A look back at the Tropical Serenade (WDW’s Enchanted Tiki Room)

Let’s take a visual tour of the Sunshine Tree Pavillion with photos taken between 1992-1993, when The Tropical Serenade (better know as The Enchanted Tiki Room) was in its full glory, prior to the conversion into the “Under New Management” show.

The late ’80s – early ’90s were a great time for fans of the Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. With all the construction going on at EPCOT and Disney/MGM Studios, Florida’s original park was largely still in its natural state with only minor plussing enhancing the 1970s goodness.

Here were are in October of 1992 and the Sunshine Tree Pavillion is finally getting its thatch back, after having an orange tin roof for a spell. I believe the water feature out front is also getting scaled back in size slightly at this point.

The pagoda structure is also getting worked on, and down in the bottom left, under the covers, the nameless Wally Boag-voiced barker bird is getting ready to be replaced by Artemus, the blue, Jamaican-accented macaw.

I love this sign, which hung just above the turnstyles. The interlock-style font screamed “tiki” in the ’60s and ’70s. This particular face seems to have only been used here. We’ll see another one at the exit shortly.

Here we are in the pre-show with Clyde and Claude. I wonder if they kept the coloring the same now that they’re back.

For those of you who never saw this version of the show, let me direct your attention to the center (of the room, that is) to the Magic Fountain. The attraction hostess was exceedingly accommodating to us that night in January of 1992 and even got into the act.

As you can see, the base of the fountain is quite different that its Disneyland counterpart, presumably as it never was intended to double as a wait station.

The fountain did retain the bird-shaped top supports of its Disneyland counterpart.

Here’s the stars of the show. These were fresh from the rehab that you saw in the opening photos.

Here’s another interlocked font, used for the “Automagic Doors” warning sign. The “!” in particular is very expressive. The ersatz door carvings are also particularly nice and are retained to this day.

Another few steps back and we’re outside the exit, next to the Sunshine Tree Terrace. And here we have another nice modern tiki font, even wider than the previous.

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