Need vacation planning advice quickly? Join our Facebook group and get your questions answered!
Skip to Content

Changes Coming to Jungle Cruise Attraction

Changes Coming to Jungle Cruise Attraction

Disney just announced that the time has come for the walls to go up at Jungle Cruise and for a little extra pixie dust to be sprinkled over this attraction. The plan is to build on the story of the Jungle Cruise at both Disneyland park at Disneyland Resort and Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World Resort. This will add new adventures that stay true to the experience we know and love. You should expect more humor, wildlife, and skipper heart. Disney also mentioned they plan to reflect and value the diversity of the world around us.

Jungle Cruise Updated Concept Art

Continuing a tradition that Walt Disney started more than six decades ago when he first announced the Jungle Cruise we should still expect the core of what we love about the Jungle Cruise.

The new creative concept for our river’s journey will be original to Walt Disney Imagineering, just like the attraction itself. Here’s a first look at some of the “gnu” magic we’re adding:

Copyright Disney

Recently, Imagineers had the chance to provide a sneak peek to a few skippers at Magic Kingdom park. The feed was of course all positive and shed some interesting clues of what to expect.

We also got some information that the skipper wouldn’t just be our guide full of bad dad jokes. We can expect to find the skipper character represented as an animatronic within the attraction as well.

Jungle Cruise updates
Copyright Disney

If you are a diehard fan of the Jungle Cruise you may have had a keen enough eye to notice that two boats (Mekong Maiden and Kwango Kate) have gone missing. Good news is we have been promised to find out once the ride gets its update. Of course judging from the picture above it looks like it involves some gorillas.

During this new voyage we are going to follow along the story of a skipper and his passengers as their trip takes a turn for the worse.

Conclusion

All these enhancements in store for the Jungle Cruise are coming later this year. I would imagine the effort is for it to debut in time for the 50th anniversary this October.

It seems fans are taking the response to these changes pretty well. I haven’t seen any petitions out there to stop the changes. Which we saw when changes were proposed for the removal of Country Bears. Of course this attraction has received updates over the years such as the Jingle Cruise for a holiday overlay. The updates were a welcome change. Let us know in the comments below if you are thumbs up or thumbs down for these new changed for the Jungle Cruise.