Originally Posted By bobsled rider I've always wanted to be a Jungle Cruise skipper. Like many of you, I know the entire spiel by heart. My question is are guests ever allowed to act as the skipper and deliver the spiel? Have you ever done so? I’m planning a trip for my birthday, and I’m going to ask them if I may. Perhaps during this “year of million dreams†this one could be mine.
Originally Posted By SuzieQ My son drove the boat at WDW when he was 8. I've never seen it done at DLR. I don't imagine they could let the guests deliver the speil because they have no clue what the person might actually say. It would be a liability issue.
Originally Posted By DlandDug The only civilian I have heard of delivering the spiel was John Lassiter during the 50th festivities. He was a skipper back in the 70s, and took the helm for a boatload of executives.
Originally Posted By wolfchild I was wondering the same thing. It would be pretty cool to get the chance to do that. I also thought that it would be cool to have some sort of celebrity skipper for a day fundraiser kind of thing. Have all sorts of comedians (including Steve Martin of course) each have a boat that they'll skipper for a day (or a period of time) at Disneyland. Each comedian could have a specific charity that they are skippering for and you can buy a ticket to ride a specific comedians boat. All the money would go directly to the comedians charity of choice and people would get a super awesome Jungle Cruise experience.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss The only time I am aware of where a "civilian" was a CM for a day was when Disney auctioned off at the Disneyana Conventions a day as an engineer on the DLRR and also as a monorail pilot at WDW.
Originally Posted By nemopoppins If they're concerned with lawsuits, couldn't they fill the boat with CM's, skipper's acquaintences, or guests who agree to the ride? Wouldn't it be great if they would make some dreams that the winner requests?
Originally Posted By Westsider They may have done very limited "CM For A Day" offerings in the past, but under current law that type of experience is illegal in California. Attractions at Disneyland are regulated by the State of California Department of Safety and Health. All employees operating an attraction must be fully compliant with all training and emergency procedures before they are allowed to operate an attraction. The current On The Job Training for Jungle Cruise is 3 days long, 8 hour shifts each day. To complete the training you need to pass a 60+ question Knowledge Assesment, pass a 90 minute long Performance Assesment wherein a supervisor shadows you through all working positions on the attraction location and tries to throw bizarre scenarios and emergency situations your way to see your reaction time and decision making skills, and then if you pass the final paperwork must be signed by hourly supervision and salaried management and input into the official Disneyland database of training compliance to meet the state inspectors regulations. Once those things are completed, you could, in theory, take a boat around with Guests and do your spiel. However, you would need to be actively on the Disney payroll in case there was an incident on the attraction while you were working; a little old lady slipped getting in, a bamboo branch fell on the boat and hit a tourist, a woman has a seizure in the loading area and falls into you, etc., etc. Under those circumstances you would need to be able to fill out a legal statement regarding your knowledge of any incident, and then be able to return to Disney property the following business day to answer any and all question from the state DOSH inspectors who investigate any and all incidents when someone is injured on or around any legislated attraction at a California theme park. In short, your "dream" of taking a boat and playing Jungle Cruise Skipper for a day ain't gonna happen. Your first course of action would be to write your Congressman and ask him to rewrite the current California laws that legislate employees and operations at California amusement parks. There's a great deal of red tape that needs to be removed in order to turn back the clock to the 20th century so Guests can be pretend CM's. Your tax dollars at work folks.
Originally Posted By monorailblue You think that sounds bad? Before Performance Assessments and Knowledge Assessments, there were Checklists! My Monorail checklists alone took more than 8 hours to complete. Yikes! When we all got re-trained on the new consoles/stations (this was, what, 2000?), the PAs and KAs seemed like almost nothing (of course, there wasn't that much to learn on that training). The irony is that PAs and KAs were implemented because the very, very cumbersome Checklists were found to be less effective--even though I think they were way more comprehensive than the current system. Oh, well. You can't stop progress, as they say.
Originally Posted By markedward Collect a couple of friends, board the Mark Twain steamboat, ask nicely if you can go up to the pilot house, ask nicely if you can take the wheel, and then regail your friends with all the commentary and bad puns you care to inflict on them. It isn't the Jungle Cruise by a long shot. But it'd be fun.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I still don't think that it would ever happen, but couldn't they have a real CM there controling all the movement of the boat and everything, and be there for legal safety, but let someone else do the speil? Like I said, I don't see this happening...ever, but I think there would be a way around it, if they really wanted to do something with it (ebay anyone?)
Originally Posted By dresswhites how would e bay help? i always wanted to be a skipper, but i think having guests give the spiel would not be good.
Originally Posted By berol It wouldn't have to be random guests. Could be disney people, friends, family in the boat.
