The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow ‘sensory experience’ to immerse Disney World guests in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’

in Disney, Entertainment, Theme Parks

A new upcoming Walt Disney World attraction called “The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow” is shrouded in mystery, not only because it’s being billed as a “first-of-its-kind sensory experience” but also because its announcement has come only via the annual passholder newsletter – but not to everyone.

According to the Mickey Monitor, some time this summer will mark the opening of the new walk-through attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios that will have guests “enveloped by the world of the Pirates of the Caribbean as seen in the four feature films.””

Imagineering Show Producer Jason Roberts is quoted as saying, “This is going to be an immersive experience. We’ll really delve into the story of Captain Jack Sparrow and put our Guests in the middle of it all in new and exciting ways. Story is always the most important thing for us at Walt Disney Imagineering But we’re always looking at new ways to tell the story that our Guests have never seen before. In this attraction, we’ll let you walk in the footsteps of Jack Sparrow It’s not ‘the making of’, not ‘behind the scenes’…it is really a first- person experience. We worked with the archives as well as the filmmakers while they were shooting the last movie. And as a fan, I just loved sitting through those films again and again, going through all the details and leveraging them for this new experience. It’s really been a blast.”

Special effects will apparently be used to fully immerse visitors into that Pirates world in a way the existing Pirates of the Caribbean ride (and inspiration for the films) at the Magic Kingdom hasn’t before.

But the announcement of this new attraction surprisingly didn’t come at the big “Summer to Remember” press event Walt Disney World held just a few days ago. And when I personally received my Summer issue of the Mickey Monitor a few days ago, it wasn’t even printed in there. Instead only the online version of the Mickey Monitor features the announcement.

Mysterious indeed.


UPDATE: As pointed out by Jason in the comments below, the online edition of the Summer Mickey Monitor has now been removed. It seems this new “Pirates” attraction truly wasn’t ready to be announced, having been pulled from the printed version of the passholder newsletter as well. I blame Barbossa.


UPDATE #2 (5/2/11): Following yesterday’s announcement confusion, the official Disney Parks Blog has today confirmed the details listed above, originally included in the Mickey Monitor online, adding “an opening date will be announced later this year.” So it may not be ready this summer after all.


UPDATE #3: A press release says The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow will debut in fall 2012, not summer.


This new attraction will replace the former “Prince Caspian” exhibit at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Soundstage 4, just outside the entrance to Pixar Place and around the corner from One Man’s Dream.

(Hat tip to Stitch Kingdom for noticing it online.)

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