So I just came back from Disney World in Orlando and had some interesting things to add to my old Disney World column (you can read it here).

To begin, they’ve once again altered the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, this time for the worse, in my humble opinion.  I don’t mind “wet” rides, provided they’re marked as such.  There are going to be times don’t mind getting wet and others where I want to stay dry.  For many decades, the Pirates was a “dry” ride.  True, during the drop there was a chance a couple of drops of water might hit the riders, but it was rare that you stepped out of the ride very wet.

Not so now.

Though the bulk of the ride remains roughly the same (ie, post movie with the many appearances of Johnny Depp and the scrubbing of some of the more politically incorrect jokes), the drop has been changed.  No longer do you have the skull and crossbones appear just before the drop and warn you to “abandon hope all ye who enter here”.  Instead, you’re plunged into pitch black darkness followed by a drop that seems to curve a little more than it did before.

And by the time you hit bottom, the front two rows (at least) of the vessel you’re in get sprayed with a considerable amount of water.

I happened to be “lucky” enough to ride in the front of the craft with my family and the drop left my shirt and the bottoms of my pants completely soaked.

Unexpected to say the least and annoying.

You have been warned.

The second interesting thing I noticed is the “suicide” gag at the beginning of the Haunted Mansion appears to be back.  In that previous column I noted how in the “locked room with no doors and windows” the narrator notes that in such a room, how do you get out…following which lighting flashes and we can see through the roof to an attic area.  There, a figure dressed in rags is hanging from a rope, clearly the “joke” being that in a room with no doors or windows the only way out is through suicide.

During the last few trips to Disney World, that joke was considerably muted.  The figure didn’t “swing” on the rope at all, but remained very stationary and thus the punchline of that particularly ghoulish joke didn’t register.

But as of yesterday, the morbid joke was back.  The figure above you is clearly swinging on a rope.

For those curious, just thought you’d like to know!