"The real reason that Mickey is pulling the plug on those spotlights as well as stripping those speakers & stage lights out of "Motions" is because they're now hoping to make Pleasure Island seem that much less appealing to WDW guests. So that attendance levels will continue to drop for WDW's nighttime entertainment district."

That's just completely and totally insane!  How is this any way to run a business?  "I want to fail so I'll have an excuse to put in something I think will work better."  

MEMO TO MANAGEMENT:  You aren't losing Virgin, Cheesecake and BET because the West Side is so much more successful.  Maybe if somebody actually thought about improving or innovating instead of living on diminishing returns every year we wouldn't have this problem!  Instead we're building yet another tacky restaurant selling overpriced food with poor service and a volcano on top!  Whoop de doo!

And Jim this article frankly sucks.  You're not reporting anything people don't already know or can find out by talking to one of us cast members.  There's no real analysis or depth.  Are things really that bad up north?  Because if you want we'll get some blow-dryers and come visit.  

Don't mind me...  I'm just sad I don't get to watch the lights dancing in the sky as I get off from work anymore...

I'm disappointed to hear this, but not all that surprised considering all the other moves Disney's made at PI for the last couple of years. But hey, why spend your own company's money providing new and exciting entertainment opportunities only for adults when you can contract with other companies to open the same boring shops and restaurants that people can find elsewhere, and then let the whole shopping area get overrun with bored teenagers?    

Having all the college program kids go to Pleasure Island all the time wasn't good for it. Disney and clubs didn't make much sense in the first place. The employees can all move to other places on property pretty easily, pretty random people get placed at Pleasure Island anyways.

As some have already said, the trend has been visible for quite a while so this story is not exactly earth-shattering news. However, what IS astounding is something we've already discussed in the stories about rebuilding the bridge to Liberty Square at the MK--TIMING!

Look folks--it's about to be APRIL, which means SUMMER is en route. This is what's known as "peak season" when, no matter what you've got open, its FULL of bodies spending money. The time you shut down or refurbish or reroute parades to do rebuilds or the like is....well, JANUARY or OCTOBER, when there's less traffic and thus the reduction in potential money-spending/body-filling places is less of an impact. Because not only does reducing your capacity when your peak is coming make no economic sense, having the REPEAT visitors who come looking for their "favorite" places get there just in time to be told "Oh, sorry, you missed it--we hocked those lights and shut that place you love down to save a few bucks a few weeks ago. Too bad. Go spend money somewhere else, willya? And see you NEXT year when MORE of your favorites will be kaput! Have a Disney Day!"

This company is showing serious management malfunctionality again, which leaves everyone who dared to dream that the end of the Eisner Wars and the arrival of Lassiter and Jobs to Disney management would perhaps inspire a return to the good old days which weren't just good 'cause they were old, but were actually about QUALITY and EXCELLENCE and ONE-OF-A-KIND experiences, not shuffle-and switch and re-paint and re-brand and kill capacity at PEAK stuff like this. Its not only amateurish, it's counter-productive business-wise.

SO...if Disney is willing to be just one of MANY themed-entertainment/resort companies in the world (and especially one of several big and good ones in Florida) then I guess this is fine and dandy, but if they want to maintain their UNIQUE standing as the one that's a cut above, this kind of amateur-night antic is deadly and permanently terminal.

Once upon a time, I was talking to a very experienced hotelier who was the F&B manager of a VERY famous hotel in the heart of Beverly Hills. What we were discussing was the fact that a big hotel in San Francisco had recently "franchised out" its entire food-and-beverage operation to the Wolfgang Puck company, which gave Puck even more status but basically ended the hotel's own rep in that arena. My friend was bemoaning his huge food costs and high staff costs and the fact that he could NEVER buy a slightly lower grade of beef or a slightly less classy set of tableware or do ANYthing to slightly lower his famous place's reputation, even via the expedient of bringing in a separate operator with its own brand name. Whyfor (to use Jim-ese)???? "Because, " he said, "You can only lose your reputation once."

Well, Disney is pressing its luck in so many, many ways on this score, and has been for quite a few years now. Again, if it is CONTENT to be "just another themepark/hotel/waterpark/golfresort/familyentertainment company" in a world of very good ones, that's fine. But you can't do that for long and then say "Oh, hey, let's go back to being special again!" with a wave of a magic wand. IT just will not work.

You can only lose your reputation for excellent marketing/management ONCE too. Stunts like this PI sell-off/shutdown and the MK bridge fiaso are huge leaps down that road to oblivion...or, worse...mediocrity.

Personally, although I find the machinations a little odd, I'm fine with them shutting down PI. I love Adventurer's Club, because it's very Disney, but the rest of the clubs quite honestly always felt kinda low-rent to me. They also attracted a distinctly non-Disney element to PI.

I mean I would guess this is a decision that is NOT motivated by profit. I gotta believe selling all that high-profit booze was bringing them in more cash than some new restaurants and retail. I think they're trying to move away from something that was a bad idea in the first place ... turning a portion of Disney World into a mini-Mardi Gras.

I'm good with it. I hope they salvage the Adventurer's Club somehow (and no ... not through that cockamamy Night Kingdom idea Jim keeps propagating), but that's about it. The rest can go and I'll lose no sleep over it.

Yes, the "entertainment district" of PI is changing.  It is melding in with the other two sides of PI around it.  The remaining clubs will be interwoven with more upscale dining and drinking establishments and specialty shops.  (Think RAGLAN ROAD, for example.)

The lights being pulled out are to give the area less of a "Las Vegas" feel and more of a family friendly environment.  Consider also the upend lodgers staying at the DVC Saratoga Springs just across the water who may not be so totally happy with the folderol and lighting going on across the lagoon from where they are staying.  This, too, could be a factor in the decision.

Adventurer's Club has no worry, Comedy Warehouse has no worry.  They are two of the major money makers on the entertainment complex route. And, the money that is made from private corporations being able to buy out the AC speaks much in the budget book to the bean counters as well.  

Mannequins is expanding and will become the prime dance club of the district.  It was the club that held the largest number of guests going to it to dance, and, it makes sense to combine it's area into a larger operating base in order to provide that arena of social interaction and still allow for an expansion that will attract a wider aspect of family members, affluent spenders, and, get away from the "night-club" district aspect that had been unwieldy for WDW to handle...especially in the last few years with the escalated bad press of crime and social friction that has been reported from there.  Add to the meld that Universal has City Walk a few miles away, and, that City Walk has the clubs and lounges that pull the demographic that once graced Pleasure Island, well, Disney has had to re-think their "high impact entertainment district" into more of a upscale entertainment district that better aligns with the "family friendly" image the mouse is known for.

By the way, as for the "Night Kingdom" - again, the best bet is to keep watching the Animal Kingdom expand out into a secondary entrance area to have it happen.  That concept of "North by Northwest" from the Magic Kingdom is too soggy...literally...the ground is a marsh out that-a-way and is protected under an environmental act that is written in such a way that it will take an arm and a leg off a secondary Disney animated character to afford reclaiming.  Consider also the thought that the cost of transporting wildlife to and from the one park designed for maintaining that wildlife, and, the park that such wildlife has ecologically and emotionally adapted to....that transport on a daily basis would be a real shaker to the creature's mental and emotional state.  

Just some thoughts....

When I walked into Pleasure Island, I was immediately brought out of my "Magic Disney Induced Fog" and sucked down to reality...NOT what I go to Disney for. It was loud, obnoxious and tacky and it had no place in my Disney vacation. I walked through and out and never returned. Lock it up, tear it down and sell off all the tackiness to Universal, where it belongs.

The BIG disadvantage that WDW has over most of the rest of the Walt Disney Company, is that WDW is NORMALLY a "once in a lifetime" opportunity for MOST people. So if someone goes to PI and some club that was there last year is not there, they won't know nor will they care.

We as Disney fans need to step outside of our "Disney box" and realize that MOST people don't "do" Disney like we "do" Disney.

I think the company has legitimate reasons for making the changes that they are doing, but the way they are handeling it seems unfair.

I hate companies who demand loyalty and hard work but care enough tho inform the people that it most effects what is going on. The Cast Members of PI have a right to know what is going on to thier park and the specific bulding they work in. I thought Disney was beter tan that.

{I wish we could go back and edit the typos we make here.  How about adding that function !}

It should read and "DON"T care enough to inform....." ALso it should state that "I thought Disney was BETTER THAN that." Sorry!

I concur with the notion that PI would not be missed. It is so non-Disney anyhow.

I blame Pressler.  No.  Wait, he's gone.  I blame Eisner.  Oh, no.  He's gone too.

Gee.  Who else....um....I blame Barry Braverman!  Yeah.  That's it.  Oh.

But, hey, Roy Disney certainly wouldn't allow this if he were back at the company!  Oh...

But certainly now that Steve Jobs and John Lassiter is there, this sort of thing won't happen!  

Hmmm....

Perhaps maligning these people for the sort of thing that's still going on years after they have left was not the most appropriate thing.

Perhaps acting as if these others are somehow going to be some sort of godsend for Disney freak cases is not, either.

Perhaps they're all the same, and they will all continue to be the same.  When Iger and Rasulo and whoever else gets replaced, it will be by people who all do the same things anyway.

Trying to foist every bad thing that ever happened onto Eisner and Pressler was the height of idiocy.  Claiming they were some evil duo out to destroy everything seems kind of silly now.  At least to people who actually want to think about these things.

I realize that may make some people's brain ache, but the fact is that since the BAD BAD people went away, almost nothing has changed.  Nothing probably will change, either.

Let's take this really slow so everyone can understand, shall we?

Companies have cultures.

They are set by leaders.

When leaders make massive changes in those cultures, they do not magically vaporize and change just because those leaders leave. This is doubly true when those former leaders were in charge for a LONG time and made MAJOR changes.

The people they hired...and the people they hired...and so on down the chain of attitude/command remain. And so do the cultural changes and attitudes they left behind.

It takes HARD work to turn company cultures around, and it takes time. No sensible person thinks it's easy or quick. All sensible people have patience with this reality, but all sensible people look for signs of progress--or the lack of it--to judge how well or how poorly that process is going.

The even more difficult part about THIS company's culture is that, by chance or genius or just plain hard work, they got it RIGHT right from the start. When your origins are so essentially right-on, the urge to "innovate" and "modernize" and "change with the times" for its own sake is a deadly process because when you start out RIGHT, movement away from your roots is, by its nature, LESS right and oftentimes disasterously wrong. That goes for corporate cultures, national cultures, all kinds of cultures all over.

I, for one, believe that the Walt Disney Company, I'm sure for what those former leaders THOUGHT was good reason and with what they FELT were good intentions, headed down a very, very wrong path several years ago and that it was not only detrimental to their creative output but to their potential as a business, too. You cannot divorce one from the other when your business IS creativity. I respect and revere the Disney culture that Walt, quite instinctively and without any formal intent I'm sure, established NOT because it was "WWWD" gospel or even because he was, after all, THE Walt Disney of "The Walt Disney Company"...but because it just plain WORKED. It created the most massive, concentrated, and utterly unique sustained output of entertainment greatness that, arguably, has ever been done by human beings on planet earth.

It seems to me that before you radically mess with something that effective, you probably should park your ego and reexamine your methods and that, when you DON'T do that and things in that successful, effective culture get seriously deranged, sooner or later you have to expect the audience to...NOTICE.

No sensible person expected an instant transformation back to what used to be the guiding principles of this once truly-innovative company, but all I'm saying (and others are too) is that these examples of managemental incompetence and foolishness such as this PI story and the one about the bridge only point out in their small-but-indicative ways that the hoped-for changes BACK to a more competent, creative, and traditionally-Disney corporate culture are NOT happening yet or, at least, that there are enough holdover-thinking folks in charge to show that the road ahead that we hope the new folks want to take is long, difficult, and that there are no signs of real progress and many of failure so far.

The point of noting these indicators is to say to the people with good intentions who want to fix what's broken that they're not even close to being there yet, and that fixing these relatively small breakdowns in the process one by one is the way to accumulate momentum that can change the bad direction the larger ship has been steaming along in for a long time.....before they wake up one day to find they're even further away from their destination instead of closer to it.

It is not about the "BAD BAD people" or the "Good" people. Its about the bad, bad RESULTS that are STILL happening because the "good" people haven't had enough positive effect yet. And if it really bothers you to have that pointed out or if you're really so cynical as to say "Nothing probably will change, either" then...why do you give a damn at all? Go to Six Flags and ride coasters and fuggedaboudit.

Or maybe, just maybe, it is your own "culture" that needs examination, exploration, and fixing, too.

When Eisner came in, he turned around company culture almost immediately.  

He's been gone for years.  Pressler has been gone for more years.

Not only are they not going back to the way things once were, but their incompetence has been accelerating.  

Stupid stuff like this should not be happening, period.  

Couldn't agree more with your last comment JohnWayne.

I loved Pleasure Island. When I lived in Orlando, my husband and I went nearly every week--we could have dinner at Raglan Road or Fulton's, see a band at the House of Blues, and then go dancing at Rock and Roll Beach Club. I loved being able to park once and walk to dinner, to a movie or show, and then to go dancing.

We recently returned to Orlando on a vacation to see family. The grandparents offered to keep our daughter for a night so my husband and I could go to PI, and we were excited to be able to do dinner, a movie and then the Beach Club. Then we heard that the Beach Club closed, and, well, there are lots of places in Orlando to see a movie and have dinner, so there was really no point in going.

We are in our late 30s, and we really enjoyed the bands and 80s/90s music of RRBC. We're too young for disco at 8Trax, don't care for the electronica at Mannequins', and I wouldn't go to Motion if you paid me. I've been to Adventurer's Club several times, and the act has lost its charm. Comedy Warehouse is a lot of waiting for not much entertainment. I don't really enjoy shopping for t-shirts, and I despise Cirque du Soleil.  

We were planning to take our daughter to WDW, but now that there's nothing adult for us to do in the evenings without leaving the property, we likely won't take her until she's much older. Then we can do parks together in the evening.

The demise of PI makes me so sad. It was my favorite thing about WDW. I'm not really motivated to go back since it's gone.

I kinda don't understand the characterization of this as "incompetence" ... can someone explain better to me why they're looking negatively upon management for this change?

Is it simply the way it's being handled? If so, then I guess I can agree with that. It seems a little bumbling, what with the whole "Let's set things up to fail so we can justify what we wanted to do in the first place" thing ... that's pretty irritating. Also, the lack of respect for the CM's is disturbing.

But the change itself ... I can't see how anyone would have an issue with Disney choosing to move PI in this direction. You might not personally LIKE the change, but it certainly (in my opinion) isn't indicative of any kind of bad decision making on management's part.

I COMPLETELY agree with JohnWayne AND Pickstar.

Again another disadvantage of WDW is that John Lassiter, Bob Iger and MOST of Imagineering live on the West Coast closest to DL and John (and Tony Baxter and Dick Cook, etc etc) used to work at DL NOT WDW. So John and Co are going to care ALOT more about what happens at DL. They are going to focus their time and energy on DL. They have little to no emotional connection to WDW. Alot of these changes that they have to push through take a lot of political capital, time and energy. Why spend that on a place that they don't care that much about? (especially on PI!)

Plus Rasulo is STILL THERE. He is one of the old hold outs. And a lot of his chief lieutenants are in KEY management positions.

OK, fine.  And when Rasulo goes, and stuff like this still happens, what name will you pin it on then?

With all respect and thanks for the kind words, jedited, I do not think the physical proximity of Disney brass to Disneyland is an issue at all. If I believed that, I'd suspect that Lassiter was more concerned about his Pixar movies' boxoffice in northern California near Pixar's base than he was the returns in NYC or Hong Kong or anywhere. Disney is a GLOBAL company and the bosses know that as wonderful and classic as Disneyland is, it is an utterly different market and part of the revenue structure of the company as a whole than WDW is.

That being said, the "crowds" at DL and WDW are markedly different. I once heard Mike Eisner speak to this (at the opening events surrounding the original "Fantasmic!" premiere at Disneyland, btw) and how 80% of SoCal's business is LOCAL people returning, whereas 80% of WDW business is out-of-state folks, and what a problem that was for them in designing things to match both constituencies. If you look at that "problem" you see that the fact that PI drew a lot of locals was, in their way of thinking, a GOOD thing because it "evened out" that average and counted for a lot of local repeat business that, frankly, didn't spend money that day on a park ticket or a hotel. In a similar way, Downtown Disney in the DL/DCA Revamp version has been pitched to local audiences for dining, the movie theaters, and especially the entertainment venues like House of Blues.

And jonvn. When people in particular go away, their cultural ripples in the overall company ocean do not instantly depart with them. They set patterns, as my prior post pointed out. Its not about "pin it on" any particular, well, you should pardon the expression "Disney Villain"--Corporate variety. Its about top folks either making a clean sweep and announcing and ENFORCING a new way of thinking (see Jack Welch's tenure at GE for a good example and read his books for the why's and wherefores of how he did it) or they make the big splash and then forget to follow through because new projects are sexier than fixing the old stuff. That is, I sadly suspect, what's happening at Disney now and when I see events/episodes like these we're discussing it only reinforces that opinion.

New stuff is always more fun and always easier to get funded than fixing the old---look at the discussions in the wake of the tragic bridge collapse last summer about how funding projects for new subways, freeways, and bridges were actively pursued by local and national pols even while ongoing maintenance funding for existing projects which were "unsexy" and, for example, couldn't be "named" for the politician or his/her benefactors, went wanting. Same concept here. And sadly, sometimes the innovative and creative people like Lasseter are great with ideas and not so great with the bureaucracy and daily dilligence needed to initiate this kind of corporate sea-change. It isn't quick, it isn't easy, and it isn't done in a day....but recent evidence says it isn't happening much at all and the Disney theme park decision-making system is decaying because of it.

Its not about personalities--its about process.

I always enjoy reading people's feedback on this website, and I agree with the comments concerning the CM's being in the dark about executive decisions.  Of course, Disney won't say anything about PI's future because it's hard to staff all the operations on-property NOW.  If Disney announced that more of PI would be closing in a few months or a year, who would stay?  And who would want to be hired for a temporary amount of time to take the old staff's place?  So the company will keep their silence, much to the disadvantage of faithful employees who deserve more.

On to Pleasure Island.  Based on my recent past experiences of going to Walt Disney World and seeing who has been going to PI, I would venture to guess that most GUESTS staying for vacation at WDW are NOT the ones going to PI.  It seems that mostly 20-somethings go to PI, and frankly, it seems to have become a "meat market" of sorts.  The immodesty, the lack of manners, and the fact that many arrive in vehicles with the music playing loudly, and showing no respect for pedestrians, etc. makes me avoid this part of Downtown Disney each time I go.  And this comment is coming from someone in my 20's... but I have moved past this stage in my life.  Frankly, even if I had a wife or went to Disney with a friend, I would not want to go in danceclubs with this particular crowd.

So the question is, who does Pleasure Island mostly serve?  Since it is so expensive for parents to get a babysitting service at WDW, I don't think that many young parents are going to the nightclubs.  Those in their 60's and 70's aren't going to the clubs (at least, not the ones that are closing).  PI has become a hangout spot for Orlando teens and young adults.

So I have NO problem with Disney's management deciding to close PI.  The crime, robbery, etc. has been getting out of hand.  The tackiness, debauchery, and general nature of the crowd makes me think twice about safety.  I go to WDW to escape from Realityland for a week... and not to experience a live-action fight or drive-by shooting event that will appear on the nightly news.  There are plenty of other adult ways to have fun at Walt Disney World.  Go to the Boardwalk and discover the ESPN Club, the Atlantic Dance Club, and the dueling pianos bar.  Dine at one of the nice restaurants found anywhere on the property.  Take in the World Showcase at Epcot.

Other than the Adventurers Club (which would probably get more attendance if prospective customers were not turned off by the usual crowd that they see entering PI), there's nothing distinctively Disney about Pleasure Island.  In the end, I hope that the Adventurers Club will either remain, or be made better with the emergence of Disney's Night Kingdom.  Let's hope that the Imagineers and not the bean-counters win out on what DNK will ultimately look like.  Only time will tell.  But I won't miss Pleasure Island.

"Despise Cirque du Soleil"????

I kind of understand "don't like" BUT "despise"??

Has one of the animals (they don't have!) ever bitten you, scutterbup?

I'd HATE to hear that!  LOL!

It's LASSETER, folks, LASSETER!

I "despise" Lassiter!

LOL!

I don't despise either or really anyone much. But I can see that while Cirque du Soleil was once a novel and unique inspiration, its multiplication over the years and the inevitable dilution of talent and inspiration that causes sometimes makes it more of a "Cirque Du So-so" to some. (smile)

JohnWayne, are you arguing that Pleasure Island shouldn't have clubs shut down during the summer? That doesn't make sense. Progress is better than having stagnant clubs that Disney doesn't even want to run anymore, and they aren't being closed down because of their success. If Mannequins is really the only club left I don't know how much it will appeal to everyone, it is the "gay" club.

I'm arguing that having a huge chunk of what is advertised to all who made reservations as a "major part of the fun" at WDW at night undergoing rehab or, worse, empty and dark or boarded over is (a) bad mood making (b) bad marketing and (c) bad planning. The issue isn't whether another type of venue there woudl be MORE profit-making, nor is anyone saying the existing offerings are EMPTY. They seem to be saying, "We think we can do better but we're not sure with what so let's shut off the lights and hope nobody shows up so we can make our little inside-the-company political point and meanwhile not only disappoint guests during our peak season but limit our ability to take their money, too."

That's dumb. Period. And bad management.

So yes, I'm arguing they shouldn't have PI shut down during the peak summer season, and yes, it makes perfect sense. What doesn't is planning so poorly that this action, EVEN IF it leads to better venues someday down the line, happens during a time when guests are flooding WDW and when cutting your capacity to serve them and take their money is downright stupid.

In closing, and just to further make the point that this is a lesson Disney has known and learned in the past but for some reason has really dumb corporate cultural "amnesia" about now, I will recall an episode related by Van Arsdale France about the first "good" summer when Disneyland had finally hit its stride. Although you hear all the stories about how the "traditional" and experienced themepark/amusement "pros" had dissed Walt and been more or less left out of things, Van tells about the one they DID hire and who WAS involved walking around that August with him and how the long, hot lines full of people at every attraction caused Van to say "Wow, we're doing GREAT today, aren't we!" almost in relief after the early-days difficulties at the park. The pro said, "No, you're doing badly today." WHYFOR? Because, he explained, all those people standing in lines for hours were NOT spending money and UNABLE to spend--the park needed MORE attractions and thus a higher hourly capacity to shorten those lines and turn over the ticket use more.

Get the point about sense now? And about how badly the current managemen not only hasn't got any doing this but has LOST what it used to have when its corporate culture had a memory? If you learn a lesson in the 1950's and still don't know how to follow it in 2008, would you call that "making sense" honestly?

I don't.

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Jim Hill talks about the real reason WDW's night club complex is shuttering. Which is Mickey's desire to create a seamless Guest experience for all those shopping & dining at Downtown Disney