April 4 - Rock 'n' Roll Beach Club

On this day, in 1990, the Rock 'n' Roll Beach Club began welcoming revelers at Pleasure Island in Walt Disney World. Beach Club was the first new club to appear after Pleasure Island opened its doors on May 1, 1989. Ever since Michael Eisner had taken over leadership of the Walt Disney Company several years before, he had been looking for ways to boost revenue in the parks. For Walt Disney World, an on-property, nighttime entertainment venue was high on his list. If it was more convenient for guests to stick around when the theme parks closed instead of having to travel to clubs in downtown Orlando, Disney should get a bigger percentage of their wallets. Expanding the size of the Walt Disney World Village shopping area and opening a multi-club venue right next door went a long ways toward making that dream a reality.

Image courtesy waymarking.com

When Pleasure Island opened, it contained six clubs: Videopolis East (new wave music), the Neon Armadillo (live country), the Adventurer’s Club (a quirky mix of improve comedy and set show pieces, one of my favorites), the Comedy Club (which started out with a set show but evolved into all improv), Mannequins Dance Palace (techno-trance) and the XZFR Rockin’ Rollerdrome. Yes, you read that right. A rollerdrome. Someone thought that mixing alcohol and roller skating was a good idea. Until of course the club actually opened for business. Then it became painfully obvious what a huge liability that was. The doors were rather quickly closed, the club given a cursory makeover and reopened as the Rock ‘n’ Roll Beach Club, which it would remain until closing several months before the rest of Pleasure Island in 2008. If you ever visited the Beach Club and wondered why there was a chest high wall surrounding a hardwood oval in the middle of the first floor, now you know.

Over the years several other clubs came and went with the confines of Pleasure Island. Videopolis East was renamed Cage before becoming 8Trax, featuring Seventies and Eighties music, in 1992. The Pleasure Island Jazz Company came along in 1993, showcasing live musicians, before becoming the Raglan Road Irish pub in 2005. The Neon Armadillo became the BET Soundstage in 1998, changing from country to hip-hop and R&B. The Firework’s Factory, a restaurant on the eastern edge of Pleasure Island became the Wildhorse Saloon at the same time, keeping Country music on the Island for a few more years, before ending up as Motion, a top 40 video club, in 2001.

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By the mid Aughts, though, attendance at Pleasure Island was flagging badly. Change was in the air for nightclub culture that had been thumping through the nights for almost two decades. The entrance fee for the area was the first thing to go, as each of the remaining clubs became its own venue. Plans were made to retheme Pleasure Island into a more family friendly area called Hyperion Wharf, but as the bigger plan of Disney Springs began to emerge, that never happened. On September 27, 2008, New Year’s Eve was celebrated for the last time and the Island ceased to exist. Buildings were demolished or extensively renovated starting the very next day and there are few remnants of the place left.  Which, honestly, isn’t a bad thing.

Image courtesy me

Full disclosure time: I worked in Admissions and Guest Services at Pleasure Island for over a year in the late Nineties. While I enjoyed the people I worked with, PI literally brought out the worst in guests. It wasn’t a Friday or Saturday night if someone wasn’t getting arrested and hauled off to Orange County Jail. And all I have to say to make one of my former co-workers shudder are the words Vibe Live (it was really ugly). The things I’ve seen are not sights that should be regularly occurring on Disney property. PI might have served a purpose in the beginning, by the time I came along several years later, it was already pretty seamy and it went downhill after I left. The Island’s current incarnation as the Landing area of Disney Springs still fulfills its original purpose of keeping guests on property, is still a lot of fun to go hang out in but is now, thankfully, minus the creepy parts.

March 22 - Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village

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On this day, in 1975, the Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village opened its doors for business. The Village is built on an area of land that Walt decided he wanted at the last minute. His lawyers had been trying to avoid the parcel wedged between I-4 and 535, but Walt decided it could be a prime shopping and entertainment area. The lawyers were actually winding down the land acquisition part of the Florida Project but couldn't say no to the boss and would have to spend an additional year negotiating just to get this new lot. It's taken a few decades, but the time spent was (eventually) worth it.

Image courtesy d23.com

The Village was the first Disney shopping experience not located within a theme park (the first Disney Store was still 12 years away) and was envisioned as a local shopping mall. The original offerings of the new shopping district included a Gourmet Pantry, a Bath Parlour, the Captain's Tower, It's a Small World After All Shop, the 2 R's - Read'n & Rite'n, Toys Fantastique, The Pottery Chalet and Posh Pets among various other boutique shops. Just two years later, the area got a mild theme makeover into a European boutique and was renamed the Walt Disney World Village. The Empress Lilly riverboat restaurant was also added at that time.

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When Michael Eisner became CEO, he began looking for ways to keep guests from having to go off property to find entertainment. In 1989, Pleasure Island, a night club complex, was built next to the village to do just that. In order to rebrand the whole area another name change was instituted and the village was now referred to as the Disney Village Marketplace (a name I still sometimes use without thinking). By the mid Nineties, Disney was booming and all sorts of upgrades and investments were being made all across the Florida Project, including the Marketplace area. More restaurants and shops, as well as DisneyQuest and the Cirque Du Soleil, were built on the far side of Pleasure Island in a new area called the West End. All three areas (The Disney Village Marketplace, Pleasure Island and the West End) were again rebranded under the umbrella name Downtown Disney starting in 1997. The 2001 expansion of Disneyland in California created a similar district with the same name on the West Coast.

Image courtesy tripadvisor.com

In 2013, the first major renovations to the area in 16 years were announced (there had already been some changes happening since the closing of Pleasure Island five years before). The Downtown Disney area would be doubling the number of venues it contained, be expanding into four districts and getting another new theme and name. Instead of the trendy area Downtown Disney tried to be, the new shopping district would be themed after an early twentieth century seaside resort and would be called Disney Springs. The area now includes the original (but extensively renovated and expanded) Marketplace, The Landing (the former Pleasure Island area), the West Side and Town Center (an all new area that used to encompass parking lots). Since the parking lots were turned into shops, Disney World also built its first two parking garages for guests to accommodate the space squeeze.

Image courtesy orlandoinsidervacations.com

In the four decades it's been open, the Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village has undergone enough changes to make it almost unrecognizable (although for the sharp eyed there are still a few small details that have survived). What I find marvelous about the latest iteration, is that it seems like it has finally become a destination in its own right. With multiple live music choices, a restaurant for every taste and entertainment options from bowling to a movie to renting an aquacar, a person can spend an evening breaking the bank or just stroll around, spending nothing at all. 54 years after Walt pointed to a map and began casting a vision, it's finally coming true.