The
spirit of Adventureland is encapsulated by the Jungle Cruise, perhaps more so
than any other attraction. Boarding a boat that looks like it came from the
movie The African Queen, you embark on a nine minute ride through tropical rain
forests, the African Veldt, and down some of the world's most famous rivers
including the mighty Nile itself. Along the way you'll see a huge variety of
wild and exotic animals, rare plants and beautiful flowers.
Like many of the attractions at Tokyo Disneyland, the Jungle Cruise is a mixture of the serious and the humorous. Realistic scenes of African wildlife are seen, as well as lighthearted depictions of laughing hyenas and elephants enjoying a bath. Perhaps the most amusing part of the cruise is the narration by your skipper—he's more a stand-up comic than anything else. Even if you don't understand what he's saying, his antics and vocal sound effects will entertain you. (Jungle Cruise captains speak in Japanese, but talk so fast that even some of my Japanese friends say they can't understand them.)
The Jungle Cruise at Tokyo Disneyland is similar to the one found at Disney World in Florida, with one major exception: the boats in Tokyo travel clockwise around the attraction. Like the Jungle Cruise in Florida, part of the trip takes you through the ruins of an ancient temple (which is not part of the California version of this attraction). An interesting thing to note is that the ship's handgun, which is used to scare away attacking hippos, doesn't fire blanks (or anything else for that matter). Guns are illegal in Japan; when it comes time for the skipper to fire, he points a toy gun at the hippos and the sound of a gunshot is played over the boat's speaker system. (The irony here is that in Japan, where guns are illegal, they still use the toy guns on the Jungle Cruise. In the USA, where guns are legal, they removed the guns from the Jungle Cruise because of political correctness issues. Go figure.)
Lines for this attraction tend to be fairly long, especially during the day. Because this attraction is outdoors, you'll want to visit it during daylight hours; the attraction can be visited at night (the boats are equipped with spotlights), but you'll miss the full effect of the wide variety of lush plants and other subtleties.
