POTC Ride Down For Refurb #2 - Possibly Feb-May 2007

[HydroGuy]

Hmmmm...we were there in late August and the lineup for POTC each day was HUGE. EVEN first thing in the morning. We rushed to POTC as soon as the rope dropped and we were lucky to be on the first boat out. (This was on a Monday). When we came out the other side, the lineup for POTC was already very long. There were no stuck boats and the line was already very long. Every time I've been on that ride, whether it be Orlando or Anaheim, there has always been a jam up on at the end (well, except this first boat out time). I've never seen the line for Pirates as long as I saw them in August...ever. There used to be a time when we could just walk onto it. The movies have seen an end to that!

Mind you, there have been technical problems as you have said. I was told that the day before we rode it that morning that the ride had been down for a while.

As Minnie pointed out, the POTC ride is the highest capacity ride at DLR - when the boats do not get stuck. That means long lines move very fast. The capacity is like 3500 people per hour.

I was in SoCal in early August this year and snuck in a day trip with my DS13 specifically to ride the refurbed POTC. While the lines for POTC in late June and early July were extremely long (at first they were 4 hrs but settled down to maybe 1 hr, I was assured by many that by early August the lines were mostly back to normal (except when the boats are stuck). This means 30 minute waits mid-day. We did not see that ourselves, as the boats were already getting stuck when we got in line at 9AM and the line was not moving. We finally got to ride at about 11:30AM - and while we were in line the boats got stuck for 10 minutes. We waited about 35 minutes altogether.

For everyone's info, the boats getting stuck is a recent thing. They changed something about the water flow and apparently did not do enough sand bag testing to be sure the boats would go over the water drops properly. So the next time they do a POTC refurb this will likely be a problem they will resolve. But if this refurb #2 rumor is true, that will not happen until Spring 2007.

 

[pxlbarrel]

Dunno how long the lines were before we went but when we were there, there was a snaking rope line area set up outside gates of POTC. In fact, our 50th anniversary tour guide was trying to get us to the exit of POTC so we could ride it and she got all tangled up and lost amongst the ropes. She said she'd never seen them there before. We ended up following her all over the place whilst she worked her way out of that maze of ropes and tried to find her way to the exit. Kind of like a very comical version of follow the leader.

On our first day in the park, we rode POTC at around 6:30 pm...(we wanted to do it earlier but the line was huge). It took us about 1 hour to get onto the ride in the evening. I *think* the line had actually gotten shorter because the ride was down for a while and had just reopened...but I'm not entirely sure.

When we did early entry, we stood at the rope drop area of Adventureland...ready to run for POTC. Everybody else was there too...for the same reason. It was actually pretty funny as the CM dropped the rope and ran for his life. I remember when the rope drop run was for Indy. Nice to see one of the older rides get popular again.

Interesting about the water flow. Perhaps that explains how I actually got soaked on the drops. I've never ever been soaked on Pirates before and this time...you'd thought we were on Splash Mountain or something.