Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Disneyland 1987 - Whoa, Nellie! - Jungle Cruising Past The Big Elephant

When your Jungle Cruise boat trips the animation of the Big Elephant---the one located just after the Sacred Bathing Pool of the Elephants---he WILL come up and he WILL discharge a non-stop jet of water from out of his trunk.

If your skipper fails to throttle back your boat into reverse to stop its forward movement...

...you, and anyone in on board who might be in the path of the Big Elephant's stream of water, WILL be squirted and drenched.

Sometimes a drenching of guests occurs accidentally, as when a new skipper forgets to slow his boat in time and the physical law relating to "momentum" refuses to be violated.

In such a case, the befuddled and slightly horrified skipper (who is almost universally doomed to share the fate of several of his soon-to-be-soaked guests/crew members) will frantically slam his boat's throttle into reverse.

This has the unfortunate effect of stopping the vessel dead in the bullseye of the elephant's watery trunk---utterly and hopelessly drenching the guest(s) seated roughly amidships.
Yikes.Let's just say that when such a skipper drippingly pulls back into the dock with a row of drenched guests, it makes for no small amount of unbridled ribbing by the skipper's fellow cast members for the entire remaining balance of his or her shift. The skipper's customer satisfaction index (CSI) rating is also known to take a dip under such circumstances.

Such is life.

I am going to say that this never happened to me.

This, of course, isn't true, but I'm going to say it nonetheless.

And, as for those folks who were sitting on the elephant's side of my boat on or about June 1, 1987...

I do apologize.

However, I warned you the Jungle wasn't safe after we left the dock...
...and NONE of you elected to get off my boat.

--Mike