Disney announced yesterday that Pleasure Island in Orlando, FL will be closing by Sept. 28, 2008. The six night clubs, 8 Trax, The Adventurer’s Club, Mannequins Dance Place, BET Sound-Stage Club, Motion, and The Comedy Warehouse. They say that they are going to replace them with dining and shopping. The Disney blogosphere is lit up with posts about this information. I think that this is a good thing for a couple reasons.
In my opinion, Pleasure Island hasn’t been the same since they removed the gates. Originaly, the whole of Pleasure Island was gated. You had to have admitance material to enter. Once inside the gates, you had free reign to visit any of the clubs. This had the effect of allowing only those people who paid admitance to be within the area. Later, the gates were removed, along with Jessica Rabbit. There was still an admittance fee to get into the clubs, but anyone could walk around on Pleasure Island. This meant that those under 21 could wander the Island. You would see teenagers, even parents with yound kids walking around. The exclusive feel was gone.
The other piece of this news that could be good is that Disney says that the clubs would be replaced with more dining options. Dining at Disney has become very difficult, so any more dining establishments would be welcome. Back when Epcot was first opened, they had a video conference kiosk that you could use to get dining reservations FOR THAT DAY. Now, you have to call 180 days, 6 MONTHS, ahead of time for many of the popular options. So any more dining on property would be welcome.
I suspect that The Adventurer’s Club will be resurrected at some time by Disney. It has been a very popular club. It was more theater than club. There were actors who inhabited the club. You would interact with them and they would tell stories. This was different than a dance club like Motion. There have been rumors that there would a bigger and better Adventurer’s Club in the rumored Night Kingdom.
So, over all, I am not that upset by the closing of the clubs at Pleasure Island. In my mind, the best days of Pleasure Island have been gone for along time. And hopefully adding more dining will provide more choices to reduce some pressure on the Disney dining reservation system.