The Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disneyland Paris at this point is the only version of the attraction left in any Disney theme park around the globe that has remained in it’s original, “Jack Sparrow”-free incarnation. All other versions of the attraction (i.e. at Disneyland Anaheim, the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World and at Tokyo Disneyland) in the wake of the success of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie trilogy have received a plussing introducing amongst others the character of Jack Sparrow as new Audio-Animatronic modeled after Johnny Depp.

Back when PotC 3 was opening and the attraction at Disneyland Paris went down for a lengthy rehab rumors mentioned that Paris would also be plussed with the new characters. However, when the attraction reopened it was freshened up but no sign of any new Audio-Animatronics. Instead word leaked out that some local Imagineers had given passionate presentations to the management in charge arguing that the attraction should not be updated to integrate the movie characters that guests to this day keep looking for. But this might change…

Christian Sylt analyzed the recently released devastating results of Disneyland Paris for Telegraph.co.uk. In his article he not only points out that the financial markets reacted swiftly and showed their dismay with the inaccetable performance of the resort’s managment by letting “Euro Disney’s shares plummeting 13pc – the stock’s biggest fall in nearly two years” but also looks further into the data and what it might implicate for the future.

The in-depth article (well worth a complete reading) points out many interesting points not the least when he cites  Euro Disney’s 2009 accounts revelation that “if compliance with financial performance covenants cannot be achieved [in fiscal year 2010], the group will have to appropriately reduce operating costs, curtail a portion of planned capital expenditures and/or seek assistance from The Walt Disney Company or other parties as permitted under the debt agreements”. This does not sound to promizing considering the cut-backs in entertainment that have been noticed already by guests frequently returning to the resort – as well as many other details, to cite Christian Sylt again: “Euro Disney’s financial woes are hard for guests to avoid, with paintwork peeling off some rides and cracks in the furniture found on recent visits“. Once regular (non-fan) news outlets start pointing out these quality issued (that have been widely discussed and critized among fans for years already) the resort is moving closer and closer to the tipping point where word of mouth may turn from convincing potential guests to visit into actually convincing to not to visit the resort.

The final segment of his article (in which he talks about the upcoming Toy Story Playland expansion) Christian Sylt relied on an interview with David Minichiello who is identified as “Disney’s creative development director” at/ for the resort. And this brings us back to the question of the plussing of Pirates of the Caribbean. Minichiello apparently said: “Sometimes we will be asked to look at older attractions like Pirates of the Caribbean and freshen them up. Children today grew up with the movies, so we put animatronic characters from the movies in the ride in Florida and we are looking at doing it here in Paris“!

Sounds as if Jack Sparrow might show up sooner or later in the Paris’ version of the attraction at last … premiering such addition in time with the opening of the fourth movie of the franchise which is currently set for May 20, 2011 in the USA. This would basically allow the resort to make the new addition the corner-stone (or at least a major element) of whatever concept they come up with for the summer of 2011.

This entry was posted by Dirk on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 7:57 am and is filed under Disneyland Park. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.