Exploring the Business Decision to Drydock the Halcyon

In this podcast with Heroes of the Halcyon, they welcome Dr. Katalin Takacs Haynes of the Lerner College of Business & Economics at the University of Delaware to discuss the Starcruiser experience and Disney’s decision to close it.

Dr Kat begins by talking about how Star Wars first became part of her life and the decision to book a voyage on the Halcyon.  Five trips later, she has the inside knowledge of the experience to combine with her business degrees to help the rest of us understand a bit more about what might have happened. She talks about the difficulty of inventing and then selling a product even they did not understand, the marketing issues, and some of the revenue and cost aspects that undoubtedly made the Starcruiser a complicated endeavor for the business.

You can find the podcast at Heroes of the Halcyon:  Exploring The Business Decision To Drydock The Halcyon With Special Guest Dr. Kat!

The podcast is fun and informative while addressing more of the business side considerations.

One final note.  For listeners who might feel discouraged by Dr Kat’s assessment of what it means for Disney to have taken “accelerated depreciation”, don’t dispair.  Dr. Kat caveats her comments that she is not an expert on tax accounting.  She also mentions she is talking about GAAP, which governs the books and the book value of the assets involved.  She does not discuss the differences between tax depreciation and GAAP book value depreciation.  So lest her assessments seem discouraging, and confessing not to be tax accountants here at Tabuetay.org either, we simply mention that the rules for tax depreciation differ from book depreciation and may still allow the assets to be used.  Let’s all be optimistic that Disney’s decision to gain tax benefits also kept their options open for the future potential for the space for more immersive experiences.