Pirates Take Over Tom Sawyer's Island

As previously noted here, Disneyland is capitalizing on the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise by converting Tom Sawyer's Island to Pirate's Lair:

Let the lads and lasses loot, plunder and pillage to their hearts' content at Disneyland – if they can get past some scurvy scallywags ready to defend their precious spoils.

Now that facets of old Tom Sawyer Island have gotten the heave-ho, the attraction reopens today with a redesigned "Pirates of the Caribbean" theme meant to boost the aging interactive playground and capitalize on the success of the movie franchise.

Disney timed the opening of Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island, as it's now called, with the release of "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" to theaters. This new take boasts features that are more pirate-specific, while keeping the classic Mark Twain novel in mind....

Visitors to Frontierland will now find a pirate greeting them at the dock to Tom Sawyer Island. He'll give guests pirate names, teach them pirate etiquette and request that any loot found be conveniently split with him, Kelman said.

The attraction itself has been loaded with special effects, live pirates skulking about and activity areas for visitors to discover hidden treasure. In one cove, guests can maneuver pumps that reveal a sunken ship and skeletal pirates still clinging to what lies beneath.

Other new aspects include a "bone cage," taken from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie, in which guests can appear as if they're suspended under water; a treasure room dutifully protected by Capt. Jack Sparrow, the movie's hero; and a live action show featuring Sparrow as a swashbuckler.

The last couple of times I went over to the island I could tell that Disney had lost interest in it and the facilities were deteriorating. They closed Fort Wilderness awhile ago and there really didn't seem to be much purpose to the place anymore.

The problem they're going to have now is access. Any new attraction always gets a huge response, and the island can only be accessed by riding over in powered rafts. Not only does that provide a limitation, but some new safety procedures went into place recently that limited the number of people on each raft. They used to pack them tight, but now they're limiting number of people on each raft which further reduces the number of bodies per hour that can travel back and forth across the river.

I hate to see this change in some ways because I am a bit of a traditionalist. I spent the summer of 1975 working the area that includes the raft dock and used to include the keel boats (now a smoking area). Tom Sawyer's Island was a great place to turn the kids loose and let them play without worrying about them getting lost. There were lots of things to climb on or over, plus they could shoot the marauding bands of Indians from Fort Wilderness. After a young girl lost part of a finger in one of the guns, they took those out and later closed the fort.

That side of the park has lost some of the charm it used to have. With the new attraction and the popularity of the pirate stuff, the area around the waterfront will be a complete zoo as great crowds of people try to get over to the island.

You can see a diagram and description of Pirate's Lair here.

Interesting side note:

When the island opened in 1956, the water surrounding it was stocked with 15,000 catfish, perch and bluegill. Guests could rent fishing gear. The practice was short-lived because visitors didn't want to carry their catch around the theme park.

On a warm day the tourists are smelly enough. Carrying around dead fish would not help.