The Pirates of the Caribbean ride that exists today at Walt Disney World is quite different from the ride that was originally installed at the Magic Kingdom back in 1973. Many changes have been made to the ride over the years, and even with all the changes, it remains one of the most popular attractions in the Magic Kingdom.
The version of Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyland in California is quite a bit different yet from the Florida version. Many people who have ridden both attractions actually prefer the California version to the Florida version. I have ridden both and I think I like the opening scene to the California version better, but overall, I still prefer the Florida version. But let’s discuss the changes that have occurred to the Disney World version.
To begin, in the 90’s Disney began to receive complaints about the scene where the scurvy pirates are chasing the women through the city. Seems this scene was found to be degrading to many womens groups, and they asked Disney of there was anything they could do about the scene. One thing about Disney is that they take complaints very seriously. In fact, you can go to the Town Hall building at Main Street USA and either put in a complaint about something in the parks or put in a compliment about something or a cast member if you like, and you can bet you will receive a response very soon.
Disney did make the first change to the Pirates ride in response to that complaint. Here as you can see, now it is the ladies who are chasing the pirates through the city:
Next Disney decided that they were going to try to begin making movies based upon attractions from the theme parks. The first move they produced was the Country Bears. This movie was, simply put, a flop in every way. The story was pretty thin to begin with and had very little to do with the attraction from the parks. Disney went back to the drawing board and later decided to try again. This time, Disney chose of the most popular attractions in all of their parks, The Haunted Mansion, and this time they got one of the biggest move stars around to star in the movie, Eddie Murphy.
As fate would have it, The Haunted Mansion, well doing better than the Country Bears did, still did not become the huge hit that Disney had planned on. All other plans for movies based on their attractions were put on hold. That is until Gore Verbinski called and begged and pleaded to make a Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Instead of trying to remain true to the rides history, this time out they would do a traditional pirate style movie and lace it with key scenes and themes from the attraction. Oh and Johhny Depp would be the star of the film and he would take Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones as his muse for his role of Captain Jack Sparrow. Well the rest is box office history and it wasn’t long before Disney thought that Captain Jack would make a great addition to the attraction itself.
Disney soon began the work of creating Audio-Animatronic figures of the drunken Captain Sparrow and working on very unique and thoughtful ways of incorporating him into the famous ride. To begin, Captain Jacks nemesis Blackbeard seems to appear out of thin air and he warns you that dead men do indeed tell tales and that you should keep your eye out for Jack Sparrow:
Next, Captain Barbosa would now be the captain of the first ship you see as you enter the town scene:
Barbosa is no better shot than the previous captain was as he never seems to be able to hit the fort guarding the town.
Next up, you will see your first glimpse of Captain Jack as he looks over the shoulder of a pirate who seems to have something that Jack Sparrow is looking for:
A little later on, you will find Jack Sparrow eyeing up another pirate that has a key to Jack’s treasure room and he needs that key badly:
Next with just the right angle, you will see Jack sneaking his way back to his treasure room, but here you can see Jacks head atop a manaquin that will soon appear to have Jacks head atop its body:
Finally, at you pass through the town you will see that Captain Jack has indeed found and opened his treasure room and is once again sitting on the throne:
Finally, after the last movie came out and heavily featured mermaids in the story, Disney hasa went back in and added a few mermaid touches to the ride. First you will see a mermaid skeleton that has washed up on a beach, and then if you look down beside your boat from time to time you will see the glowing mermaids in the water next to your boat:
From the “Yo Ho” song that you will have a hard time getting out of your head, to the near perfect likeness of Johnn Depp throughout the ride, Pirates of the Caribbean is always an enjoyable ride. It is a longer ride and is always nice to get out of the heat and into the air conditioning for. Wait time can be long for the ride, but that depends on the time of year that you are visiting. Very rarely will you need a FastPass to ride the ride.
When the ride is over you will be let out into one of the larger and better themed shops that Disney has to offer. Be warned that little boys will find this shop to be heaven and it will be very hard to not buy a sword, or fake pirate beard, or a t-shirt in the Pirates shop.
Finally, Jack Sparrow himself will now appear outside of the ride from time to time to try to recruit little pirates into his merry band of buccaneers, so be on the look out for that.
Pretty much everyone rides Pirates of the Caribbean when they visit the park, so this isn’t meant to be a review of the ride, but more of an update for those of you who have not been to the parks since the updates have taken place.
So arrrgh mateys, I’ll be seein ye real soon aboard the Black Pearl! Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a funnel cake for me please!
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