Jungle Cruise: D23 Takes Fans Behind-The-Scenes Of The Ride

D23 decided to give Jungle Cruise fans a look at how they upgraded the ride at Disneyland. The movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt is rapidly approaching and the company is pulling out all the stops to show off the picture. One of the underrated parts of the rollout is all the work that Imagineers have done to retool the ride. It’s a bit of a classic at Disneyland, so there were some changes that needed to be undertaken for a while now. There’s also the matter of how much Disney wanted to change. As with all attractions, there are going to be fans up in arms whenever the slightest alterations to a ride happen. Jeanette Lomboy, the site portfolio executive in charge of Walt Disney Imagineering at Disneyland told D23 about the origins of the ride.

“I was asked a question about whether or not Jungle Cruise—the initial feeling for Jungle Cruise and what Walt wanted out of that, which was a True-Life Adventure—whether that actually seeded Disney’s Animal Kingdom,” she said. “And the truth is, Animal Kingdom is a fulfillment of Walt’s vision of Jungle Cruise. He wanted to deliver guests into Africa with animals, and that’s what we did, years and decades later,” she pointed out. “So that connective tissue runs strong, and we don’t get to talk about that enough.”

Brian Volk-Weiss also had a say in this matter as executive producer and director. “When that attraction’s being built, they’re moving cables and wires and plumbing all throughout that area for attractions that will not be built possibly for 15 to 20 years.” Volk-Weiss mentioned as “the moment where I started to understand everything better than I ever had.”

“Attractions are like icebergs,” he added. “And what I mean by that is to the public, you’re only seeing maybe two percent of the attraction. If people knew the infrastructure that they don’t see that make these attractions work, I mean, they’d be blown away.”

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