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Credit: Lee (myfrozenlife), FlickrDisney cast members recently helped reimagine Pirates of the Caribbean for Walt Disney World Resort guests when the ride broke down on February 10. The attraction shut down as part of a widespread system outage across Magic Kingdom Park on Monday that shuttered almost all rides across the theme park.
Pirates of the Caribbean opened at Magic Kingdom Park in 1973, over six years after the original premiered at Disneyland Park. Walt Disney Imagineers later recreated versions of the attraction at Disneyland Paris and Tokyo Disneyland.
The boat ride actually inspired the Pirates of the Caribbean film series starring Johnny Depp, but in the 2000s, Imagineering retrofitted animatronics of Depp’s character, Captain Jack Sparrow, into the attraction.
In the late 2010s, Walt Disney Imagineers again updated Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort. To make the ride more inclusive, they reimagined animatronic brides-for-auction into independent female pirates, including the iconic Captain Redd.
This change was controversial–some nostalgic Disney Parks fans felt the decades-old attraction should’ve remained the same. Others felt Imagineers didn’t go far enough.
In 2023, one Disney Park guest went viral on TikTok after stating that she felt gawked at by the male animatronics on Pirates of the Caribbean.
“I just think this is kind of a weird ride,” she said in the video. “I don’t know… It’s just a little bit rapey.”
Although many Disney Parks fans disagreed with the TikToker, she wasn’t alone.
“It feels like we’re the entertainment for them and I do not like it,” one woman wrote.
“I always felt violated on this ride,” said another.
But the most recent “change” to Pirates of the Caribbean wasn’t caused by guest feedback. On February 10, Disney cast members had to evacuate guests from the attraction after Magic Kingdom Park’s central pressured air system went down. The Adventureland ride was one of many that halted operations Monday evening, but Disney cast members came up with a creative way to entertain theme park guests.
X (formerly Twitter) user @LivingLambeaux shared a photo and video of Disney cast members “reenacting” the Pirates of the Caribbean ride with a group of kids sitting in a tape “boat:”
Sitting here at Magic Kingdom and Pirates is down, so they have about five kids sitting outside the ride in a row or two with the cast members reenacting the entire ride
— Living Lambeaux (@LivingLambeaux) February 11, 2025
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