SeeCalifornia.com

You can see pirates every day of the year in California at: Pirates Dinner Adventure in Buena Park (left); Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland (center); and Pirate Reef at Legoland (right photos)

Is the pirate craze dead? Not by any stretch of the imagination, although pirate festivals seem to have died down since the 2011 Disney film release of “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which was based on the Disneyland theme park ride.  Wildly successful actor Johnny Depp, who portrays fictional Captain Jack Sparrow, a swashbuckling pirate lord, is emulated at festivals and events with too many look-alike “Sparrows” to count. After each of the four Disney film sequel releases  in  2003, 2006, 2007 and 2011, pirates were fresh on the minds of the engrossed public which helped the film franchise gross $3.72 billion worldwide. Pirates of the Caribbean was the first franchise where more than one film grossed $1 billion worldwide.

California’s experiencing a little “down time” while Depp works on the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean adventure, “Dead Men Tell No Tales”, to be released in 2016. That’s why we predict that the falling off this year of pirate festivals will not be permanent. Here are several pirate festivals we’ve scoured to find in 2014.