Disney Takes MASSIVE Losses In Florida, Shutting Down Two Major Projects As Audiences Abandon Company

This week, Disney took two major losses back to back, with the entertainment giant having to close down their immersive ‘Star Wars’ themed hotel this coming September after only operating for less than a measly two years. The second major loss is Disney scraping their $1 billion office complex in Florida due to the “changing business conditions,” which was a nice way to explain their falling out with Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL).

‘Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser’ is the hotel name where Disney attempted to provide a truly immersive experience to ‘Star Wars’ fans, but ultimately seemed to not work well for the media conglomerate. The hotel only offered 100 total hotel rooms, accounting for an unremarkable 0.5 percent of Disney rooms, per Reuters.

The failure is believed to be in the extremely pricy booking options, with an average nightly cost of $1,209 per person. The price of the rooms was likely an attempt to recuperate the immense $2 billion budget that Disney gave to construct the galactic hotel. 

The hotel first began offering rooms in March 2022, giving the expensive booking option an unremarkable 19 total months of operation. 

Disney took another blow with its cancellation of an immense $1 billion corporate campus that was meant to house 2,000 employees within it, per Reuters. However, because of what the company referred to as “changing business conditions” in its email, the entire plan has been scrapped. 

"Given the considerable changes that have occurred since the announcement of this project, including new leadership and changing business conditions, we have decided not to move forward with construction of the campus," Josh D'Amaro, the Disney parks chief, wrote in an email explaining the cancellation of the major project. "This was not an easy decision to make, but I believe it is the right one."

Back in February, Disney announced its plans to enact sweeping restructuring under the reinstated CEO Bob Iger, per Reuters. The plan cut 7,000 jobs to work towards saving $5.5 billion in costs to compensate for their losses in streaming services. 

Disney has been in a power battle with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis following the company’s outspoken criticism of policies that the Sunshine State governor had passed. DeSantis countered these criticisms by working to roll back the special governing privileges that the entertainment company got when Disney began reopening its parks within the state, as previously covered by the DC Enquirer.

Making matters even worse, Disney seems to still be reeling from their continuous loss in expanding Disney+, as reported by the DC Enquirer. It’s understandable Iger would choose to make cuts with Florida, as the company's expected return seems to be continuing to dwindle as the feud between DeSantis and Mickey Mouse grows stronger. 

Nonetheless, the two announcements come as a major blow to the company, showing that all isn’t sunny for Disney in the Sunshine State.