Petition to save Disney World's Adventurer's Club
Oh no! Walt Disney World's Adventurer's Club -- a wonderfully eccentric nightclub/cabaret that features "on stage" character actors as well as remote-controlled robotic masks, puppets, instruments, stools, and other gags that interact with the guests -- is scheduled to close!
The Adventurer's Club is hands-down the coolest and most interesting attraction at Disney World, but it resides in the otherwise drab and uninteresting Pleasure Island nightclub district, which is going to shut down, and take the Adventurer's Club with it.
A group of Club fans is circulating an online petition. I'm not sure it'll do any good, but I've signed it.
Link
The Adventurers Club has no equal. It is a unique treasure at Walt Disney World and does not deserve to be lumped into the same category as the other "night clubs" on Pleasure Island. We humbly request that it be allowed to stay open, even if it needs to be moved, refurbished, updated, and/or more heavily advertised. A lot of people do not know what this club is all about, but those that do find it a highlight of their trip.
the latest
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There is a rumor going around that the Adventurer's Club will be moved to the new 'Night Kingdom', which is basically Pleasure Island. However, the AC will be placed right in the entrance so that everyone entering the park will have to walk through it.
Can't they just leave the damn AC alone?
Sigh. Currently there are 10 times the signatures on the "Save Netflix Profiles" petition. Do people have no sense of meaning?
The Adventurer's Club would be more popular if it were possible to enter it without dodging the lethal boobytraps and evading the poison arrows and swinging stone hammers.
The rumor that Pleasure Island's shutting down has come and gone for the last few years, but Disney's always said that the Adventurer's Club is so popular that they had no intentions of shutting it down. Has that officially changed?
If word came that it was closing, I'd immediately schedule a trip to fly down there for one last Kungaloosh.
I still find the name "Please Island" hilarious. It's almost as if the people who named it weren't even aware there was a pornography industry.
So what IS the Adventurer's club all about anyhow? I've only been to pleasure island once, and wasn't impressed enough to ever return. Is this another dance club? Is it worth visiting for someone who doesn't like to dance?
Ah, I see -- it's official this time.
According to the Pleasure Island FAQ:
"By September 28, 2008, all of the nightclubs on Pleasure Island will close. It will be last call for the last time at 8 Trax, The Adventurer's Club, Mannequins™ Dance Palace, BET Sound-Stage™ Club, Motion and The Comedy Warehouse."
They're replacing the nightclubs with outsourced restaurants.
Annual passholders get to play a round of golf instead.
Great. Thanks for shutting down the single most creative attraction at Disney World.
Shut it down? Hell, they should expand it and franchise it...I'd rather spend an evening at a Pleasure Island by Disney anywhere than most of the dives I find myself going to when I do go out, and alot more sexually bawdy (all in good fun if purposefully questionable intent) than the overt displays of a stip joint...I'm signing, I'm signing already.
Nimicohgr: The Adventurer's Club has nothing to do with dancing. It's a immersive environment where you're surrounded by actors playing intrepid members of an Adventurer's Club circa 1930. As you sit and sip tropical drinks, they tell you stories of their adventures while African masks and sculptures on the walls come to life. It's one of the funniest, most creative environments at Disney World, and it's a real shame that most people don't even know it exists.
The Adventurer's Club should *be* Disney World. It's the only place in the park where the experience is even nominally tweaked for each participant instead of pre-scripted, literally robotic mediated experiences every 9 seconds.
Bastards.
AnnoyedCapitalist
That's exactly what I was thinking! I've never heard of this atttraction before, and the Southpark reference was all I had.
Yikes! :D
Darn. I always wanted to go to Pleasure Island when I was a teen. If they shut it down, what will I do at night if I ever take my kids to Disney?
it seems to relate to this article about a new adult only [but not like THAT] theme park, "Disney's Night Kingdom":
http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2008/02/15/night-kingdom-to-reimagine-the-disney-theme-park-going-experience.aspx
"Speaking of arriving ... Guests will enter DNK through a new, super-sized version of the Adventurers Club at Pleasure Island. "
I wish they'd move Adventurer's Club to the Boarwalk area (where the ESPNZone is).
I have no interest in disney land/world/country/planet myself, but this sounds like it would be the one thing worth seeing for me.
if you can possible get it: Vivian Stanshell's
Sir Henry at Ndidi's Kraal (1983)
Looks like Neptune is not packing anything under his "leaf" down there. Don't the kids ask questions about that? I would.
retractable - it's a Triton/Stentor thing. They don't talk about it
Disney is evil. I hope they'll close down everything .
The first time I ever ate alligator was at the Adventurer's Club, just before it opened to the public; The Club was a venue for one of the pre-opening parties. That was in, what, 1990 or something. Yeah, Pleasure Island seemed pretty bland, like a giant TGI Friday's.
It sounds like a realization of what Walt wanted Club 51 to be like.
Having lived in Orlando and worked at Disney for a number of years I can say that AC is in the absolute worst place it could possibly be. It's right next to what was once the BET club and is buried in the lights and hustle of Pleasure Island.
I hope they do move it. We always enjoyed going there but PI just wasn't the right location for this attraction. I dont ever remember going there when I wasnt drunk after going "door-to-door" to the other themed bars/clubs in PI.
AC should be experienced with full faculties intact.
dang, i KNEW i had to push my boyfriend just that much harder to go to the adventurer's club!! finally old enough and we didn't go.
now it looks like i won't be able to ever.
This stinks. Although I have been to WDW many times, I have not gone to Pleasure Island. This sounds like a place I would have loved!
I went years ago, when Worldcon was in Orlando.
My friends and I visited AC two or three times, in order to catch all the sketches. (We actually saw one of the pieces twice, the second time with the actors playing different roles!)
What a great place. The concept is too cool to let die.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WcKTaSxeJs&feature=related
Ack! Their kouros is a castrati!
The Adventurer's Club's lack of notability is because it's at Pleasure Island. Maybe it would have been a better known site, if you didn't have to pay a separate admission to get onto Pleasure Island. We were already paying for overpriced food and drinks.
The Adventurer's Club should have been in, oh I don't know, Adventure Land, though that would have spoiled it with screaming rug rats.
I'd like to see Night Kingdom include an assortment of quality themed clubs. Maybe a goth/horror club themed like the haunted mansion/tower of terror. A sci-fi club reminiscent of Quark's from DS9. A Steampunk club like the Edison in LA. Places where grownups can go to enjoy a bit of fantasy on their terms not just the kid-focused stuff everywhere else in the park.
Of course, there are videos of the Adventurer's Club on YouTube. Though I might note that the club is not JUST about songs, they're merely a part of the experience.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=adventures+club&search_type=&aq=f
While it's true that the Adventurers Club is one of the most unique experiences on Disney property, it's also true that:
a. it IS in a poor location.
b. it needs a major overhaul.
It's not designed to be a place that repeat visitors go to time and time again. The jokes begin to become stale, the actors mainly go through the motions and the script has BARELY changed in even the last 5 years of it being open.
I don't think people realize that this particular plan had been in existence for a long while. It's no surprise that the quality of Pleasure Island has gone exceedingly downhill since the Disney company decided to 're-envision' the layout of the island itself.
Inevitably, the Adventurers Club would fall victim to the changes that the company made to the island.
I would venture to say that the level of business has dropped over the last several years.
While I am not trying to create a flame war, I'm merely pointing out the reality of things.
And, yes, I have been to the Adventurers Club. In fact, I've been there many MANY times. I spent several years occupying space in the Main Salon regularly.
I'm just expressing my opinion as a person who has seen the decline of a once terrifically unique, innovative and entertaining social/entertainment venue.
If the company moves it, where in the world could it possibly fit in?? If it didn't fit at Pleasure Island, where is a better location for it??
If they don't close it entirely, it needs to be under serious consideration for an overhaul.
Criminy: I agree -- the AC has never been a high priority for Disney, and although it's by far the most popular attraction at Downtown Disney (packed to the gills every night, even in the off season), considering the large cast and crew and small floorspace, it was probably barely breaking even. If that.
It'd be much more at home at some sort of nighttime section of Animal Kingdom, or even as a sort of adjunct to Adventureland in the Magic Kingdom. Kids would love to see the talking masks and crazy antics if they did a family-friendly version of the show before 8pm.
Debra's at it again.
I've never been to AC, but it sounds quite similar to the Jekyll and Hyde Club restaurant in mid-town Manhattan [not to be confused with the similarly named, but much more regular, bar lower in Manhattan] that was launched in the early 90s. I had the chance to eat there a few times until I moved out of NYC. It was a five or so story restaurant with animated statues, paintings, and had character actors playing monsters, mad scientists, and explorers. Food was on par with most chain restaurants, but the scene was fun. I think it closed down, but I'm not sure when that happened.
Oops, posted too soon. Looks like there are a number of fairly recent reviews for the place on the web, sorry. Sounds like the food quality has gone way downhill since the mid-90s.
I stayed in a hotel right next to that whole "downtown disney" place on business once. That whole place was annoying, but the only place to eat a meal. I would have definitely checked the Adventurers Club out if I'd known it was worth even going near "Pleasure Island"!
Tell me the big dude with the spin casting rig isn't Poseidon, because his form's just embarrassingly bad.
The original statue in Athens had him identified as Zeus for decades.
I am a former actor at The Adventurers' Club (1991-1995) and can explain that Jekyll and Hyde's in NYC is, indeed, a "knock-off" of The AC. The owner of J&H used to regularly come into the AC to see what worked and happily stole some characters, jokes and ideas. In fact, after leaving the AC in 1994, a fellow actor moved to NY and was hired as an actor at J&H and eventually became Head of Entertainment when they expanded to mid-Manhattan.
It is sad that the AC and Comedy Warehouse are closing because they offered unique and personal comedy. The experience is almost undescribable. Can it be saved? Not likely. But Disney does like the squeaky voice (if you know what I mean).
So, start squeakin'!
Kungaloosh!
(and the response...Hsoolagnuk!)
Codefragment: I'd heard the same thing, and some friends and myself -- all AC fans -- visited the J&H Club last year. The theming of the space was brilliant, but the entertainment was not only sparse and poor (a crappy little toilet-humor song, then a ten minute break) but completely non-interactive. Just someone in a Halloween costume on a stage singing -- nobody talking to customers, no interactive scenery or puppet masks on the wall.
The food is ridiculously expensive. Sodas are $3 each and there are no refills.
And to add insult to boredom, they add a $10 "entertainment fee" onto your bill.
Just a question, my family and i are going to be in orlando during august and would like to vistit the adventurer's club before it closes
Do you need to purchase full admission tickets?
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We have visited the AC several times, is my husbands ULTIMATE choice for comedy clubs. Have you looked at the link someone posted above on what they will charge to get into the new Night Disney? It is $250-$300 per person - includes all non alcoholic drinks and dinner - but STILL is wayyy to expensive for us to consider being able to attend. We need to keep AC as it is and just move it where more available/visible.
Here's a creative way to spread the word:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180268745025
@thewooddwarf: You do not need an admission ticket to the parks to get into downtown Disney which is where the AC is. If you have more questions like that you can check out Walt Disney World For Grownups
Brad
Walt Disney World For Grownups