There are plenty of people out there that hated
Pleasure Island and were glad to see it shuttered. Those are the same people who without the benefit of access to
Disney's accounting books are quick to tell you that
Pleasure Island was an expensive operation and lost money every year. So to them it only made sense that leasing the club spaces to outsourced shops and restaurants was justified and would be far more profitable. As we approach the 5 year anniversary of the clubs closing, one only needs to walk around
PI to see all the success!
Of course
Disney knew that by closing
Pleasure Island that they would lose most of the evening entertainment dollars of their adult guests. They decided that they were willing to give that up. And they even knew that most of those lost entertainment dollars would be going to their biggest competitor,
Universal's CityWalk. And they were still willing to do that. But their analysis was flawed. It was a decision that has ended up costing them far more millions of dollars than they ever anticipated!
If there was any doubt about whether
Universal CityWalk would go after
Disney's adult guests, that doubt was erased on August 8, 2008 when
CityWalk included advertising stickers in the
Orlando Sentinel that could be redeemed for a free
CityWalk Party Pass.
Uni was going after locals with this offer because it was only included in home delivery editions of the paper, not in newstand editions. They repeated the stickers on August 15th and September 5th. And things got even wilder when
Universal announced, just 3 days before
Pleasure Island's "final night", that they would honor
Pleasure Island Annual Passes through March 31, 2009. "Bring us your
PI AP and we'll give you a
CityWalk AP!"
Pleasure Island and
CityWalk were / are similar beasts. Both had / have shops, restaurants.....and multiple dance clubs. Both drew / draw similar crowds at night. One can argue about which was better but that's not the point. Anyone thinking
PI was a money-loser would have to think
CW was a money-loser too. Of course neither were money-losers. Both were profitable and with
PI closed,
CityWalk began raking it in! I can remember asking management at
CityWalk what it was like not having any competition from
Disney. He never answered my question but the huge shit-eating grin he gave me answered it anyway.
CityWalk was not only more profitable than ever, they were rolling in money!
And that's where
Disney's horrible miscalculation came into play. I had questioned
CW management about why none of these profits were ever being put back into the clubs.
The Groove in 2008/2009 was nearly exactly the same as it was when I visited it several times around 2000/2001. The answer, as it turned out, was that
Universal was using
CityWalk's profits to fund something called
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!
And that is how
Disney has lost more millions of dollars than they ever expected. They knew and were willing to give up
Pleasure Island's revenue. They knew and were willing to give up
Pleasure Island's profits. But what they didn't anticipate was by freely giving all that money to their arch rival, that the arch rival would use the money to fund something so fantastic that it's caused many
Disney guests to spend 1-2 days of their 7-day vacation at
Universal instead of at
Disney! And that is the $Millions that
Disney has lost forever and continues to lose. All because they closed
Pleasure Island!
