Tomorrow, September 27th, is the 18th anniversary of the closing of Pleasure Island so we thought this would be a good occasion to pay our old clubbing locale a visit. As we crossed the No. 2 Bridge to the Island, our palms began to sweat and our heart began to beat a bit faster. We were coming home!Most of the PI venues were razed but three still remain. The largest is now Morimoto Asia.When Pleasure Island ruled Orlando nightlife, it was Mannequins Dance Palace.It’s a restaurant now and last night it was packed with diners.Back in the day it was home to this large rotating dance floor.It’s our position that the dance floor is still down there, now covered with this faux concrete floor. That upstairs area is now home to a private dining area for groups.As Mannequins, it was home to this amazing light wall.These pillars still remain, now painted a dark gray color.Back in time, they were this rusty orange color.This was our standing area along the dance floor. If you spotted a dancer you wanted to meet, no need to go out there. You just waited a minute and they would circle back around to you as electronic dance music played.This is about the only remnant of 70’s/80’s club 8TRAX. This was home to the downstairs entrance during Pleasure Island days. That circular area was once home to a circular staircase that went up to the club’s DJ booth and overlook area. Now it has regular stairs used by Morimoto kitchen workers.The only other former-club still standing is The Edison which is a restaurant/bar with light nightly musical entertainment.We knew it as the Adventurers Club. Unfortunately, all the other PI clubs were demolished including BET Soundstage, Rock’n’Roll Beach Club, Comedy Warehouse and club Motion.Once Disney closed Pleasure Island in 2008, they only owned and operated one remaining dance club and that was Atlantic Dance Hall at Disney’s Boardwalk Resort. And they are now closing this too with the final night being tomorrow. Ironically, the closing night is also September 27th.We knew it would be crowded for this final weekend. We walked into this!DJ Mynd (USA) was in the perch.The music, as always at ADH, old and new Top 40.“Cupid Shuffle”. Not sure were we will be able to dance to that song in the future. Guess more sail-away parties on cruises will be needed.Or “The Wobble”.We surprisingly only ran into a handful of Pleasure Islanders last night. Perhaps there will be more out tonight or for the closing tomorrow night.Atlantic Dance Hall was never a favorite of ours but we’ll miss it nonetheless. It was one of the few clubs in the Orlando area where many of the patrons wore Mouse ears. Come to think of it, it was the only club in the Orlando area where many of the patrons wore Mouse ears! We’ll miss that too.If you want to come out one last time, they are allowing free parking in the hotel parking lot tonight and tomorrow night. Just tell the guard you’re going to Atlantic Dance Hall. Admission is free too and operating hours are 8PM – 1AM. Big crowd last night and a good time was had by all.
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