This Disneyland Ride Is Finally Back—But Visitors Are Complaining About One Significant Update

After a nearly two-month-long hiatus, the beloved Pirates of the Caribbean ride is back in action and…better than ever? During its refurbishment, Disneyland’s Imagineers reimagined the journey down the waterfall with a major, high-tech tuneup. When you’re in the caverns and approach a staggeringly large pile of gold, you’ll now find a pirate telling his own story (so much for “dead men tell no tales!”).

In a video shared by Walt Disney Imagineering, Disneyland Imagineer Alfredo Ayala explained how this greedy pirate picks up a cursed gold coin, and then turns into a skeleton. Riders can see the skeleton drop the coin, which frees him from the curse—until he picks it up again and the cycle continues. “For eternity, he’s stuck in this loop,” Ayala said in the video.

Disneyland Resort/Christian Thompson

Prior to this update, cruisers witnessed a skeleton sitting atop the riches. This pirate-turned-skeleton figure marks the debut of the company’s new animatronic technology, which features “projection mapping onto moving figures and objects,” according to the video. And while many Disney fans are marveling at this new addition, others are more skeptical about the ride’s move from nostalgic to futuristic. 

“I will say, I think they executed the idea very well, and I like the ‘story’ of him caught in an eternal loop of greed and being cursed,” one commenter wrote on YouTube.

“What makes Pirates timeless is the old school charm of it,” countered one Twitter user. Don’t ruin it with modern tech.” “Personally, I wouldn’t have touched this iconic scene,” wrote another.

Whether you’re buying into this pirate’s story or mourning the original, the boats are back in the Bayou and ready to greet visitors with tunes and tales from the Golden Age of Piracy. Word to the wise? Don’t pick up any golden coins you spot along the way.