The Rise and Fall of Disney's Pleasure Island: Disney's First and Only Adult Entertainment District

Disney built an island where grown-ups could escape the family resort for a night, and the family name that filled it every evening was the one thing it could never escape. For almost twenty years, Pleasure Island at Walt Disney World rang in New Year's Eve every single night, with six themed nightclubs, fireworks, improv comedy and the legendary Adventurers Club. Built under Michael Eisner to beat downtown Orlando's Church Street Station at its own game, it helped launch careers from NSYNC to Saturday Night Live, until the family resort growing up around it turned its ticket gate into a fence. This is the rise and fall of Disney's grown-up nightlife island, from the 1989 opening to the last countdown in September 2008 and the Disney Springs that took its place. In this episode: Bob Snow, Church Street Station, and the one-ticket nightclub formula Disney set out to beat Michael Eisner, the Imagineers, and the invented legend of Merriweather Adam Pleasure The Adventurers Club, Kungaloosh, and the improv cast that included future SNL writer Paula Pell New Year's Eve every night, NSYNC's first public show, and the Simpsons joke that parodied it all How Downtown Disney, the West Side and Universal CityWalk turned the gated island into a fence The 2008 closing, the last countdown, and the fans who never stopped saying Kungaloosh From Hyperion Wharf to The Landing at Disney Springs Subscribe to Lost Vacationland for more stories of the resorts, playgrounds and good-time islands America left behind. #PleasureIsland #LostVacationland #RiseAndFall #WaltDisneyWorld #DisneySprings #AdventurersClub #DowntownDisney #DisneyHistory #OrlandoHistory #DefunctDisney