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| Sailing onboard the brand new cruise ship MSC Virtuosa and dropping by Starship Club. |
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| There are human bartenders here (far right) and one very unhuman bartender (left)! |
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| Rob the Robot (I) |
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| You place your order from a kiosk and pay with your cruise card and then watch him make it for you! Pretty much any combination including non-alcoholic is available and he delivers it to you in a take home souvenir glass. |
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| At Starship Club, a good time is had by all. |
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| Per the request of many, will be posting some trip updates throughout this week's journey. This picture was taken at Paris - Charles de Gaulle Airport on Thursday, getting ready to depart for Dubai. |
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| Service on this route operated daily with an Air France Boeing 777-300. |
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| After departing Paris and crossing the Alps above Slovenia, the plane flew over Greece and then directly into the Levant. The routing here was over Israel, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. Those four are countries not yet visited and flying over them doesn't count. |
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| And then straight down the Persian Gulf into Dubai. |
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| Midnight landing into DXB with the Burj Khalifa pointing into the sky downtown. |
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| Passing the Burj Khalifa on Friday morning. Spending the morning trying to obtain a Covid-19 PCR test. |
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| Needing the test to be able to board my cruise ship on Saturday. There is a testing centre promising results in less than 24-hours here at the huge Mall of the Emirates. They delivered! |
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| Transportation Friday via the Dubai Metro. |
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| Let's remind ourselves of what our beloved Mannequins looked like 10 years ago this month, December, 2011. On top of the building, the Pleasure Island sign continued to shine brightly every night. |
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| Out front along Hub Street, people walked by and probably wondered what all the fuss was about. |
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| The famous Mannequins marquee remained boldly above the doorway, even though it had been plucked of the word "Mannequins" a year earlier during the so-called PI Putsch. |
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| Around the side facing "The Waterfront", the Mannequins garage door reminded one of so many crowded events inside that they had to open it for extra ventilation! |
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| And just over the No. 2 Bridge from the parking lot, railroad car ticket booths remained even though they had been disconnected from reality. (For our younger readers, that black thing towards the left lower corner is something we used to call a "pay phone".) |
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| FRIDAY DEC 3 |
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| SATURDAY DEC 4 |
DJ Charlotte de Witte (B) The Vanguard Minimal Techno
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| SATURDAY DEC 4 |
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| The year was 2012 or nearly 4 years after Adventurers Club closed, the front was blocked off to deter picture-taking and peering inside to see the destruction that had occurred. One of our Blog readers "Frank" had obtained photos of the inside though and shared them with Save Pleasure Island. |
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| Not surprisingly, most of the club's artifacts had been removed. |
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| The Zeus (aka King Triton) statue remained in the downstairs salon, a black cape draped over his right shoulder and down his back. One can see the considerable damage caused to the walls from the removal of the hundreds of historical artifacts that once hung there. |
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| Our beloved Colonel's wood cabinetry, both above and below where he used to appear, gone. A toast to the Colonel. |
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| Further inside, Babylonia surprisingly still remained on the wall! If they were removing everything, why would they leave these two items? Very odd. |
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| Looking a bit more to the left, we could better see the stairs to the upper foyer. Little did anyone know that a decade later, that staircase remains in place as part of The Edison. |
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| KingBob is off again on one of his trips, this time to the Middle East. Because of the time differences, Blog articles
may appear at odd times compared to normal. Just keep checking back for
our next posting. We'll have a few Club Reports along the journey plus
some destination Trip Reports we think you'll find interesting. For those that know your IATA airport codes, the following 6 flight segments are planned: MCO-JFK DL |
DXB-AMS KL
AMS-BOS DL
BOS-MCO DL
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| Besides the music itself, the highlight of last night's Pleasure Island Rewind was this panel discussion by four former Adventurers Club castmembers. All the Rewind pictures can be found on our sister website Orlando Entertainment News here. |
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| DJ Scott King (USA) was playing at Atlantic Dance Hall last night so we HAD to go! All Friday night pictures can be found on our sister website Orlando Entertainment News here. |
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| The House of Mouse Expo is taking place this weekend at the Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista South hotel in Kissimmee. But the highlight to us will be the Pleasure Island Rewind event taking place Saturday night from 7:00PM to 11:30PM ft. DJ Elliot (USA). It will include segments of music from each Pleasure Island club and it's our understanding that there will be live Adventurers Club and Comedy Warehouse skits performed by original castmembers! Admission to the Rewind is separate from admission to the expo. Advance tickets here. |
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| WEDNESDAY NOV 24 (TONIGHT) |
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| WEDNESDAY NOV 24 (TONIGHT) |
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| WEDNESDAY NOV 24 (TONIGHT) |
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| WEDNESDAY NOV 24 (BEGINS MIDNIGHT TONIGHT) |
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| FRIDAY NOV 26 |
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| FRIDAY NOV 26 |
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| FRIDAY NOV 26 |
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| FRIDAY NOV 26 |
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| SATURDAY NOV 27 |
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| After a gap last year due to covid19, the famed AAHZ Reunion returns tomorrow night at The Beacham in downtown Orlando. The lineup includes Kimball Collins (USA), Baby Anne (USA), Dave Cannalte (USA) and DJ Icey (USA). The show begins at 9PM. The VIP/Balcony is sold out but floor tickets still remain here: https://www.aahzarmy.com/ |
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| Let's cross this bridge one more time to beautiful Pleasure Island to see where our clubs once stood and to see what's there now . |
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| Immediately after crossing the bridge brings us to West End Plaza and immediately to the left is the spot once occupied by a bathroom complex followed by Hip Hop club BET Soundstage. Both were razed and replaced with this art deco, aviation-themed building home to a pizza joint and another Italian restaurant. |
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| It is followed on the left by The Edison which is located in a heavily renovated building that once housed the famed Adventurers Club. When you're inside you can definitely see traces of what once was. |
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| After crossing the bridge but looking to your right, Comedy Warehouse was set back there but it was razed as well. New construction is a bit closer to the walkway now and home to steak house STK. |
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| Continuing down the sloping Hill Street, we come to the intersection known as The Hub and this was home on the left to Rock'N'Roll Beach Club. It was completely demolished and replaced with the Pleasure Island water taxi landing, Jock Lindsey's Hanger Bar and an outdoor music venue called the Waterview Stage. Of course RRBC was home to live Rock bands. |
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| The Boathouse restaurant is located in an area that at one time was the "end" of this area of Pleasure Island and was home to Top 40 club Motion. The building was completely demolished. Of course the pathway no longer ends here as the so-called Motion corridor now allows pedestrian traffic to traverse the Island. |
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| Our favorite club was electronic dance music-themed Mannequins Dance Palace and it was located here across from the No. 2 Bridge. Home to one of the world's only revolving dance floors, we always felt the space was too huge to be anything but what it was. Following heavy renovations though, Morimoto Asia has filled the spot and has been a huge success. Mannequins fans can currently go inside and definitely feel like they're in MDP, from the pillars to the light wall to the DJ booth. And it is remains our position that the former revolving floor is still down there beneath the faux-raised floor panels! |
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| The rear of Morimoto runs into what was once 70's/80's club 8TRAX. But the steel look of the building remains including that round section where the circular staircase was the quick secret way to the DJ booth which overlooked the dance floor below. Long live Pleasure Island! |
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| A b2b set from DJ Wheats (GB) and DJ Latmun (GB) was the highlight of downtown last night and our sister website Orlando Entertainment News was there to photograph it. Saturday pics can be found here. |
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| One of the highlights of Friday night downtown was getting to see DJ Mark Knight (GB) live after a gap of 5 years. Lots of club pics are on our sister website Orlando Entertainment News here. |
