What Was the Last Ride Walt Disney Worked On?

It’s no secret that Walt Disney loved being involved in Disneyland – according to urban legend, he once responded to a call for him to run for political office with something along the lines of “Why be a governor or senator when you can be king of Disneyland?”

Sleeping Beauty Castle in DisneylandWalt’s devotion to his initial park makes sense, as the park had been Disney’s personal pet project for nearly a decade before it opened in 1955. Over the course of Disneyland’s first decade, Walt remained heavily involved in attraction development for Disneyland — as well as the 1964 New Work World’s Fair and the early stages of the “Florida Project” that would eventually become Walt Disney World — until his untimely death in 1966.

However, just mere months after Disney passed away, the final attraction he oversaw directly opened… and became one of the most famous attractions in Disney history: Pirates of the Caribbean.

The development of Pirates of the Caribbean began in the late 1950s, not too long after Disneyland opened. Initially, Walt and his original team of core Imagineers began planning a pirate-based walkthrough attraction for the park’s then in-development New Orleans-based land.

By the early 1960s, planning and construction for this pirates walkthrough attraction was in full-swing. In fact, a massive underground “basement” was dug out in the area to house the planned wax museum. However, Walt and the Imagineers were stymied on how to effectively move large numbers of guests through the museum efficiently, and how to effectively display pirates in a realistic setting. They would find their answer thanks to the 1964 New York World’s Fair, and shape theme park history in the process.

The importance of the 1964 Fair to the development of Disney’s attractions can’t be overstated. The fair saw the debuts of four classic Disney attractions: Carousel of Progress, Ford Magic Skyway, ‘it’s a small world’, and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. Walt oversaw the development of each of these attractions, and the latter two specifically would fundamentally change the concept of the pirate walkthrough forever.

Once the Fair ended and Disney turned his attention back to Disneyland, he and the Imagineers took what they’d learned in New York and used it to retool the pirate concept. First, the concept of the walkthrough was abandoned entirely, with the boat ride system that Disney developed for ‘it’s a small world’ in its place. This change led to a massive change in the attraction’s storyline, as well.

See, the original “basement” as way too small for a boat ride, so it instead became the prelude of skeleton-infested haunted caverns that we know today. The boats would then plummet down a drop which actually served as way to bring guests under the Disneyland railroad tracks to enter a newly constructed show building full of pirates ransacking a small town. Said pirates were not the originally planned wax figures however, instead that would be highly advanced (for the time) audio animatronic figures that used technology developed for the Lincoln show.

Walt Disney was highly involved in the development of the attraction, now known officially as Pirates of the Caribbean, and featured the in-development ride on several episodes of his weekly television series. In fact, Disneyland’s 1965 10th Anniversary special famously once featured a full 5-minute segment where Walt recounted the entire story of the attraction to Julie Green — who held the title of “Miss Disneyland Tencennial” — with the aid of scale models of the animatronics and sets, as well as Imagineers Blaine Gibson and Claude Coates.

By late 1966, the attraction was being installed in Disneyland, only months away from opening, However, Walt Disney would never see the attraction open. That fall, a pre-surgery check-up revealed that Walt was suffering from terminal lung cancer. He died on December 15, 1966, just over a month after he’d first been diagnosed.

Pirates of the Caribbean opened just over 3 months later, on March 18, 1967. Despite Walt passing before he got a chance to see it, his personal oversight of the attraction played a major role in its massive success, and ensured its lasting legacy. Today, there are versions of Pirates of the Caribbean at nearly all of Disney’s resorts around the world – including Orlando, Paris, Shanghai, and Tokyo – and of course the multi-billion dollar drawing film franchise.

Did you know that Pirates of the Caribbean was the final attraction Walt Disney personally oversaw? How much do you think his influence benefitted the finished product? Let us know in the comments below!