I rode today as well (3 times in fact)...
PROPERLY WARNED YE BE... THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD... ONLY READ ON IF YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE CHANGES...
Almost immediately out of dispatch you see the new Davvy Jones effect- very very cool. It's projected onto a screen of fog and your boat passes right underneath and appears to disappear into it. You then see the familiar beach scene and the skeleton commanding the ship.
Next comes the drop, which seemed to me to be a whole lot darker than I remember. Unfortunately our friend the talking skull and crossbones is indeed gone. As you enter Bombardment Bay, the movie soundtrack is playing... a prefect fit it seemed to me. Barbossa was being worked on while I was there as well, and the sound in that whole area needed to be turned up, but I'm sure that will be fixed. The new cannon effects are not all that different than I remember.
Next comes Captain Sparrow. The first time we see him, he's hiding out behind some dresses in the mayor dunking scene (the pirates are now asking the whereabouts of Jack Sparrow instead of the treasure). You encounter Jack again hiding in a barrel spying over at the treasure map that the drunken pirate with the dog is now holding. His last appearance is in the treasure room singing the attraction's familiar theme and reveling in all the gold. All three animatronics are absolutely astounding, but particularly the last one.
Everything else is more or less the same, just looking and sounding much cleaner and sharper. The women still chase the pirates, the burning city looked pretty much the same to me, that dog at the jail cell is still never going to move, and everyone still wants the redhead.
Overall I'd say it was a job well done. They freshened up a classic, but with great reverence to what made it classic in the first place. Those who are expecting a drastically different ride will be disappointed, because when all is said and done, this was a refurbishment NOT a re-do.
