Over on the Orlando Visiting forum, someone has gone to the effort to contact the manager of the T-Rex Cafe and got the following response.

Thank you for your inquiry into the new T-REX Orlando! We are proud to announce that our restaurant is open today!

We will be on a walk-in basis only until 2009. You may check our website at anytime or call 407-828-TREX (reservations are currently not being taken). We will be accepting the Premium, Platinum and Wine and Dine Disney Dining Programs for those on Disney Dining.

Have a T-REXcellent day!

So, for the time-being, just pitch up and hope the wait isn’t too long. To read the thread, click here.

In what seems to have been an age in construction, it’s recently been announced that the T-Rex Cafe will be opening on the 16th of October. The food looks like standard fare, but with groovy dinosauresque names such as the “Bronto Burger”. I’m guessing that most people will be drawn not by the food but the dinosaur theming and other entertainment such as the Paleo Zone, an set of interactive games where you can pan for gems and fossils in Discovery Creek.

To look at the full menu, visit the official T-Rex Cafe site here.

They claim that the aim is to make Downtown Disney an area more geared towards the family market. So it is the end for the BET SoundStage Club, Mannequins Dance Palace, 8Trax and three other clubs that have for years catered largely to young, single adults.

Personally, I’m fairly ambivalent as to the closure of the nightclubs, probably because I am one of the Disney customers who’s looking for entertainment that will feature to the “broader” market. Or more to the point, when I’m visiting Walt Disney World even if I had the energy, I couldn’t go clubbing because I’m travelling with the kids. That said, the nightclubs always looked a successful if not “typical” Disney venture.

“Right now we believe we’ve got a shortage of dining capacity and shopping capacity, so we’ll be adding to those areas, and we’ll be looking at some specialized entertainment options also,” said Downtown Disney Vice President Kevin Lansberry.

So what will happen with the area that the Pleasure Island nightclubs took up? Does this story add credence to the rumor of the opening of Disney’s Night Kingdom? Will this be one of the “specialized entertainment options” that Kevin Lansberry discussed? From what I’ve read, the answer is no. It looks like we could end up with more restaurants and shops.

They claim that the aim is to make Downtown Disney an area more geared towards the family market. So it is the end for the BET SoundStage Club, Mannequins Dance Palace, 8Trax and three other clubs that have for years catered largely to young, single adults.

Personally, I’m fairly ambivalent as to the closure of the nightclubs, probably because I am one of the Disney customers who’s looking for entertainment that will feature to the “broader” market. Or more to the point, when I’m visiting Walt Disney World even if I had the energy, I couldn’t go clubbing because I’m travelling with the kids. That said, the nightclubs always looked a successful if not “typical” Disney venture.

“Right now we believe we’ve got a shortage of dining capacity and shopping capacity, so we’ll be adding to those areas, and we’ll be looking at some specialized entertainment options also,” said Downtown Disney Vice President Kevin Lansberry.

So what will happen with the area that the Pleasure Island nightclubs took up? Does this story add credence to the rumor of the opening of Disney’s Night Kingdom? Will this be one of the “specialized entertainment options” that Kevin Lansberry discussed? From what I’ve read, the answer is no. It looks like we could end up with more restaurants and shops.

The 8Trax nightclub closed this weekend, but is due to re-open on Thursday, so that sounds like it was just minor sprucing up.

Cap’n Jack’s restaurant in the Marketplace area of Downtown Disney re-opened last weekend after it’s annual maintenance completed.