A Trip to Club 33 – Disneyland’s Ultra-Exclusive Private Bar

Any regular to Disneyland will tell you that there’s no alcohol for sale anywhere in the park. That’s how the legendary California tourist trap earned its unofficial (in that I just made it up) nickname of “Saddest Place for Adults on Earth.” However, there has always been a rumor floating around that a secret bar is hidden somewhere on Disneyland grounds.

Of course, by “secret” I mean “here’s the Wikipedia page.” But still, you’ve probably never heard of it, right?

Club 33 was originally built so executives could have a place to get potential clients soused to seal gigantic movie deals and such. Just to think, this could very well be the place where the ink dried on the contract that turned Disney’s Song of the South from horribly racist idea to horribly racist feature film. That’s unfortunate!

The waiting list to become a member was 14 years before Disney recently closed the floodgates to any and all new memberships. Frankly, after my visit, they probably won’t be accepting any new people for a while.

With tickets to Club 33 come a free pass to Disneyland. Our journey, like any other at Disneyland, began in a line. This is the glamorous entrance to the land of Disney:

It’s just what every little girl dreams of! Hey, notice the Disney employee searching the bags? Here’s what I thought of that…

This is me taking my backpack in the other direction from the lady who searches bags. The family-friendly checkpoint was a curve ball I failed to anticipate. Some last minute “preparations” were going to be in order before my bag could penetrate the near-impregnable fortress that is Disneyland bar security.

In what must have looked like an incredibly lame deleted scene from the 1978 drug smuggling film classic Midnight Express, I ducked into the World of Disney gift shop, which I would soon find out is about six miles long, and into a restroom stall.

But see, it wasn’t drugs I had in my backpack, just delicious brownies! This is me stuffing those brownies into my mouth. If you’re having trouble spotting them in the above picture, they’re the brown clump in the center of the picture that looks like an alcoholic person’s liver. Places like Disney generally frown on rowdy visitors bringing outside food into their establishments, so I figured I should enjoy the delicious chocolate taste before they made me throw them out. Also, there was a shit ton of weed in them.

A few swallows later and my backpack was halfway to “searchable.”

This is the bottle of vodka I brought. The picture isn’t clear, because I didn’t have the flash turned on: I didn’t want people to wonder why I was in a men’s restroom stall at Disneyland taking flash pictures. In my experience, that’s always so difficult to explain to people.

Because walking around Disneyland with bottles of clear liquid labeled “vodka” is about as acceptable as driving slowly around a middle school in a van with binoculars around your neck, I poured the vodka into some bottles of Sprite. I didn’t take a picture, which actually works out because I found this awesomely weird ad, instead:

But the 750ml bottle slipped out of my hands. As the nearly-full bottle spun slowly to the ground, I finally realized my rookie mistake of not going with plastic. They don’t call them travelers for nothing, you know?

The bottle smashed violently against the men’s room tiles, as broken as my hopes of entering Club 33… unless I could successfully bail from the situation.

I looked around, no one else was in the restroom. I threw all my non-broken belongings in my backpack and headed for the door, wading through vodka and broken glass. As I exited, I passed a man entering who would no doubt see the mess and raise an alarm. I figured I had about 5-10 seconds to ghost before I was busted. I just had to speed-walk through the gift shop and I might make it out of this without a night in the Disneyland prison which I’m assuming is hidden somewhere on the grounds also.

Hey, did I mention the World of Disney gift shop is like six miles long?

So, I’m trying to rush out of the warehouse-like gift shop, speed-walking and carrying a backpack like the world’s most conspicuous shoplifter. Speaking of conspicuous, at one point I looked down to realize I had not fastened my belt, which was flapping between my legs. Whipping my belt off and throwing it in my backpack, I hoisted my pants with one hand and galloped out of the store. Ducking into the entry line, I handed over my backpack for searching and exhaled a sigh of relief.

This is my backpack. Always promote 20th Century Fox films when you’re trying to be inconspicuous at Disneyland. If there was ever a time I needed to slip into a secret doorway, it was now.

Here it is, the subtle entrance to Club 33. You have to push a button that’s as hard to find as the one on my first girlfriend:

Inside, the place is filled with amazing antiques and rare memorabilia:

I don’t know if that toilet thing is memorabilia, but either way, you fancy, huh chair?

In the name of keeping things brief, I’ll summarize the events of the first couple hours at Club 33 in one sentence…

The extremely professional wait staff seats us, we order, then I get smashed.

The saddest place on Earth is instantly transformed into the happiest place on Earth. When they say “this place has liquor” they do mean it: Over the course of dinner I had four whiskey sours, two margaritas, and a Jack-and-Coke.

See, I’m very happy. Having fueled up, I finally began to feel mentally ready to beat an exit from Disneyland. I made my exit hastily, so as to avoid as much contact with children as possible (or rather, to prevent children from seeing the inebriated monster that was me). I stopped only for two reasons. First, to go on the Winnie the Pooh ride because I got confused and thought it was the exit.

That was fun. Too many kids, though.

My other stop was to take photos of a preteen-looking girl smoking a cigarette and drinking a juice box

So, if I ever get caught with contraband, again, I know who to pin it on.

Evan Hoovler also writes for Gamespy, Blastr, and Ranker. He made all of the puzzles for the Telltale game, Puzzle Agent 2, and wants to be your Facebook friend