Avast Mateys!

By Michael - February 21st, 2010

In the first episode of our podcast, Beacon Joe and I discussed how impressed we were with Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean when we first had a chance to visit Anaheim last September. Even after a lifetime of riding Disney attractions, we still were floored by this 40+ year old ride. The ride experience puts its Floridian cousin to shame, although Walt Disney World does gain points for its far superior queue.

Progress Citizen “Another Voice” was kind enough to send in the following scan, which shows a flier that was handed out to guests as they entered the Disneyland gates in 1967. While it might seem odd today for Disney to advertise its rides within the gates of the park itself, you have to remember that these were the days of the ticket books – guests had to decide whether or not to pay to ride each specific attraction. So how did Disneyland choose to advertise its new buccaneers?

I’m mainly curious if this is the only Disney promotional material to ever use the term “raging holocaust.” Just read that ad copy – doesn’t it make the ride sound wild? And kind of an insane idea for a theme park ride? Probably just what was needed to make people make a beeline to New Orleans Square.

An interesting thing to look at is the prices. As I said, this was in the ticket book era and you’d have to have an E-ticket to ride. That seems so strange in the modern age of ride-all-day general admission tickets; when you stop to think about it, the old system really did create an entirely different park experience.

While it might seem odd to think of having to pay 75 cents every time you wanted to ride Pirates instead of just going as much as you’d like, when you take inflation into consideration the difference in experiences becomes more apparent.

That 75 cent E-ticket for adults and juniors, when adjusted for inflation with the government’s Consumer Price Index calculator, would represent a $4.87 investment today. $4.87! For one ride! The 60 cent child ticket would be $3.89 today. And, again, that’s for one single ride

Now, admittedly, guests were paying far less for admission at the gate in those days. And there were plenty of great things to see for free, too. But it stands to reason that if you were paying almost $5 for a single ride, you’d really expect it to deliver. Thankfully, Pirates did.