Jungle Cruise

The Jungle Cruise is a boat ride attraction located in Adventureland at the Magic Kingdom theme park in Walt Disney World. Guests load onto a boat where they are introduced to their skipper and then proceed into the jungle.

While cruising along in the boat, the skipper will speak about the things seen as well as make short jokes about them. Guests will notice lions, zebras, snakes just hanging around, elephants (some which intend to squirt the guests in the boat), a rhinoceros which chased a safari party up a tree, hippos that try to attack the boat, and many other animals and insects. Also in the Jungle Cruise you will encounter natives and near the end meet a shrunken head dealer.

In short, the Jungle Cruise is a spectacular attraction that deserves 4 1/2 to 5 stars. Wait times can be extremely long. In the summertime, it can be around 60 to 75 minutes long although we got right on in early June but that was in the morning when it wasn't so busy. My recommendation is to get a fastpass for this one. Jump ahead to the Pirates of the Caribbean, the Enchanted Tiki Room and then return back to the Jungle Cruise. Also, since this is an outdoor attraction and you are visiting in the hot summer months, I would suggest you ride this early or late in the evening or purchase one of those water fans to keep cool.

Check out this video of the Jungle Cruise below. It begins with many of the props in the queue area before you load onto the boat.

Pirates of the Caribbean

In the Pirates of the Caribbean, passengers get into boats and they are carried along by a gentle current. They go through a series of rooms with pirates all around. There are several audio-animatronic figures including skeletons, a seagull, parrots, donkeys and yes even pirates. Also included are buildings on fire, splashes in the water from cannons blasting at your boat and for those who have a fear of falling, a short slide down an unseen waterfall is right after the skeleton steering a wrecked ship. It is a small drop by the way. Nothing that even comes close to the falls down Splash Mountain. The best additions is a mist of Davy Jones in front of you which you go through and in my opinion is a really cool addition to this ride. And, three separate spots in the ride which include captain Jack Sparrow from the movie. He actually looks like he is real which is amazing.

Wait time is approximately 15 minutes. When we got there in early June, we got right on in under 5 minutes most of the time. Fast pass is unavailable for this attraction.