It's been an especially busy handful of weeks, in Disney-time. Late May saw the Disneyland park special premier and the nationwide theatrical release of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (this timed with a slew of video games for all platforms); Disneyland's Tom Sawyer's Island got a Pirate's-Lair upgrade, following in the bootsteps of the movie-license makeover of the park's classic Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. The Disneyland park as a whole, meanwhile, got some technical tweaks ranging from the sensational and celebratory to the small and subtle. Hint: The next time you plan on pirating around the Happiest Place on Earth, be sure to pack your Nintendo DS in your dead man's chest.

For starters, after a serious case of mothballs dating back to 1998, Disneyland's own fleet of submarines -- for the Submarine Voyage attraction at the easternmost edge of Tomorrowland, which debuted back in 1959 -- has finally been re-commissioned en masse for the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. Formerly painted a rather straight-faced, military gray, the Subs are now bright yellow and bear new names like Seafarer, Mariner and Argonaut. The subs take park Guests on an undersea voyage to find, among other things, undersea volcanic activity, the East Australian Current, a lost civilization or two... and, of course, Crush, Squirt, Nemo and other characters from the Disney/Pixar animated feature.

While the subs follow the same physical path as those in the attraction's earlier incarnation, the presentation is all-new -- and spiffed-up to the technical nines, which Bob Iger, Disney President & CEO, described as "a brilliant marriage of phenomenal storytelling and innovative technology... transformed into a vibrant new experience – one that will no doubt rekindle nostalgic memories for many adults." It's true; gone are the admittedly-cheesy (albeit much-loved) plastic/plaster static props of yore; in their place, Guests can look out their personal portholes to see a sophisticated fusion of realistically-modeled undersea ruins and vibrant, fluid, computer animation as the Finding Nemo characters swim and chatter outside the passing submarines. (The visual quality is similar to the still-amazing Turtle Talk attraction in nearby Disney's California Adventure, where a completely CGI, surfer-talking sea turtle has actual live, on-the-fly conversations and banter with members of the audience).

Nobody throws a party like Disney -- hard to top Disneyland as the venue -- and the Finding Nemo launch party took place in a sectioned-off chunk of Tomorrowland, turned, for the evening, into a massive, open-bar dance party complete with live music, silky jellyfish-styled balloons rippling overhead, bubbles filling what seemed like every available cubic foot of local airspace, and undersea-themed "Fly Girl" dancers forming impromptu conga-lines with Guests, their children, and even some 10-foot-plus-tall walking coral-thingies that were wandering about -- Cast Members in costume, presumably... we hope.

Meanwhile, just when you thought there was no conceivable reason to bring your Nintendo DS to the Happiest Place on Earth, there suddenly is: Those in the know will recall video segments for the At World's End console games that looked like they were filmed in Disneyland. They were, of course, and as it turns out, there are hidden metal "X-Marks-the-Spot" markers, in the fashion of a pirate treasure map scattered near the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions in both Disneyland and Florida's Walt Disney World. Find one of these and turn on your Nintendo DS with a retail copy of At World's End inserted, follow the instructions found at http://disney.go.com (the Pirates pages) and Yo-Ho! An instant bounty of buccaneer bonus booty via Wi-fi!

Like that's not cool enough, Pirates -- particularly of the Disney variety -- have been all the rage in months past, and there's at least one more promised boatload of gaming treasure on the near horizon: Pirates of the Caribbean Online, a massively-multiplayer excursion into the Disney pirate 'verse, allowing much more freedom to explore the virtual Caribbean, on-land and at-sea both, plenty of combat, and even the command, crewing and customization of complete pirate vessels. Pirates online is still scheduled to -- sorry! -- "ship" in 2007, so check back soon for updates on "the only life that matters."