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I'll take my free cruise ship now please. According to the story it should be no trouble to dry dock it indefinitely and construct an entire building around it!
I can see some cities definitely cutting you a break on mooring fees as it could be a very attractive tourist draw and OP is correct that once they are clapped out big cruise liners are VERY cheap (kinda) but they vary between 70,000 tons up to over 200,000 tons and lets assume a scrap value of $50 per ton and a 100,000 ton ship you're still going to be $5 million in the hole as a starting point before a very expensive fitout.
Its not a terrible idea, but kickstarter isnt going to cut it for this one.
The image OP put in is from the Disney star wars hotel thing I think. If so OP is basically calling it overpriced shit and proposing a better experience. So yeah Fisney most certainly has the sway and cash for the cruise ship idea.
I don't think this would work as a tourist draw in the conventional sense. The problem is that money doesn't change hands enough times to generate enough secondary revenue and taxes, since everyone is "locked in" for the duration and the ticket sales happen online (or somewhere else). Typical hotels draw people to business and tourism all over the city, and this proposal is the opposite of that. Just like a typical cruise, this puts the cruise-liner in position to run their own tax free economy/experience for guests during their entire stay; just build everything into the ticket price.
Then you add the fact that an aging and immobile cruise ship is permanently occupying a deep-sea launch/slip in your harbor. That mooring point is no longer generating anywhere near as much income as before, since people are coming/going at a much more lax pace and you can't use it for freight. And moving the ship around to accommodate other boats is likely going to require tugs which is time consuming and probably a huge PITA for the harbor.
Now, if you could anchor it somewhere remote where none of that matters, then you'd have something.
I think it could work as a hotel instead. I think it would be cool to go on a "dry cruise," with all of the events and whatnot a cruise would have. I'd spend 2-3 days on one just exploring the ship and whatnot.
I mean, it's not free but you could absolutely write a good loan proposal or appeal to angel investors for your "luxury space cruise experience." They'd probably jump at the small cost relative to the audience for it and potential earnings.
And keeping it cool enough for human comfort would be super cheap too!
If the dome wall is well insulated and has a white or reflective surface, it may not be as challenging as you'd think. The other way to achieve good low-energy cooling is to build underground if the terrain, hydrological and geological conditions are right. It costs money to dig but that's a one-time cost.
Not to mention people will probably want to watch their entry into soace. What are you gonna do? Blindfold them and be like, "Yeah we already launched and stabilized our orbit."
I think you're missing the point. The pic is of Disney's star wars space ship themed hotel. The idea isn't to make people think they're in space, it's to give the experience of being on a space ship.
Not to say it's a good idea, I think the spaceship hotel thing is kinda weird. It sort of makes sense at Disney, but you're only in it for part of the day, and it still failed. The idea of staying in there outside of Disney would be... Odd... But maybe he's just saying Disney should bring a ship into the park? Lol?
But yeah, they're not trying to hoodwink anyone into thinking they're in space.
To do it and do it well would require a spend that would make it difficult to be a viable business.
Damn I really read this whole thing thinking someone was tryna send rich people to a space hotel.
I, for one, am all about shooting rich people off into space.