The plaza area in front of Pirates, now known as Caribbean Plaza, was not part of the park when it opened. The attraction was added very quickly in 1973.

Disney did not feel that Pirates battling it out from the nearby Caribbean would be exotic enough and they were about to build Marc Davis’s Western River Expedition. But guests were clamoring for the Pirates.

It is a self contained mini-land within Adventureland. There is a date marked as 1643. You can see a crow’s nest that defines the pirates plaza.

The entrance is modeled after the el Castillo de San Felipe del Morro built in the early 1600s. This was a fortress that was built to protect Havana from pirates. Did not do very much good here, did it?

The tower is called the Torre del Cielo (Tower of the Sky or Skytower) and was considered the gateway to the “New Spain”. A paper model kit of the tower can be found at www.haunteddimensions.raykeim.com.