The Jingle Cruise is BACK at the Magic Kingdom
One of my favorite holiday offerings at the parks is the holiday overlay to Jungle Cruise called the ‘Jingle Cruise’. This is everything you love about the regular attraction from dad jokes and a 2 week long trip into the jungle, but with extra holiday related jokes, festive decorations, and more! The best part? It’s included with your regular Magic Kingdom ticket!
The Jungle Cruise
If you are unfamiliar with the the Jungle Cruise, this is an opening day attraction in both Disney World and Disneyland and is one of Walt’s favorites. The original iteration of this ride was of a more educational nature as at the time, most people have not seen wild animals in their ‘natural habitat’.
This is very different from the Jungle Cruise we know today. There weren’t really any jokes and the attraction was basically the same thing for every ride.
One day Walt took a ride on this attraction and the Skipper was so nervous that he ended up doing the whole route in about 4 minutes when the ride should be taking around 7. Walt also heard some guests passing by say that they were going to skip Jungle Cruise because they had ridden it before and it wasn’t going to be anything new.
That was a no-go for Walt, so he enlisted the help of Disney Imagineer Marc Davis to come up with a new script and even a few new scenes.
And thus, the Jungle Cruise we know today was born!
The Jungle Skippers have a base script that they mostly stick to, but have several alternate jokes for each area of the attraction so that every ride will be just a little bit different. But don’t worry, every Skipper knows to make a big deal out of the amazing, the stupendous, the 8th Wonder of the world: The Backside of Water!!!
This ride did go through a few more updates a few years ago to adjust some of the racially insensitive parts of the attraction and in 2013 they did the first overlay of the Jingle Cruise.
The Jingle Cruise
As you go through the queue, you’ll find that the Skippers have decorated for the holidays with stockings, ornaments, and even a little santa hat for their pet tarantula.
You’ll listen to some fun and quirky holiday tunes like ‘I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas’ and you may even spot a hidden mickey or two.
As you walk up to your boat, you’ll notice that each one is given a more festive flair to the name of the boat and your Jungle Skipper has a holiday hat too!
There are of course LOADS of holiday jokes, but you’ll also find that the decorations have made their way in to the ride scenes too like the ‘holiday gift wrapping station’ aka the gorilla tent and Trader Sams has become the holiday gift shop.
When Can You Ride It?
This is the only holiday attraction overlay in Magic Kingdom that can be experienced during the regular park day. Other attractions in the park do have holiday overlays, but those are only available during Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party.
My recommendation is to rope drop this one as it gets VERY popular, or even consider using a Lighting Lane if you are purchasing Multi Pass. If you are just attending the Christmas party, this is a great one to do between 4pm-7pm before the party officially starts so that you can use party time for the party exclusive offerings.
For 2024, Jingle Cruise opened on November 2nd and is available through the New Year. It could still be up a few days after New Years Eve, but I would try and experience this one before then if you can!
