Pleasure Island shut down--worth saving?

I'm a fan of Ad Club--always have been. It's right at the edge...can't they do the demo around it and just make it part of the West Side or something??!

WHAT?!?! PI is closing?!!? I had so many great nights there when I was in the Navy! I'll be they lost a big chunk of their patronage when Naval Training Station Orlando shut down. That's too bad. It was a fun place for the 20's crowd to go. Although I do agree that it didn't really fit in a Disneyscape.

I think it would be worth saving PI IF, and only IF, they went back to the original concept of an area that is "adults only". Perhaps they could revamp the kinds of club offerings they have there. But the Adventurer's Club is a "must save", even if it has to be moved elsewhere on property, IMO.

Not really a groundswell of support for PI as a whole, just the Adventurer's Club.

That's pretty consistent with "Opinion At Large" as far as I can tell.

This is kind of an old thread but I'll bump it and give my opinion.

It seems I'm in agreement with many here, that PI has been a disappointment from the beginning. Many times I've tried to give it a chance, but each time it was the same result. I finally came to the conclusion that it just wasn't my thing, and only later realized that many others shared that opinion.

I think Disney, every now and then, missteps and tries to venture into a market in which they really can't succeed. The "Night Club" genre seems to be one of them. None of the clubs, save for The Adventurers Club, ever really had that "Disney" feel for me. To say that something does or doesn't "feel Disney" is kind of an intangible thing, because Disney itself has broadened itself to cover many different forms of entertainment. PI though, from the beginning, never really hit the mark.

Good evening,

Just the Adventurer's Club, and possibly the Comedy Warehouse. The AC was the only club that made Pleasure Island unique; you could find the others in any large city. The concept of all the nightclubs in one spot was a good concept poorly executed; I think once Disney became lax in enforcing the "adults only" rules of the district, the whole idea went into the toilet. It became a hangout for teens, and unfortunately if you have a lot of bored young people in one place, you'll likely have trouble.

I also agree that with the shutting down of Pleasure Island, the general "deadness" of the Boardwalk area, and the apparent concentration on families with small children, Disney is marginalizing adults, forcing them to look to Church Street Station and Universal for fun. It's a shame.

Jim

I agree that it was a good concept, but the clubs chosen weren't necessarily the correct ones (or perhaps they were at the time, but needed sorely to be updated from time to time).

Also, if I recall, rules kept changing at PI. For a while, it was wristband for all the clubs but you had to be 21 to even enter the Island; then it was buy admission for each club separately and anyone could enter the island; then it was PI opens a little bit early for families or something like that...

It was confusing and always different! That's a problem, too.

Great point Annie. I remember this happening too, and it was frustrating. It seems like from year to year PI had different policies as far as age requirements and admission. To me, this is just another example of how Disney kept trying to tweak an idea that was bound to fail.

I do think they really need to invest some time into figuring out the "adult" thing. There's lots of stuff for adults to like now, but it wouldn't hurt to have a few things targeted at us.

Given the whole t-shirt shop business as well as ZapperZ poor review of it, I'm growing more skeptical by the minute.

I hear that City Walk has been really benefiting from the closure.

Oh really? Where did you hear that?

I noticed last week that the wrecking ball seems to have stopped short of the Adventurer's Club building - Is it possible it will survive??? We were there during the daytime, which means it wouldn't be open anyway but it made me wonder. Anyone have any further news?

I haven't heard anything--not even any rumors! I read an interview on All Ears a while ago where one of the Disney execs mentioned that ALL of the old PI would be gone

I think they're going to save some of the parts of it, maybe they're taking the components they want out before they demo the building?