So where exactly — in the great holiday scheme of things —
does Disneyland Park's
latest attempt at a seasonal overlay fall? Is the Jingle Cruise that Xmas gift which
you've always dreamed of getting or more of an itchy sweater?
Changing a single letter
makes a really big
difference at this Adventureland attraction.
Photo by Jim
Hill
To be blunt, this holiday overlay is kind of a half-baked fruitcake. By that I
mean: The creative concept behind the Jingle Cruise itself is sound. And the
seasonal script that the Imagineers & some veteran Jungle Cruise skippers have
put together for Adventureland cast members to spiel is very much in the
tradition of the original Jungle Cruise. In that it's full of groan-worthy puns
and clever plays on words. More to the point, the skippers are laboring
mightily to put this just-learned holiday-themed material over. And — for the
most part — they do succeed.
So with all that going for it, why then does the Jingle
Cruise come up short? It's the way that this Adventureland holiday overlay has
been / is still being promoted. By that I mean: When you walk in Disneyland
Park and pass a poster that
promises this …
Copyright Disney
Enterprises, Inc.
All rights reserved
… and then you wind up with something like this …
Have you ever hear a bull
elephant trumpet "Silent
Night" ? Photo by Jim Hill
… or this …
This time of year, they
wiggle their ears to try & stay warm to avoid a case of
hippo-thermia.
Photo by Jim Hill
… it's hard not to be disappointed. Especially in
comparison to those other Disneyland Xmas treats, 'it's a small world' Holiday
and Haunted Mansion Holiday.
"it's a small
world" Holiday has done it up big every Xmas since
this seasonal
overlay debuted at Disneyland
Park back in November of 1997.
Copyright
Disney Enterprises, Inc. All
rights reserved
I mean, look, I know. It would have been expensive to create
Santa hats for all of the dimensional figures in the Jungle Cruise (Interesting
side note here: The folks in Operations & Maintenance at the theme park
make a very clear distinctive between the dimensional figures that you see in
this Adventureland attraction as well as along the Rivers of America which use
limited, obvious mechanical movements like tails that flick or ears that wiggle
to create the illusion of life, and full-on Audio Animatronic figures. Which
then create the illusion that they're living, breathing creatures through far
subtler means like eye blinks, head turns, chests that rise & fall to
simulate breathing and mouths that open & close in sync to pre-recorded
dialogue). But that over-the-top touch would have changed the Jingle Cruise
from a holiday experience that you just kind of smirk your way through to
something that would have given the Guests some genuine Christmas joy.
Don't get me wrong. Those supposedly hand-made, Xmas-themed decorations that are
scattered throughout the Jingle Cruise's queue area were a lot of fun to look
at. And some of the holiday-themed gags that those Imagineers & veteran
skippers came up with for various scenes both in and around the river were
genuinely clever. I especially loved what happened on the 8th day of Piranhanukkah.
This tree is all wrapped
up with a boa on top. Photo by Jim Hill
But that said (and there's really no polite way to address
this issue), as you floated through this Adventureland attraction listening to
the skipper deliver his new Christmas-themed spiel, it was hard not to notice
how grubby the Jungle / Jingle Cruise had gotten. I mean, there were mechanical
pachyderms in this ride's Sacred Elephant Bathing Pool sequence that were
downright disgusting to look at. A number of these dimensional figures were coated with scum & algae.
Furthermore, there was trash — items like empty plastic water bottles &
soda cans — floating in the water along the shoreline. And given that I was
riding through this Adventureland attraction right after park opening, it's
highly unlikely that some tourist had already tossed this trash into the river
just 30 minutes after Disneyland had opened for the day.
Which means that this water bottle & soda can had been floating in the
Jungle / Jingle Cruise since at least the previous day. And no one working
there this past Friday morning had bothered to fish those items out of the water.
I realize that red & green
are the colors of Christmas. But that still doesn't make
it all right to leave
Sprite bottles & Coke cans floating around in the water during
Disneyland's
Jingle Cruise. Photo by Jim Hill
Look, I mean no disrespect to Disneyland
management. I know that things sometimes fall through the cracks as you're
hurrying to get a new attraction open. And — to be fair here — this past
Friday morning was the very first time that the West Coast version of Jingle
Cruise was supposedly open to the general public. So maybe — in the rush to make sure
that all of the skippers had learned the new holiday-themed spiel — there just
wasn't a cast member available to take a
launch out, make a quick run around the river and then make sure that this
Adventureland attraction was free of floating debris.
But that said, when you put a poster out there like the one
for Jingle Cruise (And — to give credit where credit is do — it really is a
great poster. A wonderfully funny riff on the original poster for Disneyland's Jungle River attraction), it's still kind of a cheat to then send Guests floating
past scenes that have no real holiday theming.
This time of year, it's
easy to get behind in your holiday shopping.
Photo by Jim Hill
Mind you, if they'd combined the witty spiel that had been
written for the Jingle Cruise along with a holiday overlay that would have
actually draped the dimensional figures along the water's edge with Santa hats
& holiday sweaters, I can guarantee you that Disneyland visitors would have
climbed out of those launches and then just raved about the Xmas-related
attraction that they had just experienced.
But as it was, as I lingered in the exit area this past
Friday morning and listened in as multiple boatloads of Disneyland
visitors got off the Jingle Cruise, the common refrain I heard was … Well …
"That was disappointing."
Here's Trader Sam. He
wants to remind you that the New
Year is just a-head. Photo by Jim Hill
I'm hoping that the Walt Disney World version of the Jingle
Cruise is a little bit better. But based on the videos that have been posted on
YouTube so far, I'm not getting my holiday hopes up.
In short, the Jingle Cruise is a great idea for a holiday
overlay at the Disney theme parks that — at least in its first iteration —
was poorly executed. I mean, the skippers are doing their damnest to make the
seasonal version of this Adventureland attraction entertaining. And they've got
a funny spiel to work with. But that's basically ALL they've got to work with. For now, anyway.
Kudos to all of the Jungle
Cruise skippers who are doing
everything they can to deliver on the promise of
the
Jingle Cruise's premise. Photo by Jim Hill
Here's hoping that Disney Parks & Resorts revisits this clearly promising
premise next year. But for the 2014 holiday season, here's hoping that the guys
who hold Mickey's purse strings aren't such Scrooges the next time around. That
they actually give the Imagineers all the money they need to turn this
bamboo-filled forest into (I'm now paraphrasing one of the better puns you
hear in the Jingle Cruise's load / unload area) into a real splinter
wonderland.
Your thoughts?