The Entrance	A Skeletal Sea Captain Still Steers His Ship

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personal preference

stars: 5 (out of 5)
Often considered, for good reason, the finest example of Disney theme park craftsmanship. It's immersive, exciting, and intricately fashioned.

free association

. . . Pirates, of all the rides in Disneyland, is the most effective in separating guests from reality and immmersing them in its fantasy world. The moment you step into the darkness of the interior, with its damp smell and soothing jazz music, you immediately forget the outside world. The Bayou Scene, which opens the ride, separates the guest spatially from reality i.e. from Disneyland, CA to New Orleans, LA (or thereabouts). This is the first separation. Once one gets to the Grotto and the Battle Scene we are not only separated by place but by time as we move back some four centuries. So the initial scene in the Bayou is necessary to ease the guests into the notion that they are in another place before they are transported back in time. Could you imagine beginning the ride in the midst of the battle, just boarding the ship and there you are? It would be too disorienting. . .

. . . The disorientation the guest feels, which is so integral to creating the atmosphere of the ride, always made me think that the entire ride was underground. Of course, some of it is, but much of the ride is housed in a building outside the park's berm. . .

. . . The atmosphere of Pirates is just so engrossing, it's hard to believe that most of the attraction is contained within a big warehouse. You can see the roofline of the building, though, if you look closely above the pirate ship. The sky seems to bend at a right angle. . .

. . . Some of my favorite aspects of Pirates: quietly floating through the swamp right by the Blue Bayou restaurant, the beach scene with the seagulls nesting around the skeletons, the echoey, ghostly "Dead Men Tell No Tales" as you float throught the darkness, the exploding cannonballs in the water, the pirate that dangles his hairy leg over your boat, and those cool little fireflies. . .

pointless trivia

• Imagineer, Marc Davis, designed all the figures in the ride and how they moved. His wife, Alice, designed their costumes after working on the dolls for Its a Small World or as she put it: "I graduated from 'sweet little children' to 'dirty old men.'" (The E-Ticket, Summer 1989)
• Sixty-five characters (pirates and townspeople) were created for the ride. (The E-Ticket, Spring 1995)
• Due to the realistic fire effects at the end of the ride, the Disneyland fire marshall asked that an automatic power shutdown be installed so, in the event of a real fire, firemen would be able to recognize the real blaze. (Disneyland, Dreams, Traditions and Transitions) - search for it on amazon.com
• Imagineer Herb Ryman did many of the concept sketches for the attraction to capture the atmosphere of the bayou and the pirate raid. For inspiration, he traveled to San Juan, Puerto Rico to sketch Spanish forts and soak up the Caribbean environment. (A Brush with Disney : An Artist's Journey)
• When EPCOT Center's World of Motion Pavilion was closed in 1995, parts from the homeless Audio-Animatronic figures were used to renovate some of the Disneyland Pirate figures. (Disney Magazine, Summer 2002)
• TEST: Which character in the ride is said to be modeled after Walt Disney? Answer Below

Answer: The Auctioneer

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