Major 2015 Pirates of the Caribbean Refurbishment Watch/Rumor.

[Sage of Time]

Maybe this refurb is going to add more boats, some bungie cords to tie them together, and conveyor belt load and unload platform and bingo... the world's first floating Omnimover.

Wait.. if they use the same boats that are currently on the ride... scratch the word float from the above.

A water omnimover would be amazing, not gonna lie. LOL

 

[ToTBellHop]

A water omnimover would be amazing, not gonna lie. LOL

They couldn't rig that up in PotC's space, though. You would need a larger loading area with a moving platform, and even so, it is complicated. It works reasonably well at Kali (loading a moving water vehicle) because there is only one entry point. Imagine trying to load 6 rows on a moving platform for a water ride like Pirates with the average guest that can't even follow simple instructions (e.g. "Row 2, please.").

Place bets--1 week or 2 weeks until the first amputation injury?

 

[Sage of Time]

Y

They couldn't rig that up in PotC's space, though. You would need a larger loading area with a moving platform, and even so, it is complicated. It works reasonably well at Kali (loading a moving water vehicle) because there is only one entry point. Imagine trying to load 6 rows on a moving platform for a water ride like Pirates with the average guest that can't even follow simple instructions (e.g. "Row 2, please.").

Place bets--1 week or 2 weeks until the first amputation injury?

Yeah, the vehicles would need to be MUCH smaller.

 

[Tom]

They couldn't rig that up in PotC's space, though. You would need a larger loading area with a moving platform, and even so, it is complicated. It works reasonably well at Kali (loading a moving water vehicle) because there is only one entry point. Imagine trying to load 6 rows on a moving platform for a water ride like Pirates with the average guest that can't even follow simple instructions (e.g. "Row 2, please.").

Place bets--1 week or 2 weeks until the first amputation injury?

And the drop would be very boring.

 

[Clubkid74]

Ok I just rode pirates this morning And everything seemed to be working great maybe they are doing work at night because the refurb time got cut down. It looks to be even brighter in some scenes and audio Was not bad at all. Also didn't even get wet even with a full boat

 

[Cesar R M]

Ok I just rode pirates this morning And everything seemed to be working great maybe they are doing work at night because the refurb time got cut down. It looks to be even brighter in some scenes and audio Was not bad at all. Also didn't even get wet even with a full boat

are we talking about Magic Kingdom's pirates?

 

[Clubkid74]

Yes I was shocked on how everything looked and sounded

 

[Prog]

Could you hear Dead Men Tell No Tales? Pretty sure that was severely inaudible in March (IIRC, it's of terrible fidelity and needs to be replaced anyway).

 

[Clubkid74]

Could you hear Dead Men Tell No Tales? Pretty sure that was severely inaudible in March (IIRC, it's of terrible fidelity and needs to be replaced anyway).

Yes it could it was loud and clear. Even before you came into the room and even the mermaid song was nice and clear. And Blackbeard projection looked better than ever

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Show wise I feel the biggest issue is the sound quality and volume. Needs a whole sound system replacement. I rode it last week, unless things have changed then it still sounds pretty awful.

 

[Clubkid74]

But like I said earlier I haven't seen pirates look this good in years and the refurb hasn't even started yet. And today I rode it 4 times and everything was working minus the smoke in the pirate ship room. And also didn't get wet at all through out the whole ride even with full boats. But alas the ceiling vents still haven't been painted and totally noticeable

 

[Clubkid74]

To me today the sound seemed way much better than it did when I was here in the beginning of December. So something had to have been changed. Also a lot of the rooms seems to have got some new lighting improvements not much but subtle upgrades maybe

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

The fog was working last week. But the front seat definitely soaked me, that drop is actually kind of scary now given the poor condition the ride system is rumored to be in (along with the boat problems).

One big example of the sound issues is at the scene with the Donkey and the trio of singing pirates. You can't really make out what the pirates are saying, the volume is both low with poor balance and the quality makes the voices blend together. You can't even hear the donkey at all.

I'm not sure if the animatronics are missing a lot of motion or not, at least the more advanced figures like the auctioneer and Jack Sparrow looked to be moving pretty well even with mouth motion. Some of the simpler figures might be missing some motion however. The AA's are nowhere near as bad as Splash Mountain was prior to its 2013 refurb though regardless (many of which were completely stationary or removed entirely).

 

[Clubkid74]

To me today the sound with the donkey sounded fine I heard everything nice and clear And balanced

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Hm, well mom wants to go back up to WDW next week again, maybe i'll see if I can find the time to take a ride and see if these things are noticeable if we make it. Interesting if they were able to fix some of these issues practically overnight, I was under the impression that the sound system needed a complete overhaul to function properly again.

 

[Mike S]

Hm, well mom wants to go back up to WDW next week again, maybe i'll see if I can find the time to take a ride and see if these things are noticeable if we make it. Interesting if they were able to fix some of these issues practically overnight, I was under the impression that the sound system needed a complete overhaul to function properly again.

I could put in some input as well since I'm here right now then you can compare to my experience later.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Cool. A good thing is to listen for the Donkey, I could always hear it loud and clear braying to the trio of pirates singing in the 90's. Now you almost can't hear the donkey at all, the volume is almost nonexistent. If you can hear it without any struggle, then i'd say there's some merit to work being done overnight.

 

[Mike S]

Cool. A good thing is to listen for the Donkey, I could always hear it loud and clear braying to the trio of pirates singing in the 90's. Now you almost can't hear the donkey at all, the volume is almost nonexistent. If you can hear it without any struggle, then i'd say there's some merit to work being done overnight.

I also listen for Barbossa's lines which I could barely hear in WDW but were loud and clear in DL.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

I also listen for Barbossa's lines which I could barely hear in WDW but were loud and clear in DL.

That's generally the case with most of the sung dialog in the ride as a whole. The volume isn't inaudible, but the sound balancing has been completely shot and there's not much clarity to anything (likely further harmed by either old and worn out speakers or perhaps even degraded media that the sound bytes are stored on if it's not digital already), the sung words just kind of blend together and sounds like babble for the most part.

 

[katiekinzakat]

I rode this thing last Wednesday. The show condition is still dire. The mist curtain was not working but the audio was of course still playing. Nothing like the disembodied voice of Blackbeard, am I right? I didn't notice whether or not the mermaids were working mostly because I don't care. The crab and the seagull were barely moving just before the drop.

After the drop, the grand battle scene was atrocious, basically. No mist, so it really just looked like a cavernous room. The only pirate on the ship was Barbossa. The others were broken and not visible at all. Only some of the cannon shots actually made splashes, so I know that the effect was not just turned off but probably broken. I will say that the cloud projections in that room are finally working and they look fantastic.

The rest of the show scenes were just as sad. Muffled volume all over, though very noticeable at the well scene where Carlos and his wife can be barely heard. What's the point? Most animatronics were stiff though some of the major ones did have decent range of motion. Things that have always plagued the attraction.

I really hope that the refurb addresses all of these issues, but between the show and the ride system, I don't know how they're going to have enough time.

Coincidentally I also rode Splash that day, and holy cow did it look good. Every single animatronic was functioning, the audio was great, and all of the fountains in the Laughing Place were operational. I truly hope Pirates looks as good, but I am not optimistic.