YO HO, YO HO A PARROTS LIFE FOR ME
On December 15, 1973, seven years to the day after the passing of Walt Disney, WDW saw it's first major E-ticket addition since the roll out of attractions in the first few months of opening. I don't know if it was planned to open it on the anniversary of his death, or not, more likely it was just a matter of wanting to gettting it up and running before the Christmas crowds began to descend upon the park. Still it's quite appropriate in a way since this attraction was one of the last rides that Walt had had seen almost all the way through the process of it's creation at Disneyland (it opened there March 18, 1967). Yes Pirates of the Caribbean had arrived in Florida. It is just a shortened version of the California ride , but, again most people had not seen the California version and the heart of the ride is still there. Perhaps one of the resons that Pirates recieved such anabbreviated version was that they wanted to leave most of the land out beyond it open for another project it sat out near the end of. Originally the land adjacent to that on which Pirates sits had been planned to be the home of a rather large atraction complex that also includes the land Splash Mountain and Big thunder Mountain sit on now, and the name of that project was Thunder Mesa it would have had an old west themed attaction using audio-animatronics figures, and boats, just like those used on Pirates, and an additional roller coaster attraction outside similar to the Big Thunder Mountain we have today, you can see an artwork for it on one of the pre-opening postcards. http://www.bigbrian-nc.com/wdw-pc03.htm and there is a great article on it on Mike Lee's Widen Your World site at: http://www.omniluxe.net/wyw/wre.htm One thing the Florida version got that the California ride does not have is a Spanish Fort Exterior with placement in an addition to Adventureland known as Caribbean Square. The other thing that I often think of when I think of the Florida version of this attraction is the Pirate parrot who used to speak to passers by at the entrance to the ride (he was removed when the ride was renovated in 2006) . But on these early cards neither the Fort exterior or the Pirate Parrot were featured, so heres one of my own photos...
on these early cards in fact these images could very easily have been taken at Disneyland.
below: 0111-0354 PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, 0111-0355 IT'S A DOGS LIFE, and 0111-0356 "WHERE BE THE TREASURE? "
