Watch the video for a tour of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida!
Pirates of the Caribbean is a Disney-made log flume themed dark ride at Disneyland Park, Walt Disney World Resort Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris. This was the last attraction which Walt Disney himself participated in designing; it opened three months after his death, in the spring of 1967. It was originally envisioned to be a walk-through wax museum attraction.
During the course of the indoor boat ride, guests float through an immersive, larger-than-life pirate adventure featuring gunshots, cannon blasts, burning buildings, and carousing and pillaging pirates, all accompanied by the now-iconic song “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me)” written by George Bruns and Xavier Atencio.
The Magic Kingdom attraction, guarded by the Caribbean watchtower Torre del Sol, is housed in a golden Spanish fort called Castillo Del Morro, inspired by Castillo de San Felipe del Morro in theOld San Juan in San Juan.
Inside, the Disneyland Blue Bayou has been replaced by Pirate’s Cove and into a short grotto with Blackbeard, skeletons of dead pirates, the hurricane lagoon, and an echoing “Dead men tell no tales”. There is no treasure room sequence as found in other Disney parks. Following the plunge down one waterfall, the remainder of the ride is similar to Tokyo and California. Unlike in California, however, riders do not return to ground level in their boat; instead, they exit the boat immediately after the Jack Sparrow in the treasure room scene, then take a speed ramp up to the ground floor gift shop. The Florida Magic Kingdom version also does not include the scene past the powder room with the intoxicated pirates firing cannons.
The exterior of the Magic Kingdom attraction was slightly altered during the 2006 modifications. Included in the changes were the removal of the barker bird and original attraction sign. A new sign was placed on the outside corner of the fort facing toward the entrance of Adventureland. The design of the new sign is a ship’s mast with the attraction name written in its black sails, and a skeleton of a pirate up in its crow’s nest. The barker bird was eventually moved to the Pirates of the Caribbean section of the World of Disney store at Downtown Disney.