Abandoned - Treasure Cay/Disney's Mowgli's Palace

[Music] what's up guys my name is Jake welcome to abandoned episode 28 this of course is the show where we talk about some of the most interesting abandoned places in the world way back in 2007 I remember seeing this blog post about this Resort in the Bahamas which Disney had supposedly left abandoned it's been on our list of abandoned places to cover for a while and I figured we should finally figure out the truth behind this long lived urban legend for a while now there's been this thing called Mowgli's palace it originated from several online creepypasta posts part of the abandoned by Disney series some of the stories claim that Disney abandoned a resort in Emerald Isle in North Carolina and well that's just completely untrue there are some videos online from 2015 claiming that the abandoned water park they're exploring is in fact the abandoned Disney project called Mowgli's palace and while it is actually in Emerald Isle North Carolina it's a you know not true it did used to be an extremely small water park that I guess is just now abandoned so that brings us to the main urban legend and that's Disney's abandoned Island in the Bahamas alright let me set the mood real quick okay that's a bit much you know what I'll just tell you so as the legend goes Disney had built a property in the Bahamas spend 30 million dollars on it and abandoned it after a hurricane so is that actually the case does this place actually exist well in short yes this place does actually exist but what is the actual story behind it we'll start off with where it is the onshore resort is located in the Bahamas on an island called great gwanak a which is part of the Abaco Islands way back in the 80s the island was owned by a German businessman named Alfred Meister who bought a significant portion of the island in 1982 it wasn't until 1989 when a company approached Alfred to build a cruise destination on the eye the company wasn't Disney but instead a cruise line that Disney was partnered with called premiere Cruise Lines if you've never heard of them their flagship vessel was the big red boats and throughout their fleet the ships were painted in a bold yet favorable red color premier cru Zions played a huge role in the cruise industry as really the first family oriented cruise line at the time the industry was really focusing on the 40 to 50 plus age range as families generally didn't take vacations on cruise ships this was until premier came along with some really innovative and industry changing practices they began implementing on their ships in 1985 the company was on the rise and sailing out of the relatively unknown port called Port Canaveral they approached Disney with a partnership deal and with success premiere became the official cruise line of Walt Disney World so like I was saying in the late 80s from your Cruise Line he made an agreement with Alfred Meister to use the island as a destination for their ships Meister would build the facility and dredge the underwater channel to allow the ships come into the bay the ships would actually have to sail into the bay as the island was on the border of the Bahamas and a vessel that large wouldn't be able to anchor offshore in the rough Atlantic seas all of this would be built on the top northwest section of the island called Baker's Bay and essentially premier would sign a contract to have the property exclusive to them as long as they continued to go there premiere Cruise Lines definitely had something unique in the works for this and to tell you a little more specifically about it I got the exclusive opportunity to sit down with Bruce Nuremberg the co-founder and co-ceo of premier Cruise Lines we went all out so what's the best out Island experience we could create to help with the idea of making it a pirate thing which I mentioned to the other day the idea was that this was the fantasy was that this was the place where the Pirates went on vacation and it was their private island and they really resented the fact that we came there with our cruise ship twice a week so there has identity during the dinner all of a sudden that a PA system you would hear clanking swords and people yelling and screaming that was all piped in into the dining room and the captain would come on and he would say I had terrible news that ship has been attacked by pirates they've taken over the bridge so every it's every man for themselves and all of a sudden Captain Hook mr. Smee Tinkerbell would all come storming in the dining room and they would kidnap some of the passengers who literally put them in Chains and dragged him out of the diner it was all three arrays of course and then the cruise director would come in with the captain and say we're going to deputize those of you that would like to help us go save yer fellow passengers we saw them sailing off to the island that night like we used to torch like the entire island the bay area was absolutely gorgeous and what the passengers didn't know we had set up the midnight buffet on the island for them to go and head there their evening snacks that we gave everybody some trinkets to go and trade that with Captain Hook to try to get the passengers back they got a complimentary pirate grog to go on shore to give them courage and we staged the whole thing on the beach but Captain Hook was there the people were waiting and they negotiated the transaction to take course today the human might be lost because the word hostage today means something totally different than it did back then then it was all in good fun but it was an incredible product matter of fact we had the chairman of Carnival Cruise Lines kept when they were buying the company went on that cruise with his family and a member of coming off in the same that might be the best product he's ever seen anywhere as far as just totally creative experience for people in such a short period of time the island offered a very different experience that guests generally couldn't find anywhere else on any other Cruise Line it offered fun activities for guests like parasailing sea animal enclosures sand bars gift shops and long secluded beaches around 15 to 20 buildings made up the facility and additionally included a theater and a buffet the name of this place was treasure key or K it depends on how you pronounce it they were also equipped with their own ferries to tender guests to and from the ship as well as their own trams which would drive guests to other sides of the island for additional beach access Disney characters would roam around the island taking pictures with guests and during the evening the beaches would be lit with torches and guests would even have the option to be able to camp out on the beach overnight all of this sounds pretty amazing and guests absolutely loved it it was definitely a huge highlight of the cruise so why would something this great only last with the company for a few years and eventually become abandoned well first off only one of premier ships would even be able to enter the port see the channel and the turning basin was only built large enough for premier ship the starship majestic which was only about a hundred and sixty three meters long and had a beam of around 23 meters all of the other ships were just too large to safely enter the channel so the facility could only be used by one ship every four or five days initially this wasn't really a problem as the starship majestic was a specialty cruise which sailed to the Abaco Islands having the majestic be the only ship able to sail into the port made its cruises there much more special since it was the only cruise that would be able to sail into this very special private island however following the exit of premiers former CEOs things began to fall apart every once in a while you'd have weather and you couldn't get into Baker's Bay because the winds would be so strong that you couldn't get into China safely from the outside and it was always up to the captain as to whether that was the case well well the owner and I were there they knew they couldn't go any game so they can skip the island on purpose so they could go to Nashville and spend the time with their families so we had a very high percentage of getting in night over 90% as soon as we left that change because now there was nobody keeping an eye on the store and all of a sudden they started to go 80% of the time and then 70% of time and then 60% of the time and of course now people were getting a cruise to Nassau instead of a cruise to the pirate Kingdom so it was Adam and Meister was losing the revenue because he got paid every time we should come in it came into the to the harbor so after we left that's exactly what happened and and and the premier wanted to get out of that because if it went to Nassau they could get subsidies they would make money on the side and do this there was a lot of financial reasons but at the end of the day that's why I could stop the the product was always successful everybody was thrilled with it it was nothing else like it in the business and I sort of really heard when I heard that they were canceling the contract cuz I knew what had happened I knew the guys and it meant that there were good people but it was a little selfish what actually happened and it was unfortunate premiere cruise lines began intentionally skipping the island in favor of Nassau Bahamas under alleged false pretenses this was done as the contract between premier and Meister showed that if the weather would block the ship from coming into Baker's Bay more than 30 percent of the time then premier would legally be allowed to terminate the contract so really as a cost-saving tactic that's exactly what they did and by the mid-90s premier had now been sailing to NASA and left the treasure key property back with Alfred Meister really no other cruise line could take over the deal premier had left behind as the channel and turning basin were just too small for any newer ships it was also a problem that cruise ships just weren't really sailing to the Abaco Islands anymore for a premier though things got a lot worse as in 1995 Disney had ended their contract for something Disney decided they wanted to do themselves during this time Disney was searching for land that they wanted to own themselves so was the former premier property on Baker's Bay in consideration for Disney I don't show that they just they were I know they were approached because maestra flew Disney executives out to see the facility and a helicopter come on shore and see it everything goes he could have the original Disney ship the Disney magic I think it was over there first one that wasn't that big a ship so you they couldn't have brought a dredge in and made it a little bit bigger a little wider and they could brought the first Disney ship in there but I think this means idea was that you know they weren't going to be in this is for one ship they would probably build bigger newer ships later on so why invest in a place that can only take that size and I think that was I don't know this to be true this is the thing that they certainly were we're not known for thinking small they were usually known for thick paint thicker so they would say look we're gonna do this let's go and do our own from scratch and make it as big as you want and once that happened I believe that they probably had some good discussions but I doubt if there's me ever seriously thought about doing and I know they didn't ever get to an agreement that was walked away from or anything right Disney did end up purchasing an island called Gorda Kay and turned it into their own private island called castaway Key and by 1998 Disney had launched their first ship called the Disney Magic premiere quickly fell from popularity and by the year 2000 they had declared chapter 11 bankruptcy and liquidated all of their ships as for treasure king in the Bahamas well honestly after premier left the contract with the facility it was just left abandoned nothing was done to keep the facility up to standards and it really seems like following Disney's denial of acquiring it the facility had no hope of ever being used again so it was just left as it was when the starship majestic made its final voyage to the bay as tropical storms and hurricanes battered the island treasure key became increasingly destroyed and enveloped by wildlife and tropical foliage the dock that one's platform thousands of guests coming onto the island was now just pylons that jetted out into the bay it is really sad to see such a beautiful tropical paradise slowly fall into an abandoned State a place that entertained thousands was now nothing more than structures just left out in the thick forests of the island so what ended up happening to Treasure key well by 2005 it seems as though the locals on the island had begun scrapping some of the buildings for material goods by 2006 a plan was released to the public showing a massive redevelopment to the island the plan included a Golf Resort in tire gated housing project and a yacht marina and this plan would overlap the former treasurer key however the project was met with great opposition as to the environmental impact this project would have I'm the mostly untouched native forest and coral reef the development was from the discovery land company who bought more than 580 acres of private land for twenty five million dollars the company vowed to put in over one hundred and seventy five million dollars into this project and set aside land as a nature preserve despite this people on the island hated this idea however the discovery land company's project was pitched as an eco sensitive project that would be cleaning up what was already on Baker's Bay from premier and even though it wasn't really Premier who contracted the dredging further ships the almost two mile long underwater channel did have a rather large impact on the environment however it was nothing close to what Discovery Land Company had in the works this whole thing turned out to be a huge controversy with locals accusing the company of bribery and corruption and people were even selling their homes on the island due to the massive development but by 2006 construction began and by 2012 a good portion of the project was finished as for the former treasure key property well it actually remained on the island for quite a while during the initial land clearing phases of the discovery land project the majority of the buildings and docks were removed all but one large structure was left standing it wasn't until late 2014 that the remaining structures of the former property were removed for the development of a residential property so as of 2017 everything that was built on shore for premiere Cruise Lines is now gone the only remnant from the former treasure K is the underwater Channel and turning basin it still remains underwater and mostly intact and it will probably be used sometime in the future the Baker's Bay Golf and Ocean Club is a very beautiful place however it was built at the cost of the local environment which I don't really think is right I also don't really understand why you need a golf course in the Bahamas allegedly the homes on the island are becoming very difficult to and the demand for them is apparently slumping however if you want to buy one that belongs to the club you're gonna be paying anywhere from 2.8 million dollars all the way up to twelve point seven million dollars most people thought this wasn't abandoned by Disney urban legend and while there is some truth to Disney's involvement the real story behind this might be even more interesting treasure key only roughly lasted six years it sat unused and abandoned for almost twenty years before it was taken down in favor of a new elite development it's difficult to imagine that the secluded beautiful land that the property was resting on would one day be replaced by a mansion this fragment of the once powerful family Cruise Line was now only a forgotten cruise destination that most had no idea even existed I had a great conversation with Bruce Nuremberg about premiere Cruise Lines the cruise and travel industry as it is now and much much more if you want to watch the full interview I'll be putting it up on brights on film soon

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 1,394,962

Keywords: treasure cay, disney, premier, mowgli, mowglis island, bakers bay, great guana cay, bahamas, caribbean, abandoned, abandoned island, premier cruise line, bruce, abandoned 28, treasure island, discovery island, starship majestic, premire cruise, abandoned cruise line, disney world, disney cruise line, cruise line, bakers bay ocean and golf, golf club, abandined bahamas, florida, abandoned by disney, abandoned theme park, theme park, creepy, cruise lines abandoned, abandoned port

Id: VwLbxG6FBqo

Length: 16min 18sec (978 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 03 2017