Pirate’s Lair On Tom Sawyer Island

In case you didn’t know, Pirate’s Lair on Tom Sawyer’s Island will be closing January 11^th when Disney breaks ground on Star Wars Land and will reopen at a later date. This little island is a quiet reprieve from the busy park during the day. The area opened in 1956 but it was rethemed as Pirate’s Lair in 2007 coinciding with the theatrical release of the Pirates of the Caribbean: At the World’s End movie.
I recently made a visit to the little island to run across the barrel bridge, walk on top of the fort, and take a picture of the treasure. It’s quiet here and a nice place to just stop to enjoy. There are bathrooms and drinking water fountains on the island for convenience. The island is accessible via ferry. Just line up by the queue and wait for the CM to ferry you across.

Formerly just Tom Sawyer Island, the Pirate’s Lair was given a new moniker (and a pirate-​themed makeover) a few years back to capitalize on the popularity on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies… and to be honest, it actually worked out quite well. While a bit of a small area, you will get your steps in… especially with all the stair climbing and cave and tunnel exploring you and the kiddos will be doing. (Just be careful going through the caves — as they’re mostly made for little ones, my fool self nearly got his @$$ stuck in one of the openings that was a mite too narrow for me.)
Have fun crossing the pontoon and rope bridges, pumping water out of one of the wrecks to reveal a treasure chest, and turning the turnstile to reveal a skeleton grasping another treasure chest from the depths. And seeing the pirate’s hoard at the end of the trail is definitely worth a picture or two (come to think of it, you can get some great pics while at Pirate’s Lair… especially as the Columbia and Mark Twain are making their rounds).
You can even come across Fort Wilderness — old timers like myself can remember the days when you can go inside and play with the swivel guns on the towers. These days, sadly, it’s used as the cast members’ staging area for Fantasmic; at least one can still see the graveyard outside of the fort.
Still, a worthwhile addition to the park — if anything, to get away from the crowds for a while. It’ll be closing down for some time due to the Star Wars land expansion (along with the Rivers of America attractions, the railroad, and monorail… oh, and Fantasmic also will be taking a hiatus), but looking forward to getting my pic in front of the pirate hoard — with my lightsaber claiming it for the Jedi! — once it reopens.

For those with little ones, this is a great place to (mostly) get away from the crowds and let the kiddos have some freedom to run around a bit.
You board a raft in front of The Haunted Mansion to get to the island. Once over there, you can just leisurely explore. My son loved the bridges, tunnels, the telescopes on the shipwreck, and of course the pirates’ hidden treasure.
Again, this is a «ride» I didn’t bother with before I had an annual pass, but now that I do, I find it to be a nice break from the lines for my son. The island could be a bit better — it is a decent amount of land, so making it more of a destination would be nice. Maybe a pirate performance every hour? Or a play area somewhat like the play garden in Toon Town?

Firs time on this attraction, and first time on Tom Sawyer Island. I should be ashamed since I once worked at DL during my formative years. But I digress.
You make your way over from the dock in front of Haunted Mansion by way of raft (you don’t have to row, it’s motor powered). Once on the island you can go left or right. There are all these caves and tunnels to explore — my son and his little friend loved these. There is also a pirate’s chest near the back with piles of gold and treasure that kids can climb on (good photo ops here).
There are also a couple of wooden suspension bridges. One my son called the «wiggly bridge» because it was very wobbly and he and his buddy loved running across.
The boys discovered this large circular turnstile thingy that was attached to ropes in the water, and as the boys turned the spokes, the ropes raised a hidden treasure chest that was underwater, and hanging underneath it was a skeleton. They thought this was the greatest thing ever. Awesome!
Overall a great place for kiddos to run around and play pirates. I doubt I’d find it so interesting if i didn’t have a child with me. And don’t worry about being so far from mainland Disneyland — they have bathrooms on the island.

Finally talked my 10 year old into visiting… I seem to remember this island being a lot more fun when I was 10, LOL!

Extremely fun!
This area of Disneyland is right up my alley. You are on the opposite side of the Rivers of America, you take a little motorized raft to get there.
The whole island is done up in a pirates theme, which is very cool.
There caves and paths to explore everywhere!
Plus there are benches, picnic tables and restrooms on the island (and as far as I am aware, no consumerist shops).

This is a nice place to chill out. It’s the one area in the park where you can explore on your own instead of having your experience prescribed for you. If you’re trippin’ a little too hard on the crowds and over-​stimulation of Disneyland (and possibly other things), you can get away to this quiet oasis and recharge.

Because you haven’t walked enough at the park. Here is some more walking.
Ever wonder how the island looks that Mickey from Fantasmic performs on? We’ll look no further this is the place to go.
Although they call this the Pirates Lair. I think it’s more like shipwreck island. You walk around the island through little caverns to get to different areas of the boat. There is also a rickety bridge. Several points of interest such as a pirates golden fortune and graveyard.
This is a great place to see Disneyland from another view (Mickey’s Fantasmic View).
Lots if shade from the sun and also a couple of bathrooms are located around the island.
First time seeing this place. It’s a cool experience but I probably would pass. Nothing to spectacular. Plus your shoes gets dirty from all the dirt.

Sad to lose access to Fort Wilderness otherwise a great Island to let the kids run amuck. If the lawyers ever pave this dirt covered Island; that will be a sad chapter.

Of all the places in Disneyland which are geared towards just wandering around, exploring and playing (and especially, but not only, letting kids run free), this older part of the park is by far the best to me (see my rant about Toon Town). One must take a raft-​like ferry to it, it’s an island with trees, caves, bridges, nooks and crannies everywhere, etc. boats and canoes sailing around it, etc. Back in the 70s and 80s, we used to buy the toy muskets and go over here to have wargames, or hide-​seek, or just explore. In particular, we loved going up into the fort and «shooting» at the boats with the built-​in rifles, which was the best part. I miss the old fort the way it was then, which pushed this into the 5-​star realm, but I do like the tree fort, which is newer, and the island’s still a fun part of Disneyland and my kids enjoy it, too. It has lots of room for imagination and affords opportunities to do many different things depending on each person’s tastes unlike, say, Toon Town).

Surprisingly a nice place to get away from the crowds at Disneyland. If you feel like wandering away from the lines and bustle for a bit, definitely swing by Tom Sawyer Island.

I’ve been going to DL for years, but it took a 60 minute wait for Pirates of the Caribbean to push me across the water.
I wish my parents brought me here as a child. It’s a fairly small, but plenty of room to run and explore the caves, rocks, and the discolored treasure in the rear.
Special notes: there are 2 locations for bathrooms on this island. It was pretty clean.

I’ve been going to DL for most of my life and a lot if you know what I mean! While I’m now pretty desensitized to most experiences that this resort has to offer I still get giddy and child-​like whenever I visit the island where you take a cool little motorized raft over to.
Disney updated the looks of this famous island a couple of times since I first started visiting, but rather than ever complain about any changes I’ve always chosen to embrace whatever changes they’ve made. The last major change came when the first Pirates of the Caribbean came out and Disney converted TSI to the new Pirate’s Lair where they themed the island more toward an island that’s been overrun by Pirates. I actually loved this change because while vastly different this change added significant change to the décor which was actually really cool.
I’d say my favorite part to this day is still the Suspension Bridge, but you can explore this «island» and figure out which part is your favorite too!
Since there are many narrow walkways here then I’d keep an eye on your little one/​ones for safety reasons of course.

A nice get away from the rest of the park

Pirate’s Lair on Tom Sawyer’s Island is an artificial island located in Disneyland, which is surrounded by a large river that is only accessible by a motorized raft caught from Frontierland near the Haunted Mansion.
Once you arrive at the small dock, you are on your own investigating a small sailing vessel ship wreck including working bilge pumps and a suspension bridge, along with many large rock sculptures filled with narrow walkways, ladders and steps through sandy caves. There is also a large mound of treasure to be found at the furthest end of the pathways accessible to guests. My daughter had a lot of fun climbing onto the mounds of treasure and pretending to be a pirate.
There were many older kids whipping through the caves and stairways at full speed making it a little dangerous taking a toddler through the narrow walkways. We saw two separate instances where wild children got scratched up pretty good from running around through the slippery sand /​gravel walkways at full speed. Parents need to keep better tabs of their children and not let them amuck here.
This is a cute idea for some sun and getaway from the Disneyland crowds, but I think we’ll be skipping this attraction for a while. At least we can say that we’ve been there and tried it at least once.

did you know that tom sawyer’s island is annexed by the state of missouri? thats why nothing is sold over there… the tax rates are different!
that being said, i dont come over to this area a lot because all there is are a bunch of caves to wander in and i get a little claustrophobic so i stay away.
but the ride from the «main land» on the raft is fun for little kids.
i think its just a good place to tire out your kids if its hot and you wanna go home and theyre putting up a fight… have fun! and dont lose your child. :P

I finally went here for the first time last time I came to Disneyland. I never knew you could venture onto this island! Tom Sawyer Island is actually pretty big and you can do a good bit of roaming. There aren’t any exciting attractions, but there are these caves that you can burrow around in (be careful you don’t lose your kid, though). There’s also an abandoned pirate ship to climb around and a pile of gold. There’s a tree house you can climb up and down from, though there isn’t much else to it.
To get to Tom Sawyer Island, you can take the raft next to the lemonade stand, across the way from the Haunted Mansion.