There have been on-again/off-again rumors of this for a while, but several sites are confirming that a version of Club 33 will be coming to all 4 WDW parks, expected to open this fall Club 33 Is Coming to Walt Disney World - LaughingPlace.com Given that they're planning on opening so soon, it seems like they're probably just going to convert existing spaces (possibly build new ones later, once they know what demand will be). Epcot has a ton of abandoned corporate lounges that are occasionally rented out for special events, but the other parks have fewer obvious options. I'm curious to see where they end up being I'm also curious to see how big the membership will be. DL manages to fill their club in a metropolitan area of about 15,000,000 people, with many notoriously spend-happy industries headquartered nearby (with even larger populations supporting the clubs in Tokyo and Shanghai). The Orlando area can't really match that, and will presumably have far more space to fill, spread across 4 parks. I'm sure there will be some demand for this, but I have trouble seeing it as a major profit center
Why? The whole point of Club 33 was to have a place where high-level CMs could have access to fine dining WITH A BAR, "inside the Berm" of an otherwise-ethanol-free Park, for themselves, friends, family, and most importantly, TO WINE AND DINE CORPORATE SPONSORS. Opening up memberships to the general public (provided they were willing to fork over a pile of money) was an afterthought. At DL Paris, there was always wine available with meals, in publicly accessible establishments; in non-MK Disney Parks (Epcot, Studios, AK, DCA, &c.), there were always open-to-the-public establishments that served alcoholic beverages (Hell, Epcot [and now DCA] has what has degenerated into what I've started calling a "Food and WINO Festival"), and now, WDW-MK has Be Our Guest, and DL has 21 Royal.
Late last year, Disney quietly rolled out alcohol at all the table-service locations in MK. I think it's still just beer & wine at this point, but I wouldn't be surprised to see cocktails at some point in the future; Skipper's Canteen at least seem like the perfect spot for fun drinks I would be surprised if they served alcohol at walk-up locations any time in the foreseeable future though
I either failed to notice that, or managed to successfully forget noticing it. Then again, I think the only WDW-MK table service restaurant I made it to, this last trip, was The Liberty Tree. Everything else in the MK was either booked solid, or didn't have anything of interest to me. I did, however, dine at one notable counter service establishment in the MK, namely Cosmic Ray's (and yes, in the Sonny Eclipse room).
Honestly I don't think that it is a bad idea to put Club 33 into the other parks. Apparently there is a demand for that. However it diminishes the original Club in Anaheim a little bit. I was part of DLP's Shareholders Club and it was kind of nice to have an exclusive area to relax and get some snacks. Unfortunately there was no bar at the shareholders club in Paris.
