Should Disney scrap and rebuild Pirates of the Caribbean in Orlando?

Should Disney scrap and rebuild Pirates of the Caribbean in Orlando?

  • Yes

    Votes: 68 20.7%
  • No

    Votes: 116 35.3%
  • Not sure

    Votes: 7 2.1%
  • Close it and replace it with an entirely new ride

    Votes: 10 3.0%
  • Refurbish it! But not scrap and rebuild.

    Votes: 128 38.9%

  • Total voters
    329

Pepper's Ghost

Well-Known Member
WDW Pirates is the only version I've ridden. With that said it's one of my favorite rides there. I watched a ride-through of the Shanghai version ant it does look pretty amazing. There's much to admire about it. I'm not a fan of excessively projected rides, but it did seem to have a good mix of great physical scenes. I especially liked the sequence of riding between the two ships and some of the subsequent scenes.

With that said, I'm starting to question why I continue to visit these boards. I feel like hearing all the negativity about everything kind of ruins things for me. Maybe I'm better off being in ignorant bliss of enjoying what these classic rides are, rather than letting all the negativity ruin my next ride on PotC because of what it's not, and that it's inferior to other versions.

Nothing is perfect in life... NOTHING. You can't expect WDW to have the best version of every ride. It's impossible, and if that were the case, then the same people would be complaining about the parks being too crowded, and ride lines that are on average 4 hours long because everyone would want to come to WDW. No matter what the situation, there's an endless trough of things to complain about. JMO

My take: let's get more rides and attractions online in dead space, or better yet expand beyond current park boundaries to expand with new rides, not take down popular rides crowding all other rides. Add more capacity first, then that provides a way to divert crowds enough to give classics some TLC. Btw, taking current challenges out of the equation, at times when parks were continuing to draw record crowds that gives Disney no incentive to make any changes. It's a business. When you're selling at record levels, you raise prices and make few changes because you're doing something right according to the crowds. When crowds thin, new or updated attractions would be a way to build excitement and draw crowds again.
 

PostScott

Well-Known Member
I love POTC and the different versions around the world. I would agree its the worst one though. It's queue, length, and ending are worse than all the other parks. It's not a horrible ride and I don't hate it, but I think Disney could do so much of a better job with the attraction and the use of space. The show building is huge! with even space remaining to the left of it. Either they could refurbish it or build a new ride. I would personally like a new attraction there. Magic Kingdom should push away from it's similar identity to Disneyland. It should be it's own park and I think getting a new ride in place would be a good start. Plus, when was the last time Adventureland got a new attraction. I know this would upset people but the trend now is that Disney announces a new ride, people get upset, the ride opens, and people love it.
 

Brer Panther

Well-Known Member
I'm gonna have to quote everyone else here... just because our Pirates isn't as good as Disneyland's doesn't mean that it's bad. I don't think it needs to be bulldozed and rebuilt from scratch. Nor do I think today's Disney would be up for that (it would be much too expensive).

For me Splash isn't. DL's is too fast, too dark, and too short.
I agree. Disneyland's Splash Mountain is by no means bad, but I don't think it's quite as good as the Magic Kingdom's. Disneyland's is indeed too dark (particularly the Laughin' Place) and the storyline is more rushed and not as fleshed out. The only thing it really has over the Magic Kingdom's is more animatronics. Although I do prefer Brer Rabbit's verse with Brer Terrapin in "How Do You Do?" and his solo in "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" over his verses with Mr. Bluebird in the Magic Kingdom version... Mr. Bluebird talking is just so jarring to me...

I'm not a fan of how they are totally focusing on Jack Sparrow throughout the ride.
One idea that I've heard suggested is to keep Jack in the ride, but change the dialogue to remove references to him - the idea being that instead of the pirates looking for Jack and the treasure, they're just looking for the treasure, but little do they know that Jack is there and plotting to get to the treasure first. Have the captain at the well be barking "Speak up, ye bilge rat! Where be the treasure?!" again, edit Barbossa's dialogue to remove any references to Jack, and have the one pirate with the map that Jack is spying on bragging about how he's got the map to the treasure and how he'll get to it before any of the other pirates do instead of bragging about how he'll get to the treasure before Jack does (the "oh look, Jack's spying on him as he's bragging about how he's gonna get to the treasure first" joke would still work, it'd just be more subtle in my opinion). I don't think they're gonna change things like the auction scene back due to PC reasons, but I think that might satisfy those who don't really like the movie references.

From the holdup men from Wold of Motion
On a related note, didn't a couple animatronics from World of Motion wind up in Disneyland's Pirates? I don't think it was the holdup men, but still...
 

donsullivan

Premium Member
Since seeing on-ride videos of the new Shanghai version I have wondered if there might an opportunity to add projections to the opening scene after the drop to show a whole armada of ships in the harbor as we round past Barbosa's ship and into the town. It wouldn't change the overall attraction but sure could add a whole new sense of scale and depth to that scene.
 

HongKongFooy

Well-Known Member
SteamboatJoe said:
"For me Splash isn't. DL's is too fast, too dark, and too short."

Yep, true true...... Also, the seating arrangement is abominable. I hate it as it's just like those 1974 ubiquitous log flume single file uglies straddling style. We need individual seats like in MK and Tokyo.
 

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
Maybe I'm better off being in ignorant bliss of enjoying what these classic rides are, rather than letting all the negativity ruin my next ride on PotC because of what it's not, and that it's inferior to other versions.

Nothing is perfect in life... NOTHING. You can't expect WDW to have the best version of every ride.

The "classic" version of the ride closed in 2006. It's not what it used to be.

For example; The Treasure Room went from having several characters and bits of animation, to just Jack Sparrow and a parrot.

WDW will never have the best version of the ride, but for what they charge to get in, they can and should do better than what's there now.
 

PostScott

Well-Known Member
It has a fine queue: that is the only quality thing it has.......better than Tokyo's and even DL Anaheim's.
Really? I mean walking around boxes and through sewer type rooms is coolly themed but I love the fact that the DL's queue is right in the middle of New Orleans Square. It has so much energy and its outdoors, so the humidity doesn't get trapped. Then you walk in and see the boats coming around the bend. Sure it doesn't have much theming but it's whole gimmick is that it's in the heart of DL's most energized land, but I can see why MK's would be seen as better. Guess it's just my personal opinion.
 

HongKongFooy

Well-Known Member
I mean walking around boxes and through sewer type rooms is coolly themed but I love the fact that the DL's queue is right in the middle of New Orleans Square. It has so much energy and its outdoors, so the humidity doesn't get trapped. Then you walk in and see the boats coming around the bend. Sure it doesn't have much theming but it's whole gimmick is that it's in the heart of DL's most energized land,

Nice response......
You do have a pretty good point there. And the DL pirates front courtyard serving as both an entry to the ride and overflow queue is underestimated---some very good placesetting.
 

PostScott

Well-Known Member
Nice response......
You do have a pretty good point there. And the DL pirates front courtyard serving as both an entry to the ride and overflow queue is underestimated---some very good placesetting.
Yeah, I mean lately though the overflowing queue space is always being used. It's making New Orleans Square even more crowded and congested. I don't remember the queue always flowing out like it has been recently.
 

Pepper's Ghost

Well-Known Member
Yeah, I mean lately though the overflowing queue space is always being used. It's making New Orleans Square even more crowded and congested. I don't remember the queue always flowing out like it has been recently.

"Lately"?? Pardon me if I'm inaccurate, but I think lately the lines have been non-existent! 🤪 🤣
 

Mr Mindcrime

Well-Known Member
I'd love to see WDW POTC improved. Update a few scenes, remove the movie references, just over all "plus" the attraction (it would be cool if it could be lengthened but I know they have to work with the footprint they have available).

That said, why in the world would Disney do this? The POTC lines are long and MK is over-crowded. There is no incentive as they already have more people in the park than they know what to do with. If POTC had no visitors or if MK were suddenly poorly attended due to bad attractions or too few attractions or whatever, THEN, they'd have an incentive to make things better.

POTC or anything else won't be improved or added until necessary. Spending CAPEX on POTC will not add a dime to the bottom line. At least in this case, "creating a better attraction" would be an emotional but not a financial decision. Won't happen.
 

PiratesMansion

Well-Known Member
MK has the worst Pirates in the world. Fact.

However, they have no incentive to improve it right now. There are plenty of people who ride the current version and like it just fine, that have no idea that literally every other version of the attraction is better or don't care (you could make a broader point about WDW here too or at least MK in particular vs. the other Disney resorts in the world if you desired).

And at this point, how do you market that? How do you sell that to people? Sure, the uptick in capacity would probably be nice, but there are probably better, easier ways at this point than figuring out how to re-engineer a 47 year old attraction that few people in the park experiencing it have a problem with.

That said, I won't stand in their way if they want to rip out all of the movie references.
 
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WondersOfLife

Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
They should definitely scrap it. I worked There and I gotta Say, the maintenance is so bad over there... everything is breaking ALL. THE. TIME.

time to just scrap all of the old crap and do a brand new pirates ride from scratch with MUCH needed updated technology!
 

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