Club Reports: Vyce Lounge, Club Epic

Friday night in the city with tickets to two shows.  Beginning with Vyce Lounge on Orange Avenue, part of the V-Group of clubs that also includes Vixen, Vintage & Vanity!

Arrived around 11pm to find DJ Elias R in the small booth near the entrance.

With DJ Carlos Mendoza taking over shortly thereafter.  Both DJ's playing excellent non-commercial House sets!

A light population in the club at this early hour.

Around 12:30am DJ duo Cocodrills (USA) took over!

And they would put on their own very fast-paced House set!

And within 15-minutes the place was jammed!

They were building the vibe with music with and without vocals.

You can never go wrong with Go Go girls!

 The peeps dancing themselves into a frenzy!

Moving on though over to new Club Epic.

Finding DJ Markis in the booth playing House music!

Nice early crowd in here!

Like I said, nice crowd!

Spotted near VIP: DJ's David Ziemba and Jennifer Marley

Everyone in the club to see the legend DJ Derrick May (USA) who would be working the night off records and CD's!

And finally stepping on board the decks at 1am!

Derrick May is one of three Detroit-area DJ's known as the "Belleville Three" who are credited with inventing Techno music!  One of the others, DJ Kevin Saunderson, plays here at Epic on May 15th!

People dancing all over the place!

You can never go wrong with Go Go girls!

The master delivering a mix of Techno/House!

A good time was had by all!

SWITCH Coming To Downtown Disney

The live 80's band Switch will be playing next Saturday night March 21st at House of Blues in Downtown Disney!  Their show will run from 7pm until 11pm and is FREE.  The band has several personas and one of them is Nerd Ranger as shown below.  The HOB show will include sets by both Switch and Nerd Ranger!  If you want to assure yourself a place in the club, you can get advance tickets here and print them, also completely free!  8TRAX fans will enjoy a lot of their retro 80's music so don't miss out!  Big thanks to Blog reader Ken for alerting us to this event!

100,000 Floridians To SPI Blog!

1.		Florida	100,000	March 12, 2015
2.		California	14,317	March 12, 2015
3.		New York	13,397	March 12, 2015
4.		New Jersey	8,369	March 12, 2015
5.		Pennsylvania	7,696	March 12, 2015

PI Update: Reconnaissance Photos

It's time to take a magical balloon ride over beautiful Pleasure Island and give you a nice tour using our exclusive Save Pleasure Island Blog Skycam.

Beginning on the near western end of the Island, there is no apparent work taking place to demolish that bathroom complex on the end or renovating BET Soundstage Club into whatever it's going to become.  If anything is happening inside, it's not visible outside.

Ditto for the former Adventurers Club which we believe will be converted into The Edison Orlando.  If work is taking place inside, we can't see it.

The new back deck at Paradiso 37 is turning out to be an entire new room.  Island sources tell us that the interior is being expanded out towards the water and towards Adventurers Club.

Hanger bar is looking more and more like a huge aircraft hanger!

Sea view of the Waterview Stage outdoor amphitheater wedged between the Hanger and the Boathouse.  Have to wonder how nightly entertainment can still take place here if either of the neighboring venues will have music playing too.

Back up to the SkyCam, a nice view of The Boathouse moving rapidly towards completion.  Look for them to be operational before Memorial Day weekend.

Moving our attention back to the western end of the Island, looking down on the former West End Plaza / Celebration Plaza.  The Tunnels would be down below that blocked off area of wood panels.  On top is where Comedy Warehouse used to stand.  On the plaza itself you can see a former railroad roundhouse turntable of the defunct Sunshine Rail Line which used to operate on an elevated high line across the West Side, cross the No. 3 Bridge and apparently end here.

Looking down on Hill Street and the new bathroom complex and new shops.

Mannequins and 8TRAX becoming Morimoto Asia Restaurant.

Nothing new taking place across the Hub in this parcel where Raglan Road is supposed to be building an unspecified food venue.

No announcements or permits filed yet for this new building directly across from the Waterview Stage.

All three new retailers are open in the Motion Corridor in the former service court behind Raglan Road.  This is the place for hats, flip-flops and gluten-free baked goods.

Off the Island, the new portal to the Orange Garage is nearing completion as is the adjoining landscaping.

A SkyCam picture for our Car Park fans!

Finally, vertical construction has begun on the first of two pedestrian overpasses at the corner of Buena Vista Drive and Hotel Plaza Blvd.  Come on down and see it all for yourself!

Orlando's Milk District

It occurred to me that a lot of you may not be familiar with Orlando's Milk District which is located on East Robinson Street a couple miles east of the downtown core.

It's named after the T.G. Lee Dairy, Orlando's hometown milk brand, which is located directly across the street from several of the clubs located in the district.

Sandwich Bar typically has DJ driven music at night.  This is where Jennifer Marley played last Saturday night and we saw Kimball Collins spinning here last December!

Right next door is Spacebar.  They sometimes have bands, sometimes have EDM DJ's.  Like Sandwich Bar, it's beer & wine only, no liquor.

Further west is Sportstown, a sports bar with lots of televisions, pool tables and video games.  It's the largest venue in the district.  Sadly, no wings on the restaurant menu.

Bull & Bush is an out-of-the-way English pub with a large selection of brews and a short menu with pub grub such as fish & chips, Scotch egg and cottage pie.  In general, you'll find the venues in the Milk District laid-back and more inexpensive than their downtown counterparts.

PI Update: Hess Not For Long

This sign will be changing soon.  With last year's sale by Hess of its retail operations to the Speedway LLC, the three Hess gas stations on Disney property will soon be converting from the Hess brand to the Speedway brand.

That includes this station across from Pleasure Island, the station near Disney's Boardwalk Resort and the station on World Drive just south of Magic Kingdom.  You may recall that the stations were originally Exxon branded.

Many Hess stations around Orlando have already been rebranded to Speedway such this one on CR535 north of Disney World.  Speedway used to operate in Florida years ago but pulled out of the southeastern United States around 2002, selling all their operations to Sunoco.  Now Hess is out and Speedway is back.  Speedway itself is a brand owned by Marathon Oil Company.

PI Update: The Other Side

We really haven't seen the front side of Pleasure Island since they closed the PI parking lot and the No. 2 Bridge.

But the gate was open yesterday so it was a good opportunity to snap some pics.

The southern side of Mannequins is completely opened-up!

And you can look right into it as far as that back (north) wall.  This is being converted into Morimoto Asia Restaurant.

The 8TRAX building is still there but it too has had its south wall completely opened.  It will also be a restaurant but we don't know if it will be a separate or combined operation from what is going into Mannequins. (Click on image twice to enlarge and view the Sunshine Rail Line graphic on the building.)

The Curl by Sammy Duval building was torn down but you can see new construction it its place just to the left of 8TRAX.

We believe that building and this old railroad depot-looking building, which is directly behind the new Pleasure Island restroom complex, will be the home of the new STK upscale steakhouse.

View of the former Pleasure Island parking lot from the Blog's exclusive SkyCam.

This is the first building or series of buildings going in to the Town Center portion of the Disney Springs complex.

A view back from the other side.

Very few announcements yet on what is going into Town Center.