Explorer Canoes
| Explorer Canoes | |
|---|---|
| Park | Shanghai Disneyland |
| Land / area | Treasure Cove |
| Type | Guest-paddled canoe ride |
| Opened | June 16, 2016 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering |
| Height req. | None |
| Status | Operating |
Explorer Canoes is a guest-paddled canoe attraction in Treasure Cove at Shanghai Disneyland. Groups of guests, each handed a paddle, power long canoes around the lagoon that Treasure Cove shares with Adventure Isle, steered and narrated by guides at the bow and stern. It is a direct descendant of the Explorer Canoes that have operated at Disney parks since Disneyland's early years — and it is the only ride at Shanghai Disneyland that does not move at all unless its passengers do the work. The attraction opened with the park on June 16, 2016, following a soft opening on May 7.[1]
History
Canoes are among the oldest ride types in the Disney repertoire: paddle-it-yourself boats have carried guests at Disneyland in California since the 1950s, and versions later operated at Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris, most of them under the Davy Crockett name. By the time Shanghai Disneyland was designed, the canoes had become a rarity — which made them a natural fit for Treasure Cove, the first pirate-themed land at a Disney park, where a harbour town captured by Captain Jack Sparrow is built around a working lagoon.
Shanghai's version dropped the Davy Crockett branding, which meant nothing to its audience, in favour of the plain Explorer Canoes name and a pirate-harbour setting. The canoes depart from Dead Man's Landing and form, with Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure and the Shipwreck Shore play area, the waterborne third of the land's offerings.
Experience
Guests board long, low canoes in rows of two and are issued a short paddle each. Cast member guides ride at the front and back of the boat: they set the paddling rhythm with calls the whole boat can follow, steer through the course, and keep up a running commentary on the sights. Between their efforts, everything that moves the boat comes from the passengers — a canoe full of half-hearted paddlers goes noticeably slower than one that finds its rhythm, and splashing is a realistic possibility.[2]
The route circles the lagoon through Treasure Cove's harbour scenery and along the Q'olari River at the edge of Adventure Isle, passing the land's wrecked ships and waterfront buildings at water level — the only place in the park where this scenery is seen from the water rather than from a path above it.[3] As an outdoor, weather-dependent, physically active attraction it keeps shorter and more seasonal hours than the park's indoor rides, and it is best treated as a fair-weather interlude between Treasure Cove's bigger attractions.
See also
- Shanghai Disneyland
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure
- Roaring Rapids
- Tom Sawyer Island