The Rise & Fall of Disney’s Pleasure Island

Explore the History of Pleasure Island, Disney's first (and only) Adult Entertainment District, as well as the troubled History & Origins of Downtown Disney (now Disney Springs), which began as an abandoned Residential Community in preparation for Walt Disney's EPCOT.

PRIMARY INFORMATIONAL / VISUAL SOURCES:

VIDEO LINKS in Order of Appearance (the rest are continued in a pinned comment & included in the end credits):

The Imagineering Story - What Would Walt Do, The Midas touch, Hit or Miss - The Walt Disney Company

[YesterworldEntertainment]

Hey all, hope you enjoy (or enjoyed) the episode! I've wanted to explore the history of Lake Buena Vista for a long, long time...as the whole 'abandoned residential community' aspect is not only incredibly fascinating, but surprisingly not covered all that much....So anchoring the entire episode around Pleasure Island (another topic I've always had an interest in covering) seemed like the perfect opportunity to dive into this vast & fascinating chapter of lesser-known Walt Disney World History. It took me a lot...and I mean a LOT longer than usual to produce, but hopefully the wait was worth it. Enjoy!

*awkward segway to additional credits*

I keep running into this issue of running out of space for proper credits in the description, so here's the rest of the internet links to videos and/or footage used in the episode:

[CreetureFeature]

I was a "cast member" at Pleasure Island for 2 years. I was a bouncer, then a barback, and finally a bartender at three different clubs. We had our fair share of celebrity guests, but the best interaction I had was with Whitney Houston, she was very personable and fun to meet. That place was INSANE in the mid nineties.

[ForeverLaxx]

He wasn't lying when he said that Disney doesn't think about competing with anyone. They think about dominating and pushing out everyone else around them. That's not really competition.

[kriscynical]

Story Time:

I took two of the adult level animation classes at The Disney Institute back in 1998. I was 14 at the time and had wanted to be a Disney animator for a few years at that point, particularly at MGM Studios. You had to be 16 to take the adult level classes by yourself, so my artistically-challenged parents took them with me because I would have been bored to tears with the children's level classes. (Let it not be said that my parents weren't willing to suffer for my dreams. 😂)

They were taught by a Disney animator who had worked on Doug among a few other things, and when I told him I wanted to be an animator he gave me a whole information packet that was basically "So you want to be a Disney animator? Here's what to do."

That packet had a list of Disney recommended art schools that they regularly recruited from, which is how I found out about Ringling in Sarasota. From then on it was my mission in life to get into Ringling, which wasn't a "pay tuition and you're in" kind of school... you had to be accepted based on your portfolio.

I got my acceptance letter in the mail on Valentine's Day 2003 and started as a freshman illustration major in the fall...

...which was exactly when Disney shut down the Florida animation studio.

I ended up going into illustration rather than animation, graduated in 2007, and I love what I do nearly 15 years later.

And it was all because of The Disney Institute.

[williamcross-wordsforhire]

Fascinating. Truth be told, I was cast as Merriweather Pleasure for the attraction's grand opening all those years ago. They actually custom-tailored a plantation suit for me to wear at the event. I was well-paid and even received an animation cell from "Pete's Dragon" as a gift for my service that night. The best part is that I had a mustache at that time and with Disney's still-in-place ban on facial hair for male cast members, they had to re-write Merriweather's back story to give him a mustache so that I didn't have to shave mine.

[GravityTrash]

There's nothing more iconic in Disney Theme Park videos than "and then came Michael Eisner"

[CinnamonGrrlErin]

It's been over 30 years, but I still remember being a salty little kid, stuck in Disney daycare while my parents went to have a child-free evening at Pleasure Island. It sounded really cool and I was so jealous lol

[jrios]

Yesterworld, Defunctland, and Offhand Disney up load within an hour of each other?! This is my personal heaven!

[Deoxys_Used_Mimic]

If the Disney of Today was in charge back then, they would’ve bought Church Street instead of competing with it.

[CarpeDonnelly]

Something you really have to appreciate about the Disney of the past is how they weren’t afraid to take giant chances, and throw enormous capitol behind those chances.

[bigmikeystyle]

amazing how this place closed about 10 years before the whole "disney adult" thing happened where grown ups with no kids were happy to spend thousands on disney trips for themselves. I wonder what business would be like now?

[melanieredding]

I miss Pleasure Island....I spent a great chunk of my life between the ages of 19 and 23 there. To this day I still can't go to Disney Springs and not call it Downtown Disney and fondly remember where each Pleasure Island Club used to be. Such great memories.... :(

[onehorseopensleigh]

For everyone saying “You have to understand your audience”: this was back when Walt Disney World advertised itself as a vacation kingdom for everyone. In contrast to the kiddie-friendly DL in California, only Florida’s Magic Kingdom focused on kids, and most of the property was targeted to adults. Fishing, horseback riding, golfing, water skiing, and dining were considered just as important as the theme parks.

The preschool-centric version of the company was predominantly created through marketing departments in the early–mid 2000s.

[Sugarsugar-]

One of the weirdest jobs I ever had was being a mermaid centerpiece for a seafood buffet party on Pleasure Island. Disney can throw one heck of a party and it was exciting to be in the entertainment opening crew of the new MGM studios as an improve actor. I had some fun gigs…made good friends. One friend was a real estate agent who sold those townhouses that caused Disney to rethink it the island. She made really good money at the time! After work, we all danced the nights away on the rotating dance floors at the Cage. It was so much fun! Thursday nights happy hour on the island had the biggest BBQ shrimp you’ve ever seen! I could go on and on but this was a really good reminder of what life was like for me in 1989-1993 at Disney. Thank you for posting

[alypialpha]

What’s sad is they made Pleasure Island to compete with a much smaller company. Then, after they ran the company out of business, they end up closing up the PI shop sometime later. The other venue looked like a lot of fun compared to Disney’s nightclubs.

[grilledcheese]

i think the weirdest thing about michael eisner wasn’t his weird business ventures or failures of theme parks or budget parks- it was his obsession with splash

[roflmows]

this is quickly becoming one of my fave channels. no stupid music, no lame jokes, just good interesting content. as a lifelong student of history, especially entertainment history, i find this stuff pure gold.

where DOES he get all this amazing old footage, documents, etc? idk but it's great.

[SoratheWonderful]

“For the .01% of you who are unfamiliar with Michael Eisner” between Defunctland and Yesterworld you will learn who he is in great detail. It’s like the saying “once upon a time”, “Disney CEO Michael Eisner”

[BTSwithCTS]

"Nah, I don't think Disney ever thinks about competing with anybody."

_Cuts to a clip of Pinocchio's nose starting to grow._

Bravo, just bravo!

[geraldobrien]

I went to Disney with my wife in 1995. It was great. We stayed at Port Orleans, and to get anywhere else in the park, there was a canal right there that lead to every section, and we were able to take boat shuttles, which was great because we were able to go to Pleasure Island, drink as much as we wanted, and not worry about driving back to our room. I liked the place. You could just hop from club to club without having to pay. The country place was real nice. We went in, and a band was already onstage performing. My memory of the rest of the clubs is a little hazy now, but I remember enjoying it, and I remember being surprised when I heard it was shutting down.