I'm not really sure how to improve the Haunted Mansion, beyond just reinstating the Ghost Host's dialog removed from some of the scenes in the ride:
(At the Conservatory)
"All our ghosts have been dying to meet you. This one can hardly contain himself. Unfortunately, they seem to have trouble getting through."
(At the Seance Room)
"Perhaps Madame Leota can establish contact. She has a remarkable head for materializing the disembodied."
That's about it, really. Actually, the real updates come to one of my absolute favorites in the whole park, another classic: Pirates of the Caribbean!
Several things are going to be tweaked, some of it to restore some old ride dialog. Also, the characters from the Pirates movies will be simplified. The characters themselves will remain, but they will just conveniently be seen in the ride. But more on that shortly.
The changes begin almost immediately after departing Laffite's Landing in your bateaux. First, there is the part with the geezer rocking on the porch of his houseboat while "Oh Susanna" is heard playing on an unseen banjo. According to Jason Surrell's very good book on the ride (and the movies), there were actually two banjo tunes recorded, the second being "Camptown Races", but for some reason, only "Oh Susanna" is actually heard. I will change all that, however, for this update.
So then, after going down the waterfalls into the skeleton-strewn grottos, where you hear the usual ghostly wail of "Dead men tell no tales!", and going through Hurricane Lagoon (the name of the scene with the pirate skeleton at the ship steering wheel in a storm), you then float through the usual scenes of the Crew's and Captain's Quarters and the treasure cave. Here, you hear the return of some old dialog, the "No fear have ye of evil curses" dialog by Paul Frees. It would actually be set up like how it was set up when the ride was previewed on the Wonderful World of Color TV show, like so (at around 1:27):
And in fact, it may be how it is in Tokyo Disneyland's version, too, although I'm not too sure, since it's in Japanese.
Leaving this set of scenes, you go through the dark tunnel and through the waterfall screen with Davy Jones in it (if it hasn't been brought back yet by this time). Then you go out into the Bombarding the Fort scene. Here, you see Barbossa on the Wicked Wench. However, he is no longer after both Captain Jack Sparrow and the town's treasure. He is now only after the treasure. Thus his dialog will be edited accordingly. If done right, there won't be any need to have Geoffrey Rush come in and do a whole new dialog track.
From here, you then go into the scene of Mayor Carlos being dunked into the well. Again, the dialog is revised so that the pirates are only after the treasure as before. As such, the dialog will be reverted back to before 2006 ("Speak up, ya bilge rat! Where be the treasure?", etc.). Then you go past Captain Jack Sparrow nearby between here and the usual Auction scene.
Then the Chase scene is shown. Now, this is tweaked big time, and it may or may not cause a controversy. It is basically reverted to non-P.C. The changes begin as you enter. In a sort of throwback to the post-1997 version, you see Captain Jack Sparrow again as he tries to have a green apple, but trying to snatch it away from a hungry horse that keeps reaching out for a bite. Meanwhile, you see that the Chase scene has been revised back to its old pre-1997 self: the pirates once again chase the women and the Pooped Pirate talks about hoisting his colors on the likes of that shy little wench in the barrel. You then go through the Burning Town scene, where the pirates sing the ride's main theme song, "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me)". Here, something will be changed: the fire effect, which will be updated somehow, but will no longer be merely glowing flapping curtains.
From there, the ride pretty much follows the rest of its course as usual, through the Jail and Arsenal scenes. As you make your way up the waterfall, after passing by Capt. Jack Sparrow amid all the ill-gotten riches he found, the dialog by Davy Jones is gone. And then, at the top of the waterfall, you travel through the waterway that wraps around the beach with the parrot and the treasure chest on it and back to Laffite's Landing, where you disembark from the ride. So ends all the tweaks to one of Disneyland's icons, Pirates of the Caribbean.
And that ends the improvements to New Orleans Square. Stay tuned.
