Pirates of the Caribbean (themed cruise)

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Entrance to the Pirates of the Caribbean themed cruise in Disneyland.

Pirates of the Caribbean is a themed ride in the Disney theme parks Disneyland ( California ), Magic Kingdom ( Florida ), Tokyo Disney Resort ( Japan ), Disneyland Paris ( France ) and Shanghai Disney Resort ( China ). It provided the template for the film series of the same name , as well as for the first two parts of the computer game Monkey Island . It is one of the most popular and well-known Disney attractions. The oldest and original variant of the attraction is in the Disneyland Resort. It opened on March 18, 1967 and is the last Disneyland attraction that Walt Disney personally helped plan. In the Magic Kingdom of the Walt Disney World Resort , the story is basically the same as in Disneyland, with the journey being cut by six minutes.

The version in Tokyo Disneyland is an almost exact copy of the version in Florida. At Disneyland Paris, the story is a little different from the other Disney parks, with the most important parts being the same. However, the movie characters were not used.

Visitors go down a waterfall in a boat and land directly in the world of pirates. Different scenes convey the life of the buccaneers through moving and speaking figures. Cannon shots, looting and burning buildings are just a few parts of the adventure accompanied by the pirate song Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me) .

Originally the attraction was planned as a wax museum in the 1950s , but evolves into a boat trip through elaborate scenes with audio animatronics . In 1997 and 2006 it was renovated.

Description of the trip

First you drive through a tropical lagoon, past the Blue Bayou Restaurant (in the Magic Kingdom you can see a pirate bay instead), before you go down a waterfall into a maze of grottos and pirate hideouts. After a few minutes, the small boats find their way outside, where they find themselves in the middle of a wild battle between the pirate Barbossa on his ship and a Caribbean fort.

You now turn into a small village that is currently being plundered by the pirates. In the main square of the village you can see how the pirates plunge the mayor Carlos into the well and coax him into the secret of the hiding place of the treasure around which the story revolves. A few meters further you can see Captain Jack Sparrow, who is hiding behind a clothes rack. The boats continue through the village, past a pirate who is auctioning off the captured women from the village to his crew, a pair of drunken pirates, another Jack Sparrow figure, three drunken pirates who continuously blare the theme song Yo Ho , and finally in the middle of the city set on fire by the pirates, which threatens to collapse.

Now it goes into one of the burning houses, where a couple of pirates try to escape from the burning dungeon. Then there is a shootout between more drunk, singing pirates. Finally, the boats go up a waterfall, past Jack Sparrow with his treasure, before you arrive safely at LaSAFE's Landing .

Changes in 2006

In 2006 the themed ride was renovated by Walt Disney Imagineering and, at the start of the second part, optically adapted to the Pirates of the Caribbean film series . A controversial scene in which attractive women were pursued by the pirates has been removed from the Disneyland version. Two of them are now dragging a heavy treasure, while the third is threatened by a woman with a weapon.

The audio animatronic figures were adapted to the film actors Johnny Depp (Captain Jack Sparrow), Bill Nighy (Davy Jones) and Geoffrey Rush (Hector Barbossa, formerly Blackbeard, the captain of the ghost ship Wicked Wench ). There were also other technical changes, e.g. B. partly an instrumental version of the pirate song can be heard.

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