Part 2 Hell, the locals from all around probably had a hand in wrecking that place. People there felt just as angry about Treasure Island as folks here did about Mowglis Palace. Plus there were rumors that Disney had released their aquarium stock into the local waters when they closed... including sharks. Who wouldnt want to take a few swings at some merchandise after that? Well, what Im getting at is that this blog about Treasure Island got me thinking. Even though many years had passed since its closing, I figured it might be cool to do some Urban Exploration at Mowglis Palace. Take some photos, write about my experience, and probably see if there was anything I could take home as a memento. Im not going to say I wasted no time in getting there, because honestly it took me another year after I first found that Treasure Island article to get around to going up to Emerald Isle. Over the course of that year, I did a lot of research on the Palace resort... or rather, I tried to. Naturally, no official Disney site or resource made any mention of the place. That had been scrubbed clean. Even odder, however, was that nobody before myself had apparently thought to blog about the place or even post a photo. None of the local TV or Newspaper sites had one word about the place, though that was to be expected since they had all swung Disneys way. They wouldnt be out there lauding their embarrassment, you know? Recently, I learned that corporations can actually ask Google, for example, to remove links from search results... basically for no good reason. Looking back, its probably not that nobody spoke of the resort, but rather their words were made inaccessible. So in the end I could barely find the place. All I had to go on was an old-as-hell map Id received in the mail back in the 90s. It was a promotional item sent out to people who had recently been to Disney world, and I guess since I had been there in the late 80s, that was recent. I didnt really intend to hang onto it. It just got shoved in with my books and comics from my childhood. Id only remembered it months into my research, and even then it took me another few weeks to locate the storage bin my parents had shoved it all into. But I DID find it. Locals were no help, as most were transplants who had moved to the beach in recent years... or old residents who just sneered at me and made rude gestures the second I managed to say Where would I find Mowglis--- The drive took me through an inordinately long corridor of overgrowth. Tropical plants that had run rampant and overpopulated the area mixed with the native species of flora that actually BELONGED there and had tried to reclaim the land. I was in awe when I reached the front gates of the resort. Tremendous, monolithic wooden gates whose supports to either side looked like they mustve been cut from giant sequoias. The gate itself had been gouged in several places by woodpeckers and eaten away at the base by burrowing insects. Hanging on the gate was a sheet of metal, some random scrap, with hand-painted letters scrawled in black. ABANDONED BY DISNEY. Clearly the handiwork of some past local or an employee who wanted to make some small protest. The gates were open enough to walk through, but not drive, so grabbing my digital camera and the map, whose flip-side showed a layout of the resort, I set off on foot. The inner grounds of the place were just as overgrown as the entryway. Palm tree stood untended and ragged among piles of their own coconuts. Banana plants similarly stood in their own stinking, bug-riddled refuse. There was this sort of clash between order and chaos, as carefully planted rows of perennial flowers mixed with obnoxious tall weeds and stinking, blackened mushrooms. All that remained of any outdoor structures were broken, rotting wood and various charred bits of unidentifiable material. What was most likely an information booth or an outdoor bar was now simply a pile of assorted debris chopped up by past vandalism and ravaged by weather. The most interesting thing on the grounds was a statue of Baloo, the friendly bear from the Jungle Book, which stood in a sort of courtyard in front of the main building. He was frozen in a jovial wave toward no one, staring into empty space with a silly, toothy grin as bird shit covered whole swaths of his fur and vines ensnared his platform. I approached the main building - the PALACE - only to find the outside of the building covered in graffiti where the original paint hadnt peeled and chipped away. The front doors werent just open, they had been taken off their hinges and were stolen. Above the front doors, or the gaping maw where they had been, someone had once again painted ABANDONED BY DISNEY. I wish I could tell you about all the awesome stuff I saw inside the Palace. Forgotten statues, abandoned cash registers, a full-fledged secret society of homeless bums... but no. The inside of the building was so stark, so bare, that I actually think people had stolen the molding off the walls. Anything that was too big to steal... counters, desks, giant fake trees... they were all resting amid this empty echo chamber that amplified my every step like a slow rat-a-tat of a machine gun. I checked the floorplan and headed to all the locations that might seem in any way interesting. The kitchen was as youd imagine... an industrial food prep area with all the appliances and space, no expenses spared. Every glass surface was broken, every door knocked off its hinges, every metal surface kicked and dented. The entire place smelled like very old piss. The huge freezer, not even remotely cool now, had row upon row of empty shelf space. Hooks hung from the ceiling, probably for hanging cuts of meat, and as I stood inside for a moment, I noticed they were swinging. Each hook swung in a random direction, but their movements were so slow and small that it was almost impossible to see. I figured it had been caused by my footsteps, so I stopped one from swinging by clutching it in my fist, then carefully letting go, but within seconds it started to swing once more. The bathrooms were in much the same state as the rest of the place. Just like the Treasure Island resort, someone had methodically smashed each porcelain commode with coconuts and other implements. There was about a half inch of rancid, stinking stagnant water on the floor, so I didnt stay there very long. Whats odd is that the toilets and the sinks (and the bidets in the ladies room, yes I went there) all dripped, leaked, or just ran freely. It seemed to me that they shouldve shut the water off long, LONG ago. There were plenty of rooms in the resort, but naturally I didnt have time to look through them all. The few I did peer into were similarly wrecked, and I didnt expect to find anything there. I thought there was actually a television or radio in one room, as I really think I heard a quiet conversation coming out. Though it was like a whisper, probably my own breathing echoing in the silence, or just another case of the sound of flowing water playing tricks on the mind, this is what it sounded like... 1: I didnt believe it. 2: (short, unknown reply) 1: I didnt know that. I didnt know that. 2: Your father told you. 1: (unknown reply, or possibly just weeping.)
Posted on: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 00:47:47 +0000
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