The Rise & Fall of Disney’s Pleasure Island

when it comes to disney's shopping dining and recreational offerings there are a few as dare i say pleasant as disney springs it's cohesively well themed yet at the same time diverse and perfect for the entire family however this wasn't always the case and at one point in time hosted one of disney's most bizarre and off-brand ventures in the company's legacy pleasure island but to fully appreciate this adult-centric disney nightclub venue and what happened we have to go back pretty far in the disney timeline so while the journey to get to the primary topic of this episode is a bit more lengthy than usual trust me when i say it's a trip worth taking now with that being said sit back relax and let's explore the rise and fall of pleasure island and the lesser-known history of how it came to [Music] be [Music] the story begins in the 1960s right around the time walt disney was buying a property for project florida aka walt disney world you see when going over the available swamp land for epcot in the future disney parks a very particular parcel property caught his eye it was an area within reedy creek known as black lake southeast of bay lake and near highway 535 and interstate 4. but as far as why this piece of land caught his eye it's because it was literally crossed out and not to be considered for purchase this had been done by disney's legal counsel bob foster as he felt the property would take a lot of effort to acquire and with project florida not a single moment could be spared why well at the time orlando swampland was dirt cheap but disney knew that the second word got out they were the ones buying up the property this would no longer be the case so to avoid owners raising their prices exponentially disney was purchasing the florida land in complete secret for this reason only property that was easily and quickly obtainable was part of the initial acquisition plan and the acreage that was crossed out would have required far more time for negotiations but due in part to its close proximity to the freeways not to mention the two future disney parks walt disney believed it would make the ideal place for a shopping dining and entertainment center however even more than that at one point he envisioned this as a sort of urban smaller scale epcot a city of yesterday where people could live work and invest in the local economy so walt disney insisted they purchased the land anyway and as predicted the troublesome piece of property wound up delaying the entire florida project by a year thankfully this wasn't that big of an issue as by the time news did break out of who was behind the mysterious property purchases disney had already bought the desired 27 400 acres for about 5 million or just over 41 million dollars today but just as a quick fun fact after the news broke nearby property sold for upwards of 80 000 an acre and at that price the disney property would have cost a whopping 2.2 billion dollars to acquire or with inflation 18 billion 343 million 65 683 dollars and 38 cents i don't think you've mentioned the amount of money at the initial investment there's a heck of a lot that would indicate the size of this project well there was a time in my life i didn't think there was that much money by 1966 the florida project was going full speed ahead but tragedy struck with walt disney's untimely passing that december of the many ways this affected the new disney kingdom one of the most severe was putting epcot while its experimental prototype community of tomorrow on a definite hold instead the focus was placed entirely on the magic kingdom theme park so for the time being at least the piece of property that caused so much of a headache was left vacant although the body of water was changed from black lake to lake buena vista fast forward to the fall of 1971 as with the magic kingdom's grand opening right around the corner disney finally turned the rise back to the southeastern property they ultimately made the decision to go with walt's vision of a residential district however it was no longer to be the city of yesterday but the city of tomorrow the best way to describe this new endeavor was an experimental prototype community of walt disney's other far more ambitious experimental prototype community so let's call it epcor or the experimental prototype community of realistic expectations epcor would essentially be a way for disney to determine whether the idea of epcot at least in terms of the residential aspect was even feasible as they put it it was a way to gain practical experience in this new field of disney real estate with a plan to build over 2 000 housing units in the form of residential homes apartment complexes and condominiums in a way lake buena vista was to be a mirror image of the concepts and philosophies of epcot retaining the same core ideas but within a more urban and less futuristic setting here visitors of the parks and those living on property as residents could shop dine and partake in recreational activities transportation was another important factor as instead of the usual bus routes parking lots and streets lake buena vista would utilize monorails and people-mover-esque vehicle systems now follow this seems a bit over-ambitious keep in mind that disney had just finished building a city of sorts with the magic kingdom so lake buena vista city was basically an extension of this with a focus on residency when you look around at this new town they have built here in central florida it is the most imaginative and most effective piece of urban planning in america we all remember seeing years ago those slick futuristic drawings saying what the future of the american city was going to be well this is the future nobody has done it but disney construction on lake buena vista city began in 1974 and by spring of 1975 it was open to the public and if that seems like a ridiculously short turnaround time there is a good reason you see when it came to the shopping aspects of lake buena vista everything went according to plan the entire complex had a rustic seaside charm and offered plenty of vendors to spend your hard-earned cash as far as the restaurants by far the most popular was captain jack's oyster bar which offered a fantastic view of lake buena vista there was even a month where darth vader himself was autographing free posters of star wars sort of a foreshadowing of things to come much later in the disney timeline however as far as the housing and residential aspects disney only wound up building a fraction of what was part of the initial vision so what happened to the rest of the housing you might be asking where do these townhomes even go when are you finally going to get to pleasure island trust me we're getting there you see midway into construction disney made the decision to abandon the entire idea of the city of tomorrow especially when it came to the residential district the reason voting rights as disney realized that having permanent citizens also meant having the right to possibly vote against future park and property expansions and this didn't sit too well with the mouse so the housing that was built for apcor or lake buena vista city would now be used for deluxe vacation rentals and lodging for executives another victim of this directional shift was lake buena vista's public transportation as the original plans for the people mover and monorail systems were scrapped altogether and as crazy as it sounds this short-sighted decision wound up playing a significant part of pleasure island's downfall nearly three decades later but i'm getting ahead of myself club families who choose the villa hideaway adventure can settle into one of the luxurious and restful vacation village treehouse villas for fairway villas in the walt disney world resort community of lake buena vista for nearly a decade outside of additional vacation rentals and facilities the lake buena vista shopping village saw very little change this left a large portion of land undeveloped and vacant as with the city and residential aspects abandoned disney wasn't quite sure what to do with the rest of the property the first real attempt at some kind of expansion was a recreation of the california disney park's new orleans square in some ways it seems to have been envisioned as a self-contained theme park as it would have had immersive aesthetics entertainment and plenty of shopping only without traditional rides and attractions for instance although it would have featured the disneyland pirates of the caribbean facade and even the blue bayou restaurant the boat ride was nowhere to be found for that you'd have to hop on over to the magic kingdom to be disappointed oh come on there's no denying that the walt disney world version of pirates is basically a spark notes version of the original heck they even put clips of the disneyland version in the florida version's promotional film anyway this new orleans expansion never became a reality and the only real change within the early 80s was rebranding the name lake buena vista shopping village as walt disney world village fast forward to 1986 as thanks to disney's theme park presence in orlando there was a huge spike in both residents and annual visitors in fact within the span of just 15 years the population grew from 300 000 residents to over 750 000 residents but this rise in tourism and floridians led to a bit more competition for disney such as wet and wild seaworld and fun and wheels however there was one particular tour strong venue that upset the mouse the most rosie o'grady's good time emporium otherwise known as church street station all we need [Music] church street was essentially the ultimate nightlife destination and at one point quote hosted more annual visitors than anywhere else in florida patrons were simply charged for a single admission and were then given access to a wide variety of popular nightclubs for evening entertainment and bar hopping this was in stark contrast to walt disney world village which catered to families and lacked any real nighttime activities in fact surveys showed that a good portion of visitors who were staying on disney property left in the evenings to visit church street so disney felt that if anyone was to capitalize on orlando's growing nightlife scene it was them but as to how exactly they weren't quite sure enter michael eisner president of the walt disney company and frequent narrative will of yesterworld subjects hello i'm michael eiser hello i'm michael eisner hello i'm michael eisner hello i'm michael eisner hello i'm michael eisner hello i'm michael eisner hello i'm michael eisner i'm here with winnie the pooh and rabbit now for the 0.01 percent of you watching who aren't familiar with michael eisner he alongside frank wells were brought into disney in 1984. they were the first executives in the company's history to not be from within disney but the film ministry and one of their missions was to make the disney theme parks more appealing to young adults and teenagers they began to do this with attractions like captain eo and star tours at the west coast disney park in the addition of the disney mgm studios theme park in orlando so when it came to the issue of church street pulling young adults off property in the evenings what most executives saw as a problem michael eisner saw as a solution why not just offer visitors the exact same thing with a touch of disney sophistication and disney quality control as a bonus it would also give disney a chance to finally utilize something on the still mostly vacant property of lake buena vista and what was to be the name of this nightclub-centric disney venture pleasure island but not for the reason you might think a vacation on pleasure island pleasure island yes that happy land of carefree boys if you're like me you probably went most of your life assuming orlando's pleasure island was based off pinocchio's pleasure island but the true inspiration for the title was far more obscure and incredibly bizarre a fictional explorer by the name of meriwether adam pleasure now when it comes to the backstory of pleasure island and its founder it gets a little tricky as the official history was rewritten on more than one occasion there's also a ton of incredibly extensive and random anecdotes like mr pleasure's building of the world's first and only alien landing platform which was then taken over by the pleasure island philharmonic concert band for this reason the following is a condensed account of events based primarily on the original version which i mixed with a few elements that were expanded upon in the rewrites so with that being said let's take a brief deep dive into the history of pleasure island's history of pleasure island as the story goes mr pleasure was an industrialist and adventurer who in the early 1900s found himself in mexico there he began having visions of a mystical being known as the funmeister the moonface spirit of celebration though no doubt the result of some pretty intense psychedelics merryweather pleasure was compelled to follow the funmeister to a small island in central florida why well the origins of the funmeister went all the way back to the collapse of rome where he was worshipped by local barbarian tribes i swear i'm not making this up somehow the moonface spirit of celebration endured centuries later and even crossed to another continent as he was also worshiped by the seminal tribe of central florida this is why when mr pleasure arrived to the sunshine state he wound up stumbling upon a totem which just so happened to be of the funmeister the local tribe saw this discovery as a sign that he was a representative of the moon face spirit of celebration so they allowed meriwether pleasure to purchase the island in 1911 and was henceforth known as pleasure island there he began a number of industries and enterprises which were lucrative enough to allow him to indulge in his true passion exploration the weather started getting rough the tiny ship was tossed however tragically during one of his expeditions he was lost at sea so in 1941 his sons harry and stewart took over island pleasure enterprises but it turns out they were pretty awful businessmen and in 1955 they went bankrupt and the island was abandoned that same year the real-life hurricane connie decimated the fictional pleasure island with all of its buildings and infrastructure completely destroyed then in 1987 an archaeologist aka imagineer discovered pleasure island and set forth to establish a nightclub district to carry on both meriwether adam pleasure and the funmeister's legacy right over there is pleasure island or at least that will be pleasure island in the middle of next year legend has it that a sail making empire once stood here but now disney imagineers are hard at work restoring this abandoned waterfront into an adventure-filled island brimming with wondrous creations construction on pleasure island began in august of 1986 and the initial plan was to open by spring of 1988. unsurprisingly the idea of disney creating an adult-centric nightclub venue was quite the new story and everyone was eager to see just what the mouse had in store however by january of 1988 the project was over six months behind schedule and massively over budget so to speed up construction and stabilize costs major cuts had to be made to pleasure island one of them we'll touch on later but the other was to be a nautical themed underwater nightclub and restaurant called madison's dive now if the name sounds familiar it's because madison was the main character or mermaid in the movie splash and apparently michael eisner was obsessed with promoting the hit film within the theme parks this is why disney's log flume ride zippity river run was renamed as splash mountain and eisner even pushed to have madison make a cameo among the critters in fact splash was also the initial title for the water park that eventually became typhoon lagoon in terms of the pleasure island restaurant live mermaids would have swam across windows as visitors dined sort of an homage to the original submarine voyage but due to going over budget and becoming tremendously behind schedule not to mention the critical panning of the abysmal splash 2 the restaurant was cancelled oh just as another quick fun fact splash 2 was the first movie to be filmed at disney mgm studios and was so bad that it was never released on vhs or dvd in the us much like the cult classic the lottery starring bette midler pleasure island is unlike any other island you've ever visited this is an oasis of seven nightclubs restaurants and stores these aren't your average establishments welcome to clubbing disney style is this direct competition to church street station no i don't think disney ever thinks about competing with anybody fast forward to the opening of pleasure island on may 1 1989 which was initially quite the rip-roaring success but what exactly could one do with this new adult-centric disney paradise well to answer that let's take a little tour one of the more popular and interesting nighttime offerings was mannequin's dance palace which was restricted to 21 years or older here animated and live mannequins mingled with the crowd and the venue also showcased incredible sets a rotating dance floor and special effects another club was the comedy warehouse with live comedy shows to keep you laughing all evening and yes i am reading these from the original descriptions written by disney there was also the cipher rockin roller dome a rock n roller hot stop with three floors of fun featuring roller skating burgers a full bar and a band called the time pilots another venue was a club called the neon armadillo music saloon featuring young rising country music stars and though it did debut a year or so after opening there was also the pleasure island jazz company offering the very best of both traditional and contemporary jazz but what about for the kids i hear you asking after all it's not like parents could just abandon them while they bar hopped and danced the night away well actually they could which was the sole purpose behind the kid-friendly alcohol-free videopolis east a sister or brother of the dance club over at the california disney theme park one of the few experiences geared towards the entire family was superstar studios where visitors could lip-sync to their favorite hit songs and star in a video creation however by far the most elaborate intriguing and ambitious nightclub was the adventurous club i gotta tell you we just went over to the adventure club it was fabulous we got met at the door by the butler he takes us into the library where the show begins and it was hilarious it was suspenseful the adventurous club was an interesting combination of animatronics and improvisational comedy and also had a thematic tie-in to the jungle cruise but this was more than just a nightclub as it also played a part of meriwether pleasure's backstory with the various rooms containing his personal collection of books artifacts and treasures from all over the world now as a quick side note the adventurous club was part of the cuts to pleasure island mentioned earlier as it was supposed to feature miss zenobia in her fortune telling room alongside this was to be the illusions bar which would have utilized the pepper's ghost effect from the haunted mansion when it came to dining one of the most unique eateries was the fireworks factory which offered great american barbecue and quote explosive drinks in a high energy setting as far as the shopping honestly there's nothing too exciting to talk about as there were just your run-of-the-mill disney-centric merchandise stores although one exception was jessica's or as it was unofficially known jessica's lingerie shop i'm not bad i'm just drawn that way the store opened in 1990 and introduced the iconic jessica rabbit signage a 20-foot tall neon sign with the mechanical leg and moving sequence as far as the store offerings it was clearly aimed at those with an unhealthy obsession with the volumptuous rabbit lover but jessica's came and went pretty quickly as it closed its doors just a year or so after opening it was then replaced by a dick tracy souvenir shop although as you can probably imagine this was also very short-lived the jessica rabbit sign was then relocated and wound up unofficially taking the place of the funmeister as the icon of pleasure island because let's be honest the scantily clad wife of roger rabbit was far more enticing than a moonface spirit of celebration finally at the end of every night on pleasure island was a massive celebration of new year's eve as it just so happened to be the birthday of a certain merryweather adam pleasure come celebrate new year's eve tonight and every night on pleasure island an entire island featuring six nightclubs and a variety of entertainment from music and dancing to stage shows and comedy and every night is a once-in-a-lifetime new year's eve celebration that spills out onto the streets [Music] with the grand debut of disney's pleasure island came quite a few changes to lake buena vista as a whole one of these was to the walt disney world village marketplace as it simply became the disney village marketplace but the rebranding went beyond just a name change as the original aesthetics were given a disney character-centric makeover this was done to establish more synergy between the shops and the disney theme parks and those unlike buena vista now for those wondering pleasure island did in fact have a pretty significant impact on church street station but not in a good way within a matter of years attendance fell from an average of 2 million annual visitors to just over 500 000 and would continue to dwindle until the non-disney nightclub district fell into almost complete obscurity i don't think disney ever thinks about competing with anybody however before discussing the events that led to pleasure island's downfall there are two key expansions to lake buena vista we should briefly cover first one had to do with the lake buena vista townhomes and abandon residential housing as when it came to operating as a resort they were quite the sore spot for disney you see by this point there were plenty of disney resorts that were actually designed to be resorts with incredible and unique theming so visitors rarely if ever chose lake buena vista unless the others were fully booked to rectify this issue the townhomes villas and club suites were repurposed as part of a new resort known as the disney institute imagine a place where you can find something inside yourself you didn't know was there [Applause] imagine a place where you and your family can discover new ways of being together that imagined place is the disney institute the disney institute was the brainchild of michael eisner which fulfilled the burning desire of those on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation in walt disney world to spend their time in hard-earned cash taking educational courses many of which you could probably find at your local community college or in their words it was an intimate resort community with a personal touch where you could quote do just about everything or almost nothing before today i would have said no in half a second let's go cooking on our vacation no way jokes aside it did offer some pretty one-of-a-kind classes many of which were taught by skilled professionals in the industry the problem was that the average visitor assumed that in order to vacation at the resort you had to take educational courses so most vacationing families simply went to the other more clearly theme park centric resorts the institutional experiment was abandoned a few years later and the failed residential district was completely leveled but from its ashes came the saratoga springs resort and spa putting an official end to the dreams of epcor now the other expansion is much more relevant to our story as it finally made use of the rest of the vacant property on lake buena vista with the west side expansion but this was more than just a simple expansion as together with pleasure island in the disney village marketplace the entire location was rebranded as downtown disney the new downtown disney area captures the pulse of the best cities on the planet downtown disney west side sizzles with a taste of california at wolfgang puck cafe and the star-studded planet hollywood is here for the ultimate interactive adventure experience disney quest opening summer 1998. now for the sake of clarity the vast majority of downtown disney's new shops restaurants and entertainment offerings were technically part of the westside expansion the name downtown disney was just a way to unify the three districts into a single identity it was also a not so thinly veiled attempt to competing with universal studios florida as the announcement of downtown disney came just months after universal's announcement of a florida version of citywalk but now it's time to turn our attention back to pleasure island as by this point the cracks that led to its downfall had already begun to form and like a sinking ship it would take down downtown disney with it one of the more subtle detriments was the gradual abandonment of pleasure island's narrative threat and theming you see when the complex first opened in 1989 the entire backstory of meriwether pleasure was built into each restaurant shop and nightclub and i mean this literally as outside of each building was a plaque and each gave a detailed account of how the venue tied into pleasure island's bizarre history for instance the neon armadillo was originally mr pleasure's greenhouse but upon discovering a family of armadillos during its renovation the happy family of creatures were immortalized in neon hence the name neon armadillo but when the venue became the b-e-t soundstage club the backstory was lost another example was the fireworks factory as its origins were tied to the story of a stray spark from mr pleasure's pipe which caused a massive explosion so when it became the motion dance club once again the backstory was lost now obviously this was far from the achilles heel of pleasure island's downfall as let's face it these backstories were pretty inconsequential and the average visitor never even noticed or cared ironically the primary issue wasn't all that different from what ultimately killed disney quest the offerings of pleasure island simply became stagnant over time [Music] oh man look at that much like disney quest the company had failed to invest into making sure pleasure island stayed relevant and by the year 2006 most of the nightclubs were more or less relics of the 90s and early 2000s conversely you also had venues that changed its offering so often that they were in a constant state of identity crisis one example was the kids and teen-oriented videopolis east which then just a year later became the adult-only cage and then three years later became the 18 and older 8-tracks one of the few exceptions was the adventurous club as its theming was quite literally timeless so disney never had to pander to what was trendy or worry about the aesthetics becoming irrelevant but pleasure island had another detriment and this one was pretty severe as once it became nestled between the marketplace and the west side in 1997 visitors were put in a rather unpleasant situation you see in order to access the venues of pleasure island or even walk through pleasure island itself visitors still either paid for admission or had to have a disney theme park ticket however on the flip side the other two districts of downtown disney were completely free so if a visitor wanted to say get from the disney village marketplace to the west side without paying a cover charge this meant traversing a long stretch of busy parking lots and bus stops then taking a path underneath and alongside pleasure island even worse was that sometimes this walkway became way too busy forcing visitors to walk an even longer distance to and from the free parts of downtown disney ironically this problem would have been solved had disney not abandoned the plans for people mover and monorail transportation in the 70s thus in 2006 disney decided to finally rectify the issue once and for all and commenced a multi-million dollar construction memory routing project how about an entire island dedicated to club hopping pleasure island lots of great clubs all in one spot with disco r b rock and roll and comedy too there's a club to match whatever mood you're in in addition to the alternate pathways this pleasure island refresh of sorts got rid of the entire admission fee and ticket system altogether instead the nightclub simply required individual cover charges but the shops restaurants and outdoor entertainments was now open to anybody visiting downtown disney this is also in the last remnants of the original icon of pleasure island aka the fun meister went completely out the window as while the logo had changed a few years earlier the remaining signage was removed once and for all but this major renovation had a strange and hard to believe ramification downtown disney became a bit dangerous you see now that pleasure island itself was free to roam and the nightclubs more accessible to locals it began to attract a surprising amount of unsavory troublemakers pipe bombs were discovered in dumpsters on surprisingly more than one occasion drug dealers were seen roaming the walkways and there were even reports of robberies abductions and holdups in the parking lots again i am not making this up so between the already floundering nightclub attendance crime and ever-growing distance and thematic cohesion disney announced the end of pleasure island in june of 2008. the official reason given for pleasure island's closure was actually fairly candid as disney admitted that the appeal of dance clubs in general had simply begun to wear thin at this point the adventurous club is closing if it comes back again in another form i haven't heard about that but september 27 2008 was the final night of pleasure island's operation which also included the adventures club by far the most popular and beloved attraction of the entire complex soon the buildings were shattered and for two long years pleasure island remained vacant a ghost of the past with a giant question mark for its future finally in 2010 disney announced a 3.2 million renovation of the former nightclub scene in the form of hyperion wharf it was to be themed after a 20th century nautical warehouse district and promised to be much more in line with the disney brand as a whole demolition of the abandoned nightclubs alongside several shops and restaurants began in late 2010 and continued through 2011. however as work was underway for hyperion wharf something strange happened disney allowed the trademark to expire it turned out disney was struggling to find new tenants who desire to be part of this new entertainment district but the demolition process continued a year later disney announced another attempt at rebooting pleasure island but this time with the landing however this was now to be part of a much bigger project which would see a complete renovation of the west side and the marketplace as well it would also allow disney to finally unify the three separate districts into a single cohesively themed tourist destination with disney springs but this time the theme wasn't of a mystical spirit of celebration but of a natural spring that led to the establishment of a waterfront town in the 1920s so while it was definitely less fantastical it would serve as a foundation that much like the adventurous club was timeless and not prone to becoming irrelevant or outdated ladies and gentlemen welcome to disney springs the first phase of disney springs made its debut in september of 2015 and unlike pleasure island in downtown disney it seems destined to be here to stay so there you have it the true story of how what began as a prototype of epcot evolved into one of disney's most high-end and luxurious shopping dining and entertainment complexes it only took a quarter of a century to get [Music] there [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Yesterworld Entertainment

Views: 2,047,421

Keywords: Yesterworld, Yesterworld: The Rise & Fall of Disney’s Pleasure Island and the Troubled History of Downtown Disney, The History of Pleasure Island, Defunctland Pleasure Island, Disney's Pleasure Island, The History of Downtown Disney, The History of Disney Springs, The History of Lake Buena Vista, Walt Disney's EPCOT, The History of WDW, Disney WDW history, Pleasure Island History, Disney theme park history, theme park history, wdw history, Walt Disney world history

Id: LJJ09p5S5-Y

Length: 33min 10sec (1990 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 08 2021