From the Bob Barley studio in Orlando, Florida, you're listening to The Dizz Unplugged.

Hello and welcome to the Dizz Unplugged Roundtable discussion for the week of July 4, 2012.

I'm Orlando Florida, I'm your host Pete Werner, joined at the table this week by my good friends, Dustin West, Corey Martin, and our newest Dizz Unplugged correspondent, Tommy Sandvik. Welcome aboard Tommy.

Thank you.

And this episode we are going to talk about Downtown Disney, which is one of Tommy's passions when I asked him what it is about Disney that got him excited.

The first words out of his mouth were Downtown Disney, and I thought that was interesting because you don't run into a lot of Downtown Disney.

I mean, it's a place to go shop, it's a place to eat, but I just haven't heard it engender a lot of passion in people.

So that's why I thought that was kind of interesting. I mean, you have other interests too. I mean, other things about your huge Disney fan have been for years, you've been listening to the show for many years,

you've been on the site and being on podcast cruises with us doing the Michael Jackson dancer. Tommy is famous for his Michael Jackson dancing on podcast cruise 2.0.

I've thrilled the wonder, I've thrilled the dream, I've thrilled a tracks. That's a popular, yeah.

But you don't play with children. No, I just wanted to make sure. Now I'm going to get emails from Michael Jackson because he never did that. I guess he did.

Yes, he did. But let's talk a little bit about Downtown Disney. What is it about Downtown Disney that you're, they get your own?

Well, really what it was is I was a CP in 2004 and the CP college program and the acronyms. Yeah, I was on. He's real big on accurate. I noticed that last night.

Yes. So I was really, I was a CP and I worked at the Palmer Magnolia golf course at the time, which is now taken over by Arnold Palmer as they've transitioned ownership, which kind of surprised me.

And I picked up a lot of hours at a tracks as a door host. And so that kind of became like my second home. I met a lot of friends there and just had a lot of fun if I wasn't there as a guest.

I was there working, you know, and really found a niche there that I enjoyed in terms of music and, you know, actually learned to dance when I was in high school.

There was no dancing. I didn't even go to dances, never went to prom anything like that. So yeah, it completely changed that aspect of me. And so when they announced a closing that really started the interest in everything downtown Disney, not just pleasure island and not just to criticize because there are some, some things coming that I'm excited about.

But we've watched every I've watched along with some friends, everything take place over the last several years since the closing. So that's everything from management changes to, you know, the demolition of the clubs to the opening of the moving around of different exhibits, the virgin closing, all of that stuff.

So it's been, it's been a long nearly four years now of following them. So that's really what gets the passion is that, you know, just watching the changes unfold, kind of waiting for things to come to fruition that they promise.

Now you were really upset that they closed pleasure island. Yeah, I definitely was, you know, I think that there is a market for adult entertainment on property. And there's very, there are options out there, but very few options really when, when you look at what there is to do. And I understand that the evolution of pleasure island became an issue with the changing demographics at downtown Disney.

But you know, there still could be something built elsewhere on property. They certainly have plenty of land to get something going. And so I was really just didn't seem to make sense in the way that things sort of fell into place. It makes me laugh a little bit.

You know, for me, the closing of pleasure island, it was basically I saw a part of my history get demolished because I was a college program in 97 came back in 98. And we would spend every week there, not every day of the week, but we would go during cast member night. And it became a part of our routine.

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