Airbnb, the most popular app/site for short-term rentals, has unveiled a new line of unique Icons stays that lets visitors step foot into the worlds of their favorite franchises across multimedia. Some of the best examples include Disney’s Up! house and Shrek’s Swamp.
During the company’s Summer 2024 Release Event, the vacation company revealed it was able to transform a house that looked exactly like Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in New Castle into a cartoony experience.
The X-Mansion experience from Airbnb allows visitors to experience the following:
- Train in The War Room with professional stunt coordinators
- Try on Cerebro’s helmet
- Create potions in Beast’s lab
- Recreate Wolverine’s iconic photograph meme
- Receive a diploma from the Institute for higher learning in Professor X’s study
As part of the process of recreating X-Men 97’s mansion, Airbnb did a collaboration with Microsoft to repurpose 30-year-old operating systems to craft working boomboxes and painstakingly handprint every room and prop in the house to deliver the sense of walking through the animated world in 2D. In addition, all of the props from Airbnb’s X-Men experience took up to an hour to paint by hand.
In addition, Airbnb provided a preview of the Up! house, one of its key Icons experiences. Located in Abiqui, New Mexico, the house was built from scratch, with every single square inch of it, including its color palette, proportionally accurate chairs, and Adventure book, painted by hand. Even though it weighs 40,000 pounds, it’s attached to a crane that allows it to suspend up to 50ft in the air.
Similar to other past Icons experiences, including The Last Blockbuster, Barbie’s Malibu DreamHouse, and more, users can book their experiences on the company’s website. For example, the X-Mansion experience, hosted by Jubilee, costs about $97 per guest, allowing up to 8 people to sleep in four bedrooms with two bathrooms.
