I just HAD to share a story of something that happened this past weekend.
First I will preface the story with this:
1) Everytime my sister and I go on it, we repeat the mantra "George isn't real" 3 times and we've never had an actual breakdown.
2) I've been going on POTC for 15 years, have been on it HUNDREDS of times, and I can pretty much tell all of the quirks that it has.
My parents and I got on it this past Saturday. Since my sister wasn't with me, I didn't say "George isn't real." We got about 15 feet away from the drop, well before the ramp that scoots you up to the top of the falls and pushes you over. We were still in just the regular floaty water. All of a suddent the boat RAMS into something. There is nothing in front of us, no other boats are close in front or behind. The boat hit against something so hard that we were all thrown forward. And then we just sit there for about 10 seconds, all the while the water around us is just flowing normally. I was sitting on the very left side in the very front row so I had a pretty good view of what was in front of us and there was nothing. My parents and I got really wide eyed and open mouthed and we just sat there. We didn't say anything we were so shocked. And of course the people around us were on their first trip so they didn't think anything of it, but never in my 15 years at WDW have I experienced something so weird! It was spooky.