Major 2015 Pirates of the Caribbean Refurbishment Watch/Rumor.

C

Chris Blagg

New Member
Macca250 said:
Paris hardly ever gets any attention, if you think Florida refurbs aren't frequent enough then Paris might make you ill. But having said that a lot of it is newer and they have started a gradual refurbishment program, especially around the hotels, but as far as I know there's little planned for this year. DLRPToday is the website I use to keep track of Paris (news, refurbs etc.) so maybe take a look? And weather is usually mild if a little wet (this is coming from a Brit so depending where you're from it might be cooler as a visitor from the States).
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I'm at Disneyland Paris today and pirates is in a bad way again, only just had a refurb but I counted 19 effects missing or broken :(
 
marni1971

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
Luckily given the combined effects of both attractions is well over a thousand, a few dozen being down for fixing isn't too bad. Assuming they're being fixed.

Imagine my surprise last time I rode DLPs PotC both the swinging and the duelling pirates were both working!
 
RSoxNo1

RSoxNo1

Well-Known Member
wdwmagic said:
I always mention if it is speculation. I think in the last 5 years the shark reef has been the only thing I reported on that didn't happen.

You need to understand that plans change and when I say it is speculation, it means just that.
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Don't take it personally. Your track record is better than Disney's reporting of information (Hyperion Wharf, Original New Fantasyland Plans, Flamingo Crossings)
 
DanMK

DanMK

New Member
- Hi guys! Long time reader, first time poster here. Dan from London, England and really looking forward to joining the community. Travelled to WDW a lot during childhood and now (mid-20s) taking my other half for my first 'grown-up' trip :) -

This news about Pirates has been my motivation to join the community. We're heading to WDW in September, being my favourite ride from DLRP I was really looking forward to it - do we know yet if it is more than likely to be closed during the month of September?
 
Sage of Time

Sage of Time

Well-Known Member
DanMK said:
- Hi guys! Long time reader, first time poster here. Dan from London, England and really looking forward to joining the community. Travelled to WDW a lot during childhood and now (mid-20s) taking my other half for my first 'grown-up' trip :) -

This news about Pirates has been my motivation to join the community. We're heading to WDW in September, being my favourite ride from DLRP I was really looking forward to it - do we know yet if it is more than likely to be closed during the month of September?
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We don't know anything official yet.... but if they're aiming for summer, September might be effected.
 
TheGhostWithTheMost

TheGhostWithTheMost

Well-Known Member
ohsnappletea said:
Yeah, the cast goes through a lot to make sure she's working safely but we do the best we can to make sure she runs the best for the guests. Does it stink we go 101 all the time and have people do the boat dance to get boats unstuck? Yeah kinda. It makes the day more interesting but when I get to see a family's face at Unload after they've road the ride, it makes it all worth it. Pirates is my favorite ride and I love every day I get to work there. There's so much they could fix, of course, it's like that on every ride, Pirates more than others some days.. but who knows. I just hope Disney does the right thing with the ride and takes care of her. Sorry for getting defensive, but she just needs some love. :rolleyes:
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But,here's the problem. It's great that kids get off the ride and enjoy it a third of the time that it is operational. What's not fun is putting guests and cast in constant danger because if the terrible condition of the ride. I've seen guests falling in the water during evacs, cast being threatened by guests about the ride is broken, and I've seen the boats do things at unload that I don't even feel comfortable talking about. That's not fun.

There's only so much that cast can do to make the ride run safely and it's beyond that point right now.

I'm happy you like working there. But I've personally experienced Cast getting cursed out, screamed at, threatened, and spit on from guest because of the condition of the ride. I've seen a woman fall in the water in a very safety critical zone during an evac. There's nothing interesting about a day where you spend most of it outside getting screamed at by guests or you spend it doing an emergency evac more than once. People pay $100 a day to get into a park that is making record profits. I felt like a con artist working at Pirates because I know rides at local/seasonal amusement parks thst run much better than Pirates. It's dangerous to have it open in the state that it's in. The cast isn't payed enough deal win it and the guest pay too much for admission to deal with it.
 
tirian

tirian

Well-Known Member
Unfortunately, this is all very true.

I smile every time I see an article mention Disney as the best example of customer service or creative standards, because anybody who worked for them in the last 15 years KNOWS it's not true. I left the company in 2012 and haven't looked back.

TheGhostWithTheMost said:
I had a long conversation with an Imagineer when the Pirate interactive game opened in early summer 2013. He said that they were going to make load and unload the same area and make unload/the backstage up ramp (the "jog" area) some new show scenes. We were told it was going to be a giant refurb. He said they were going to make it, "just like Disneyland." "The biggest in Magic Kingdom history." Now... I may have been frontline....but I can sniff out when something is wishful thinking/bs. And that seemed like it. Then the new boats came and the entire ride began to unravel. We had to have one of us at all times scooping water out of ever boat at unload. Dispatch times got screwed, boats got stuck daily to the point of having to evac the ride, our numbers plummeted, and wait times got unprecedented (thanks, FP+). It was pretty bad in the last part of 2014. My turning point when I went from feeling pride about conquering pirates to hating pirates is when I was cussed out by a guest on Christmas Eve because people had been stuck on the ride for 45 minutes and management wouldn't call for an evac. We were being promised that we were going down for at minimum 12 months starting sometime in 2014. And we were excited. And, as we know, that never happened.

The ride now almost seems beyond repair. It's a lot worse off than a lot of people think. Right before I left the company, the rumor became that Phil Holmes said no to 12-18 months and that he wanted no more than six. So it's going to be an improvement in the since of the most recent big Space refurb...that Phil also botched terribly. It's unsafe in a lot do ways. Because it's unsafe to ask cast to get in the water 10 times a week to evacuate the ride and it's unsafe to evacuate guest off of it that much. There are also very scary things that have happened that I don't feel comfortable talking about. Just know the ride is in some dangerous waters (forgive the pun). The last time I rode it, they had just turned the lights off on the musicians in the burning city because they weren't working. Those figures not functioning should close the ride. But show doesn't matter. A lot of the problems have to do the belts, the ride system, the sensors, the up ramp, and the down ramp. Almost every other ride at WDW does not require cast to have to spend so much time either walking through the inner workings of the ride or spend time going into the very deepest inner workings of the ride to try to fix it when something minor goes wrong. That needs to be changed. The entire ride system needs to be changed. From the computers, to the load/unload consoles, to the pirates control tower, to the belts, to the pumps, to the ramps. It needs to be so extensive that all cast has to be retrained.

What will it get? The same thing Jungle Cruise got during their 2013 refurb: Not much. Not enough.
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Sage of Time

Sage of Time

Well-Known Member
Animaniac93-98 said:
Same here, it was wonderful. :)

After riding both the Paris and California versions within the last 2 months, I wish they'd just tear down the WDW ride and build something better. Especially if it's that broken and worn out.
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I wouldn't advocate anything that drastic, but I would really like to see something added to the existing ride that makes it stand out from the other POTC attractions. That last scene that @tirian mentioned would really help.
 
tirian

tirian

Well-Known Member
Exactly: she needs a true refurb. And the MK needs a new VP who allows those refurbs to take place. I've heard that the burning city AAs look great now; I'm glad to hear the work has already begun.

I visited DL last year and will return for the 60th anniversary celebration. It's incredible to see how much better DL is operated, and how many more attractions the park has. If the MK had the attraction count and ride capacity of DL, regular refurbs wouldn't bring the whole place crashing down. ;)

ohsnappletea said:
Sigh. It's very obvious that Pirates is in need of some TLC. She's 41 years old. Yeah, she's in some rough shape but I don't think she's absolutely terrible.. give her a little bit of credit. Yeah, boats get stuck. They started to get stuck ever since we switched to plastic boats from the old ones. Yeah, you can get wet on the ride. There's a sign outside that says "you may get wet!".. it is a water ride. Mist projection with Blackbeard has been fixed and, in my opinion, looks better than ever, along with the clouds and mermaids. We also don't close the back row.. we load every row in the boat so.. not sure where that came from.

Yeah, the cast goes through a lot to make sure she's working safely but we do the best we can to make sure she runs the best for the guests. Does it stink we go 101 all the time and have people do the boat dance to get boats unstuck? Yeah kinda. It makes the day more interesting but when I get to see a family's face at Unload after they've road the ride, it makes it all worth it. Pirates is my favorite ride and I love every day I get to work there. There's so much they could fix, of course, it's like that on every ride, Pirates more than others some days.. but who knows. I just hope Disney does the right thing with the ride and takes care of her. Sorry for getting defensive, but she just needs some love. :rolleyes:
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MotherOfBirds

MotherOfBirds

Well-Known Member
After visiting DLP, it was hard to go back to WDW, especially with regards to PotC. I grew up never realizing that we essentially had the Sparknotes version of the ride and how much better it is elsewhere. DLP definitely had maintenance issues, but it also doesn't receive the same magnitude of wear and tear that WDW does.

On a side note, does anyone know why the skull rock was added to the caves? It seemed like a lot of extra work to install for such minor additions to the ride.
 
note2001

note2001

Well-Known Member
I feel like I've got a hole in my MK visit when we don't get on the ride at least one time even if it does pale in comparison to other parks.

Last summer PotC was down our entire stay but did open up on the very last day... a memorable ride only by the fact that they had a boat jam from the dangling foot onward, and most of the boats were empty.

By the sounds of it, the ride will be down again for our next trip.
 
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
DanMK said:
- Hi guys! Long time reader, first time poster here. Dan from London, England and really looking forward to joining the community. Travelled to WDW a lot during childhood and now (mid-20s) taking my other half for my first 'grown-up' trip :) -

This news about Pirates has been my motivation to join the community. We're heading to WDW in September, being my favourite ride from DLRP I was really looking forward to it - do we know yet if it is more than likely to be closed during the month of September?
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Welcome to the boards. I'm with you on this. We are going late August. Doesn't sound too good for either of us. It's better for the long run that the ride gets fixed and it definitely needs it so I'm 100% in favor of the refurb. I wish they would just start right now. Then it would be done by mid-July in time for both of us:)
 

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