Before After

BREAKING! Pirates of the Caribbean Debuts Transforming Skeleton Audio-Animatronics Figure Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland Park reopened on June 26, 2026, following an eight-week refurbishment. During the ride’s closure, Disney stealthily changed one of the ride’s scenes with Disney’s first next-generation Audio-Animatronics figure. This change was not announced ahead of time, coming instead as a surprise upon the ride’s reopening. The pirate, now in an eternal cycle with a cursed coin, goes back and forth between becoming a skeleton and reverting to his human self as he picks up and drops a gold doubloon. The technology is different from Disney’s previous Audio-Animatronics figures with projected faces, such as the dwarfs in Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at Magic Kingdom or the former versions of Anna and Elsa in Frozen Ever After at EPCOT, the latter of which Disney replaced with mechanical faces earlier this year. In those instances, the characters’ face sculpts were always static, and the projection came from behind. In the case of the skeletal pirate, his face is still mechanical. It moves like a traditional Audio-Animatronics figure, with animation projected from in front of him onto the moving face. What do you think of this change? The video in the last slide was shared by Walt Disney Imagineering. #disneyland #disneyparks #piratesofthecarribean