Jungle Cruise poster information

Disney’s Jungle Cruise Attractions To Receive New Story Line

Today Disney announced that its World-Famous Jungle Cruise attractions at both Disneyland and Magic Kingdom theme parks will receive a new, updated story line. Building on what’s currently there, the attractions will now feature a show skipper as well as a live skipper. The storyline is based around a skipper whos journey has goes awry after their boat splits in half and is boarded by chimpanzees.

Guests can still expect the classic whitty and dry humor that they are used to along with this new story line. In Disney’s announcement they made it clear that the updated attractions would, “reflect the value and diversity of the world around us.” Like Splash Mountain, Disney feels that the current attractions contain “negative depictions” of the world, specifically cultures and people. Thus they made it clear that the update would be fixing those things as well as adding to the story.

Jungle Cruise Totem Pole and rhino scene

The Jungle Cruise debuted at Disneyland Park in 1955 on opening day. The attraction was originally supposed to feature real animals per Walt Disney’s request but was later changed to animatronics as Imagineers felt the animals would either hide or be sleeping most of the time.

Over the years Jungle Cruise Skippers have taken the attraction from just a boat ride up various rivers across the world to a dry-humor, not taking ourselves too serious attraction. Jokes like lions watching over a sleeping Zebra and Rino’s getting their point across..in the end have kept guests coming back. And while there are classic jokes to be told, the humor is ever-changing. No 2 Jungle Cruise journeys are the same.

The updated storyline will also include 2 boats that used to cruise the river but haven’t been seen in a while: the Mekong Maiden and Kwango Kate. You may go ape when you find out what happen to them!

Sunken Jungle Cruise Boat with chimpanzees

Disney has promised, “new adventures that stay true to the experience we know and love – more humor, wildlife and skipper heart” with these updates which will begin sometime in 2020. Guests who are wanting to ride the original Jungle Cruise one last time should make their final arrangements as soon as possible. No official closing date has been announced for Magic Kingdom. Disneyland remains closed and will receive it’s update any day now.