Shades of Grey

Pirates of the Carribean is a signature Disney ride at four of the five Disney theme parks, California, Florida, Tokyo and Paris. (There is talk of building one at Hong Kong as well). It is essentially a boat based ride through diorama, populated by animatronic pirates. It is a rather long ride (10 minutes in Paris) with a couple of water splashes along the way.

The shortest one is at the Magic Kingdom in Florida, although we spent much more time in there than we intended in 2004…

The heavens had opened in Florida, so we dived into the nearest attraction, the Pirates Ride. All was well until the final scene, when the boat stopped moving. There were announcements to “remain seated, as the ride will resume momentarily”. Meanwhile, the music played and the adjacent pirates went through their repertoire of corny phrases. The next thing that happened was the working lights came on and shortly afterwards, the music stopped. Strangely, though, the pirates were still moving and every now and again they spoke a line or two. Then someone came onto the public announcement system advising us that the ride was broken down and that we would be rescued. We could see lots of activity on the dock ahead tantalisingly out of view.

After what seemed like an age (probably about ten minutes) someone turned up and advised us that help was on its way. It would take a bit longer though, because there were thirty or so boats around the ride, not all of which were easy to get at. (Including us!) Eventually, a couple of others turned up with a wooden plank complete with handrail, forming a bridge across from the sides to the boat.

We were carefully helped off, then led through the backstage bits. Even though we had been sat in that boat for half an hour, the sneak peek behind the scenes made up for it. We were taken behind a few scenes and through a large workshop, exiting the show building near some of the parade floats and making our way up through a gateway. Here a cast member was handing out our compensation chits, the chance to “jump the line” on an attraction of our choice.

“No strings attached!”