Club Disney? Yes, It WAS Built- and the Unbuilt DisneyQuest

Ever heard of Club Disney? I was in one. It really happened! Anyone here remember DisneyQuest- the great indoor theme park that  was once found in Florida's Downtown Disney? It was a great stop at Walt Disney World on the days that the rain or the heat was too much. There was one planned for Disneyland as well, but it never made it off the concept art drawing boards. 

Back when the Westcot theme park (look here) was to be added to California- in the 1990s - before the suits decided the park was to be replaced buy the MUCH more financially safer and very inexpensive Disney's California Adventure, a West Coast version of the indoor gaming playground was all set up to happen. We've all heard the story before and we'll hear it again- plans change, budgets are reallocated, and priorities shift. It happened here. 

This project is not to be confused with Club Disney, the young family focused indoor entertainment center for those with kids 10 and under. One opened in Lone Tree, Colorado, just a few miles from our home. When we visited, it was a combination indoor play area and Chuck E. Cheese and Dave and Busters... enjoyable, charming, expensive, and not worth more than two hours of your time. But it was "Disney", so for this family far from both California and Florida, it was a nice little diversion. 

This new venture was long before Disney's Celebrity Sports Center from the 1960s that lasted until the early 1990s in Denver. (Yes, I had been inside exactly once. It was little more than a run down bowling alley by then. Not even sure who owned it.)

For now, both these are a piece of history. Will the ideas be resurrected again? Probably not, but you never know what could happen as the company and the U.S. economy changes over and over and over again.

(Concept art copyright The Walt Disney Company.)

Disney's Unbuilt Urban Entertainment Center

Unbuilt Disney attractions are like urban legends. They grow in scope and potential as the years go by. Some earn their reputations and actually exceed them. This category includes Imagineer Tony Baxter's unbuilt Discovery Bay for Disneyland and Marc Davis' epic Thunder Mesa which included the now legendary Western River Expedition for Florida's Magic Kingdom. Others in this realm are Beastly Kingdom at Disney's Animal Kingdom and of course Westcot, the proposed second park for Anaheim before the suits cheaped out with California Adventure 1.0. (You can find many posts on these attractions with concept art on this blog.)

Smaller projects that have been abandoned are less celebrated but perhaps carry just as big an impact had they been built. In this category we sadly find Disney's "Urban Entertainment Centers". These regional centers were designed to offer a taste of Disney parks. Just enough to get folks took to book that longer extended vacation to Walt Disney World. Imagine a building of several stories, perhaps 5-7 of them, filled with unique dining experiences, shopping aplenty, and a couple of smaller scale but still Disney quality impressive attractions. A Downtown Disney of sorts, if you will.

This very real, fairly advanced idea was discarded around 2008. Yet, as you can see from the art above, it could have been an impressive projects that would have broadened the Disney experience across the country. Perhaps the failure of Club Disney, their beautifully designed but discarded kid's entertainment center, (we had one in Denver), led the Disney suits to dropping this Urban Entertainment Center. Too bad. Would have been a great way to spend an evening.

(Art copyright The Walt Disney Company.)