Downtown Disney’s Pleasure Island Problem and the Road to Disney Springs (Ep. 7)

Len Testa and Jim Hill take a walking tour through Downtown Disney in early 2012, starting on the West Side and winding their way through Pleasure Island and the Marketplace. Along the way, they look at DisneyQuest, La Nouba, Splitsville, Raglan Road, Planet Hollywood, T-Rex, BabyCakes, the LEGO Store, and the long-running challenge of getting guests to travel from one end of the complex to the other. It is a snapshot of Downtown Disney in transition, before Disney Springs reshaped the whole district, with plenty of detours into abandoned concepts, dining-plan economics, and Disney retail history.

Original Air Date: February 25, 2012
Original Title: Downtown Disney & Pleasure Island: Past, Present & Future

HIGHLIGHTS

• Len and Jim begin near Cirque du Soleil’s La Nouba and discuss Disney’s early thinking about what might eventually replace it.
• DisneyQuest gets revisited as a once-ambitious interactive entertainment concept that became more useful for rainy days and school groups than national expansion.
• The tour stops at Splitsville, where Jim weighs the odd timing of Walt Disney World suddenly moving from zero bowling venues to two.
• Pleasure Island’s closed clubs prompt a deeper look at why the Adventurers Club and Comedy Warehouse were beloved, expensive, and ultimately difficult for Disney to sustain.
• Raglan Road is singled out as a strong outside-operator model, combining table service, bar, live entertainment, retail, and quick-service-style flexibility.
• Planet Hollywood’s frantic opening gets the spotlight, including the story of Herbie dripping oil onto guests after being installed too quickly.
• T-Rex and Rainforest Cafe lead into a discussion of how the Disney Dining Plan may have pushed restaurants toward simpler, more standardized menus.
• Jim traces the Marketplace back to the original Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village, when Disney first tried arts-and-crafts retail before realizing guests mainly wanted Disney merchandise.

View transcript here.⁠

HOSTS

• Jim Hill - IG: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@JimHillMedia⁠⁠⁠⁠ | X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@JimHillMedia⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠JimHillMedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠• Len Testa - Bluesky: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@lentesta.bsky.social⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@len.testa⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠touringplans.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

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