Even in ’71, landing Jungle Cruise job was the spiel deal
An impulsive turn south on Interstate 95 started Larry Longenecker on an unlikely journey to become one of the original Jungle Cruise skippers at Magic Kingdom. He was there, wading through a pun-heavy spiel and steering visitors on distant waters on Walt Disney World’s opening day in 1971.
Five decades later, Longenecker remembers the pay rate ($2.05 an hour), practical jokes among workers, not exactly knowing what the Jungle Cruise was during his
job interview and the thinner-than-expected crowd on day 1. He left home three hours early on Oct. 1, 1971, in case there was bad traffic. Instead, it was an easy drive from Kissimmee, he says.
“It wasn’t very busy there in the early days,” Longenecker says. “It wasn’t til around the day before Thanksgiving, when traffic backed up all the way out onto I-4.”
This installment of the Disney World at 50 series, which posts on OrlandoSentinel.com every Wednesday, is a flashback to the early days of operation and cast-member life.
Longenecker’s Disney experience happened because of an unplanned detour on a road trip from Ohio, a random radio ad (“Walt Disney World is hiring”) and luck of the draw. Once in Central Florida, he was interviewed by the person hiring specifically for Adventureland, home of Jungle Cruise.
Longenecker, then 22, had accompanied a friend to Norfolk, Virginia, for a visit. On their way home, while his friend slept, Longenecker was in the driver’s seat when he saw a road sign that said Interstate 95, south to Florida. The first goal was Tampa for a spring football game, he says, but in Jacksonville they heard a Disney advertisement on the radio. Soon, he was talking employment on land that’s now the Crossroads of Lake Buena Vista.
“They had a bunch of trailers stuck back there in the woods,” Longenecker recalls.
The interviewer liked his personality and asked if he’d be interested in the Jungle Cruise.
“What’s that?” Longenecker thought.
“This boat goes around the river and, you know, you talk to people, you give a nice spiel, and these hippos come up out of the water and you shoot them with your gun and they go back down into the water,” is how the recruiter described the ride, Longenecker says.
“Sounds pretty cool. We don’t have any hippos in Ohio,” he said. He returned to Ohio and came back to Central Florida after a few months with $300 and a 1961 Buick that he just bought for $200.
“Didn’t know a soul,” he says. “So, I had $300 and had a job. I didn’t have a job in Ohio, but I had one here.”
On the Jungle Cruise ride, skippers guide a boatload of park visitors through rivers of the world, where they encounter animatronic animals and inhabitants. They also narrate with liberal use of puns, which have earned groans for decades. Today, the script is a little looser than in ’71.
“We were told we weren’t supposed to wing it. But we did,” Longenecker says. A couple of skippers from Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise became part of the Magic Kingdom crew.
“They kind of gave us a heads-up on what the guys out there were doing, and management didn’t like that,” he says. “It wasn’t malicious. We weren’t cussing or saying anything bad.” But there were on-the-job high jinks, including the overloading of blanks in the faux firearm that was part of the routine and “shot” when the boat was inside the temple scene.
“When the next guy came along, he’s expecting a little bang and all of a sudden — BOOM,” Longenecker remembers. “We could hear it from the dock.”
And there was memorable mingling with other Magic Kingdom workers.
“The best-looking girls were the tour guides. We always loved it when they came around, and they did, too,” Longenecker says. “Their guests would get on the boat, and they’d stand around and talk to us.”
Off the clock, cast members might go to a bar at Disney’s Polynesian Resort, play golf on Disney courses for $4 or drive around on not-yet-congested country roads.
“We were all broke. Everybody had roommates. And Old Milwaukee beer was at 88 cents a six-pack,” Longenecker says. “We had plenty of time to party and enjoy each other’s company, and it was absolutely a very wonderful experience.”
Eventually, he tired of spieling and moved to positions on Main Street and at Disney’s Contemporary Resort. He left to sell insurance, then returned to college and to Disney, working as a waiter at the Empress Lily, a restaurant now known as Paddlefish at Disney Springs. He worked at Walt Disney World off and on for about 10 years. For the past 40 years, he’s been in financial services in Orange County. Not long ago — but before pandemic times — he returned to Jungle Cruise with grandchildren in tow. He says he’s not alarmed by upcoming changes to the attraction, announced in January.