Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/15/disneys-exclusive-club-33-to.html
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Wow. If I had the dough - and the need - for an expensive, exclusive club, I’m not sure if Disney is the name that first comes to mind. Maybe if I ran… I dunno… Toys “R” Us?
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Wait @doctorow isn’t reporting this?
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I’ve always preferred Club Me to the other fancy joints, consisting of liquor appropriate to the season and a little marijuana while lounging on the couch.
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The dark secret is that the organization’s name derives from its initiation process; you can’t become a full member until you club 33 baby seals.
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I suppose there’s money to be made, but it sort of ruins the cachet and mystery, doesn’t it? The only conceivable next step is to triple the prices at the original location and rename it Club 32.
I thought the name meant you had to be a 33rd degree Mason.
I gotta say: if there was ever a secret cabal of folks manipulating world events, Walt Disney had to be one of them.
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I was thinking they stole it from Rolling Rock.
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It’s already pretty well known where the Epcot one will go: upstairs from the American Adventure. The others – no idea yet.
I’ve been to the Disneyland Club 33 once. There’s a 10-year waiting list to become a member, the fee to join is $50,000, and you pay about $15k in dues annually. If WDW’s fees are anything like that, I’m not going to be a member anytime soon.
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If they build so many more of them and advertise the fact it’s not all that exclusive, is it?
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Wait. seals, not kittens? crap…
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A lot of people think that for fine dining, too, but Victoria & Albert’s is always a wonderful meal.
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It’s on the opposite coast, so there’s not much overlap. The members of the Disneyland Club 33 are mostly either rich Hollywood folks or local companies. I imagine that they’re doing one club per WDW park so that Florida members will have a “secret club” wherever they go to help justify the membership cost.
Club 33 at Disneyland is the only place in the park that serves alcohol, and the food, service, and atmosphere is pretty swank. A buffet area with crab legs, huge prawns, lobster, etc. Plus entrees. It’s not $50,000 nice but it’s a really well done club.
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$50K + something like $15k in annual dues + the waiting list. I vaguely recall someone (maybe(likely?)) Cory posting something like this: http://www.disneylandclub33.com/expandedphototourpage.htm Certainly swank enough for me and exclusive enough that I’ll likely never see more than the doorway of one of the clubs 
I don’t much care about the alcohol (you can walk over to DCA for a beer anyway (and it’s decent beer and not outrageously priced (IMO)) if you need a drink), but the atmosphere is looks really nice; like something out of a steampunk novel.
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The Adventurer’s Club was the only WDW club that mattered to me. Kungaloosh!
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Now you’ve gone and made me sad…
It was hard enough seeing the husk of it sitting there every time I visited, but watching them tear it down was truly heartbreaking.
I recommend paying a visit to the Skipper Canteen at Magic Kingdom; there’s some artifacts and lots of in-jokes for Adventurer’s Club fans. And the Nomad Lounge at Animal Kingdom is meant to be the sort of ‘follow up’ to the Club, where old members can come and leave notes about real life adventures they’ve been on.
Or you just hop on over to the Cove Bar in California Adventure.
Not to be outdone, Trump is opening a Club 88
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Personally I hop on over to Trader Sam’s next to the Disneyland Hotel. They serve the authentic Kungaloosh!
