Pirates of the Caribbean

Pirates of the Caribbean is a boat ride attraction opening up in 1967. It is the last ride Walt unfortunately got to work on and passed 3 months before opening. Due to that it is considered quite a special ride that's be replicated in, Orlando, Tokyo Paris and Shanghai. It was an opening day attraction in Tokyo, Paris and Shanghai. It also created one of the most popular movies series based of any of the rides. It's one of the first attractions to utilise Audio animatronics, it uses a whopping 128. 75 of those are pirates and 53 animals.

All the way back in the 50s Walt had Invisioned a ride based on pirates originally it was going to be a walk through attraction full of wax figures but after the 1964 worlds fair the ride completely changed direction. Walt unveiled two major ride breakthroughs that would heavily influence Pirates of the Caribbean. It's a Small World and Great Moments with Mr. Lincon. Small World was Disney's first attempt at a boat ride attraction and Mr. Lincon was a worlds first audio animatronic that wasn't a bird. So with newfound technology Walt decided to use it to upgrade the experience of Pirates of the Caribbean. Back then Walt trusted his imagineers and usually let them run wild, so when he was presented with this idea he was pleasantly surprised. This ride would open three month's after Walts unfortunate passing and would be a lasting tribute to his creativity as this would be the last ever attraction he would personally work on and in my opinion one of if not the best attraction he worked on. Above the ride entrance in DL is two letters in the railings. W and R which tributes both Walt and Roy Disney. When it came time to open the Magic Kingdom in Orlando the ride was absent due the Floridas proximity too the West Indies and Florida history with pirates they thought that the magic of pirates wouldn't be there. Instead they planned what was at the time going to be the most expensive and ambitious attraction yet. Western river expedition. This would of been Pirates of the Caribbean but with cowboys instead of pirates but Due to the disappointment of no Pirates of the Caribbean it was quickly scrapped and Pirates of the Caribbean opened two years after the park 1973. This ride was replicated all over the world it opened in Tokyo (1983), Paris (1992) and Shanghai (2016)

In the 90s Disney started to produce movies based on there attraction and there fifth film was based upon the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction which was received with much fanfare with multiple sequel's and Disney most successful of all of these adaptations. In 2006 they started to slightly re-theme the rides to include Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbossa to make it tie in with the films more.