Jungle Cruise takes Guests on a grand tour of the world's most exotic rivers in Asia, Africa and South America, in Adventureland at Magic Kingdom theme park.
Set sail on a 1930s tramp-steamer tour in the untamed waters of the Mekong, the Amazon and the rivers of Africa. Will your vessel be Sankuru Sadie or Senegal Sal, and will she survive the 9-minute Jungle Cruise intact?
Mother Nature is at her wildest as you pass Audio-Animatronics animals including the Bengal tiger, king cobras, elephants, lions and hyenas in their native habitats. Whether they're feasting on their prey, scaring trespassing humans or splashing water, the animals will keep you on your toes.
As your skipper leads you ever deeper into the jungles past hare-brained explorers and ancient ruins, be prepared for some surprises along the way. Are there really hippopotamus and headhunters lying in wait? Your skipper's sure to regale you with humorous tales of danger.
The Walt Disney World Jungle Cruise is set as a depression era British outpost on the Amazon river, operated by the fictional company, The Jungle Navigation Co., whose advertisement poster is painted on the wall near the exit of the attraction. Albert Awol's broadcast is different than that of Disneyland's, being ride specific. Also unlike Disneyland, the queue never extended to a second level. The skippers at the Magic Kingdom no longer carry revolvers loaded with blanks. These real guns have been replaced with realistic props.
Even while in line for your expedition, you'll see detailed Colonial artifacts and silly communications that make this tongue-in-cheek cruise a jungle-grade scream.
The queue of the Jungle Cruise is heavily themed with period artifacts, tools, gear, photos and more. It is intended to resemble an outpost where an exploration of the jungle rivers may be booked. It is divided into four main sections which may be opened or closed in sequence to accommodate crowd fluctuation. The queue was designed to wind about heavily so that guests may see all of the different artifacts in the queue. The most notable section of the queue is the office of Albert Awol.
You board canopied launches patterned after the boat in the movie The African Queen that have whimsical names like "Bomokandi Bertha", "Irrawaddy Irma," and "Amazon Annie." After the launch leaves the dock, the skipper then pilots you through the dangerous waters of four "rivers": the Amazon in South America; the Congo in Africa; the Nile in Egypt; and the Mekong river in Cambodia in Southeast Asia. Along the route, a variety of realistic (and some not-so) Audio-Animatronic animals and natives are encountered, including a herd of bathing elephants in the Elephant Pool (left), some lions enjoying their dinner, angry hippos who might attack at any moment, and a shrunken head salesman. The launch also passes by a waterfall and several spraying fountains, so you may just get a little damp on this 9-minute excursion. In addition to being sprayed, you will also be peppered by a barrage of bad jokes and puns from your skipper! The cruise concludes with more funnies as guest disembark at the same point from which they started.
Attraction Summary
The skipper introduces himself or herself, and begins to take the boat full of guests down the tropical rivers of the world. The ride starts out in the Amazon River, where the passengers encounter butterflies with one-foot wingspans, or as the skipper might say, twelve inches. The boat then passes Inspiration Falls, which transitions into the Congo River in Africa.
The skipper explains that there is a Pygmy welcoming party waiting for them, but when the boat arrives at the beach, the canoes are empty, and the place deserted. The skipper wonders what scared off the Pygmies, and they soon discover that it was a giant python. The boat then passes a camp that has been raided by gorillas, which transitions the cruise into the Nile River.
After encountering two elephants, the boat passes along the African Veldt, where numerous African animals watch a pride of lions eat their kill. The boat then passes a lost safari group that has been chased up a pole by an angry rhinoceros and are now trapped. The group then passes by another waterfall, Schweitzer Falls, and encounters a pool of hippos. They are about to charge the boat until the skipper scares them off. Ominous drums are heard as the group enters headhunter territory. Natives are seen dancing near the boat and guests soon find themselves in an ambush. They escape and proceed into the Mekong River.
They enter a temple which has been destroyed by an earthquake. Inside, baboons, cobras, and a tiger can be found. After they exit, they come across an elephant bathing pool where numerous elephants are relaxing in the water. The boat narrowly avoids being sprayed by water from one of the elephants. The cruise concludes after passing Trader Sam, the head salesman of the jungle, who offers two shrunken heads for one of the passengers.
Touring Tips
- The Jungle Cruise is a FASTPASS attraction. Queues at this attraction continue to be long during busy periods, though. If you obtain a FASTPASS here, walk over to ride the Pirates of the Caribbean while waiting for your FASTPASS window to open.
- The cruise takes on a whole different feel when ridden in the evening in the dark, this is also a less crowded time to take the ride.
- Because of several dark spots and a slightly scary trip with a darkened cave, young children might prefer to take this cruise during daylight hours.
- If you're lucky and your little one is the only child on a particular cruise, the skipper may just let him or her take the wheel.
Facts
- Jungle Cruise opened October 1, 1971.
- The maximum speed of the boats is 2.18 mph.
- There are 15 boats, with a maximum of 10 in operation at any given time.
- Walt Disney originally wanted live animals to be a part of the Disney Jungle Cruise attraction. Once he realized that he couldn't control their movements, audio-animatronics were used.
- Near the Hippo Pool, a piece of a downed airplane can be seen along the shoreline. This is the back half of the Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior found at The Great Movie Ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios in the Casablanca scene.
- Each variety of plant throughout the attraction was carefully selected by landscape architect Bill Evans to ensure that the foliage would be able to endure Florida's unique climate: hot summers and relatively cool winters. The most difficult aspect of this was making sure these plants had the appropriate look and feel of traditional tropical plants in the equatorial jungle.
- The Jungle Cruise uses 1/2 to 1/4 pack starter pistol blanks in their fully functional 38 caliber hand guns. Guides of the famous 'Jungle Cruise' fire off almost 631,000 rounds of ammunition per year.
History
Sources of inspiration for the attraction include a 1955 True-Life Adventure about a pride of lions, and the movie "The African Queen". Imagineer Harper Goff referenced the African Queen frequently in his ideas; even his designs of the ride vehicles were inspired by the steamer used in the film.
When plans began to develop, Bill Evans, the Imagineer responsible for landscaping Disneyland and most of Walt Disney World, faced the daunting task of creating a convincing jungle on a limited budget. Aside from importing many actual tropical plants, he made wide use of "character plants" which, while not necessarily exotic, could give the appearance of exoticism in context. In a particularly well-known trick, he uprooted local orange trees and "replanted" them upside-down, growing vines on the exposed roots. Disney controls the clarity of the water (known as "turbidity") in order to obscure from guest's view the boat's guidance system and undesirable items like perches and mechanized platforms of the bathing elephants and hippos. Initially, the clean water was dyed brown but after a few years the colorant was changed to a green hue and in recent years a bluish-green has been used. The water of the Jungle Cruise is approximately 5 feet deep and is part of the Park's 'dark' water system which circulates southward from the northern end of Frontierland's Rivers of America, through Fantasyland and creates the moat of Sleeping Beauty's castle. The water's journey continues flowing past Frontierland's entrance and into Adventureland where it meanders alongside the Tiki Room before entering the Jungle Cruise beside the ride's exit. The water returns to the south end of the Rivers of America via a 37" diameter underground pipe near Tarzan's Treehouse. Originally, the Jungle Cruise waterway was 1,640 feet in length before being slightly shortened and re-routed in 1994.
Although Goff and Evans can be credited with the creation and initial design of the ride, Marc Davis, recognized for his work on venerable attractions such as the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, added his own style to the ride in later versions and Disneyland updates. The "Indian Elephant Bathing Pool" and "Rhinoceros Chasing Explorers up a Pole" were among his contributions.
Hidden Mickey
- In the cave Temple, look for the Mickey-shaped arrangement of three plates.
- The sign hanging over the entrance has barnacles at the bottom. Under the letter "c" in the word "Exotic" the mouse appears from the formation of 3 of the barnacles. The cluster is separate from all others.
- Coming out of the tunnel before the elephant wading pool, on the left side of the tunnel wall, is what looks like a chipped out part of the bricks on the third pillar. It's actually a carved 3/4 image of Mickey Mouse.
- Where the elephants are taking baths, there is a Mickey in the background, etched in the stone.