Happy 57th birthday today to one of the most influential attractions in theme park history, Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean.
The original Pirates of the Caribbean opened March 18, 1967 at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Its success prompted Disney to cancel plans for a Western River Expedition ride complex at Florida's Walt Disney World in favor of building a second, shorter installation of Pirates there. It opened December 15, 1973. A third installation, featuring a combination of elements from California and Florida, opened with Tokyo Disneyland in 1983.
Paris' Disneyland got a different version of Pirates of the Caribbean when it debuted in 1992, and then Shanghai Disneyland opened in 2016 with what many fans consider the best theme park version yet, Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure.
Along the way, Pirates inspired a multi-billion-dollar movie franchise, starting with "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" in 2003. (Who remembers that Johnny Depp was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for playing Captain Jack Sparrow in that movie?) Four sequels followed, with the five Pirates films earning an estimated $4.5 billion worldwide. That success prompted Disney to add Captain Jack to its Pirates theme park attractions, with the films inspiring the narrative of the Shanghai reimagining of the ride.
Theme Park Insider readers collectively have ranked that Shanghai attraction as their favorite version of Pirates, followed by the Anaheim and Tokyo installations.
In honor of the ride's birthday, what is your favorite Pirates of the Caribbean memory?
* * *
To keep up to date with more theme park news, please sign up for Theme Park Insider's weekly newsletter.
And to help support Theme Park Insider while saving money on discounted theme park tickets, please visit our international and U.S. attraction ticket partners.
Regardless of what you think of Johnny Depp as a person, that Oscar nomiation for the first Pirates was one of the most out-there, fun, and inspired Oscar acting nominations other. It was so refreshing to see them honor such a fun, campy role in a very fun, nonserious movie, and acknowledge the level of acting craft that goes into a developing a role like that.
I haven't ridden the Shanghai version of this attraction, but of the others I rank them Paris > Tokyo > California > Florida. Regardless, all of them are fantastic atmospheric dark rides that still stand up against the most modern of E-tickets.
Agreed @AJ. I was really pleasantly surprised by how great the Paris version of the attraction is.
Agreed @AJ. I was really pleasantly surprised by how great the Paris version of the attraction is.
This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.
Just felt great riding it again on Disneyland trip last year, the original still magical.