximity of these changes does make it tempting to draw some conclusions about where Disney is heading with its theme park business.

In Anaheim, Disney opened The Villas at the Disneyland Hotel, a new Disney Vacation Club property. The 344unit Discovery Tower is much larger than Disneyland's first Vacation Club property, Villas at Disney's Grand Californian Resort & Spa. It's a lovely property with thoughtful design touches, especially in “The Princess and the Frog”-themed villas. The three-bedroom Grand Villas are stunning and would provide a perfect home base for an extended family to enjoy a luxurious Disneyland vacation.

As the child of a real estate agent, I was raised with a deep skepticism of timeshare sales, so I never had been tempted to buy into Disney Vacation Club. I still crunched the numbers to try to understand the business, but they just did not work for my family's budget and travel wishes. That's fine. No product works for everyone. Nor would I be tempted to book the new Disneyland Hotel villas on a nightly basis. Other nearby hotels provide perfectly nice accommodations for far less money per night, even if they don't have pictures of Disney characters on their walls.

If you want a truly unique Disney vacation experience, well, that is what just closed in Orlando. Walt Disney World has shuttered its Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser after less than two years of operation.

Much more than a “Star Wars”-themed hotel, the Starcruiser immersed visitors in a two-night, cruiselike experience that made visitors feel like they were aboard a spaceship, sharing an adventure with “Star Wars” characters. The price for the experience rivaled a stay in one of those huge Disneyland Grand Villas, but even that wasn't enough to make this labor-intensive, specialeffects-laden property a money-maker for Disney.

The Starcruiser was the ultimate Disney experience — a unique blend of live theater, world building, participatory storytelling and hospitality. Lots of other companies do timeshares. No one else has done anything like the Starcruiser.

In hindsight, Southern California would have been a better market for something like the Starcruiser. It does not require a huge land commitment, and California has plenty of high-earning tech and entertainment professionals with a passion for “Star Wars,” not to mention an endless supply of social media influencers who would have found the Starcruiser an irresistible background.

Perhaps if the DisneylandForward expansion proposal wins approval from Anaheim, Disney might consider bringing the Starcruiser, or something similar, to Disneyland. I hope that it will.

Disney Vacation Club provides Disney's theme park segment with enormous financial security, with huge buyins that effectively lock families into annual Disney vacations for decades to come. But Disney needs more truly unique experiences like the Starcruiser to ensure that its properties remain a place that fans will want to keep visiting for that long.

HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS

When:

Various evenings through Oct. 31

Where: Universal Studios Hollywood, 100Universal City Plaza, Universal City Tickets: General admission tickets start at $74; Universal Express starts at $209; Universal Express Unlimited starts at $249; After 2p.m. Day/Night combos are $149-$329; the new separate Early Access Ticket, which gets you in some haunted houses before the event opens at 5:30 p.m., starts at $10(regular ticket purchase required); R.I.P. Tours are $379 and up; Frequent Fear passes start at $209; and Ultimate Fear passes start at $329. All ticket types are available at universalstudioshollywood.com.