Long-time lurker, first-time poster, trying to stay anonymous. I have some golf buddies who work for Disney who I meet up with a couple times a year. I’m more of an animation guy, but my son is big on Disneyland, so I try to pick their brains about what’s in the pipeline for the studios and the parks and tell my son about it later. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble and most of the stuff they tell me is public knowledge, but occasionally I hear something that hasn’t made it to X or Facebook yet.
Anyway, they told me something that I was kind of surprised by. Disney considers the new Haunted Mansion line a huge success, so they’re looking at doing the same thing for Pirates of the Caribbean and reworking it to fit more people. They plan on taking the current Indiana Jones line and using a huge chunk of the indoor part for Pirates. The current attitude is that so much of the Indiana Jones line is unused, so they can reclaim it for Pirates with a bit of construction and finally get the crowds out of the walkways. I saw on Facebook that the ride just celebrated its 30th anniversary, so I’m confident the ride itself is safe. But it feels like such a big change for a key part of the Indiana Jones experience that I was kinda shocked when I heard it.
So unless plans change, expect the lines for Pirates and Indiana Jones to look a lot different in the future. And I don’t think they have a timeline for construction yet, but if you don’t visit the park very often and want to appreciate it one last time, take your time going through the Indiana Jones line so you can take it all in!
