disney jungle cruise christian review

Jungle Cruise

Reviewed by: Eric Tiansay CONTRIBUTOR —first time reviewer for Christian Spotlight

Exploratory expeditions into remote territory

What is the real Tree of Life ?

Amazon jungle

Dangerous wild animals and evil people

Snakes in the Bible

What about Gays needs to change? Answer — It may not be what you think.

M ore than 65 years after debuting as a popular Disneyland theme park ride, Jungle Cruise is cruising into theaters and streaming on-line with a live-action adaptation.

So is the long wait worth it? Perhaps.

“Jungle Cruise” is touted as a rollicking river boat thrill-ride down the Amazon with wisecracking skipper Frank Wolff ( Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson ) and intrepid botanist Dr. Lily Houghton ( Emily Blunt ).

The movie calls to mind the spirit of movies such as the Indiana Jones films, “Romancing the Stone” and “ The African Queen .” However, it’s not an instant classic like those films, but the Disney flick is family-friendly for the most part and lightly entertaining with plenty of humor in the form of dad jokes.

“Jungle Cruise” has a strong moral theme, espousing self-sacrifice, seeking the good for many and touting being trustworthy. However, Christians need to be concerned about violence in this film, as this is the main reason for its PG-13 rating. Discerning parents will also want to be aware of the movie’s supernatural element , which is a major plot point.

Set in 1916 when the world is at war, “Jungle Cruise” begins with Lily traveling from London, England to the Amazon jungle where she enlists Frank’s questionable services to guide her downriver on La Quila (which supposedly translates to goddess of the moon )—his ramshackle-but-charming boat.

Lily, who is portrayed by Blunt as a female Indiana Jones, bucks the male-dominated system at the time by wearing trousers for the journey, which prompts Frank to call her “Pants.”

Lily is determined to find the ancient Tree of Life and the “Tears of the Moon ,” a legendary flower known for its miraculous healing abilities—possessing the power to change the future of medicine.

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Thrust on this epic quest together with Lily’s brother, MacGregor ( Jack Whitehall ), the unlikely trio encounters innumerable dangers from wild animals and supernatural forces, all lurking in the deceptive beauty of the lush rainforest.

Speaking of supernatural forces, the film features a curse spoken by a dying tribal chief and undead 400-year-old conquistadors who command creepy snakes that could scare small children. Snakes emerge from inside a man’s wound.

Another concerning aspect of “Jungle Cruise” is the amount of alcohol consumption in several scenes, including one where a jaguar gets drunk and vomits after drinking some spilled wine .

Rated PG-13 for sequences of adventure violence, “Jungle Cruise” has multiple intense sequences, including a German U-boat firing torpedoes at people, threat of cannibals, lunging and biting snakes, killer bees, blow darts, machine guns, pistols and rifles, spears, knives, a character being stabbed with a sword through his body and a bad guys being killed instantly by a huge slab of plaster.

Perhaps the most concerning and controversial part of “Jungle Cruise” is the script calls for McGregor to be Gay. He comes out to Frank. Although McGregor doesn’t use the word “Gay,” he says he broke off three engagements with women because his “interests happily lay elsewhere.” And carrying a spear, he asks a man, “Would you like to bite down on my stick?” (an innuendo)

McGregor goes on to say that he would do anything for his sister Lily because she was the only one who “stood by” him while he was shunned by family and friends because of who he “loved.”

During my screening of film, the scene didn’t seem to garner much attention from the audience, and it appeared to go over the heads of my sons, who are 9 and 11.

On the plus side, there are several elements from the park attraction featured in the movie. The most notable is the “back side of water” gag that most of the cast members use during the theme park attraction.

“Jungle Cruise” also offers plenty of laughs—depending if moviegoers are fans of puns. With a dorky-deadpan delivery, Frank delights in saying things like “toucan play that game,” and he points out that certain rocks are “taken for granite.”

Additionally, the movie has a strong moral theme as lying , being dishonest and not trustful are looked down upon. Christian parents can also point out the healing powers of the “Tears of the Moon” is fictional, but Jesus is mankind’s true healer.

Among Disney movies based on Disney theme park rides, “Jungle Cruise” is fairly good—way better than “Haunted Mansion,” but not as memorable as the original “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

On the whole, the Rock and Blunt have chemistry together, which really keeps the movie afloat.

Not recommended for kids under 12.

• Violence: Heavy
• Profane language: Moderate— • Oh G*d (1) • Oh my G*d (3) • G*d (1) •  h *ll (1)
• Vulgar/Crude language: Mild— • s-word (1 incomplete and 1 in German) • “bugger” • references to urination • “Take your invitation and shove it up your association.” • “Crusty old farts”
• Nudity: None
• Sex: Minor— • kiss • a little cleavage • shirtless men
• Drugs/Alcohol: Heavy
• Occult: Moderately Heavy— • supernatural curses • spirit animals • supernatural undead people

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Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Movie Review: ‘Jungle Cruise’

NEW YORK (CNS) — For most of its running time, the lighthearted adventure “Jungle Cruise” (Disney), adapted by director Jaume Collet-Serra from a Magic Kingdom theme park ride, registers as a diverting, if insubstantial, fantasy.

But the gratuitous addition of a scene in which a principal character outs himself as gay and briefly parrots the LGBTQ party line precludes endorsement of the film for youthful viewers.

Old movie buffs will detect echoes here of helmer John Huston’s 1951 classic “The African Queen.” Though the World War I period setting remains roughly the same, the action has been moved across the Atlantic Ocean to Brazil.

There, intrepid British researcher Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) forms an unlikely alliance with fast-talking Amazon River steamboat captain Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson). Lily is out to find a mystical tree the healing flowers of which she believes will revolutionize medicine and, after some gentle sparring, Frank agrees to take her on the perilous journey that will be required to reach it.

The duo is joined on their quest by Lily’s brother McGregor (Jack Whitehall), a luxury-loving but good-hearted fop. In hot pursuit comes eccentric German royal Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons). Billed in the dialogue as a younger son of Kaiser Wilhelm II (who did, in fact, have a son by that name), Joachim thinks the same magic petals Lily is after will give his homeland victory in the current conflict.

A great deal of mythical hokum ensues that would be inappropriate for those impressionable enough not to dismiss it out of hand. And the often-gruesome imagery of the undead conquistadors who, in fulfillment of the picture’s lore and under the leadership of mercenary warrior Aguirre (Edgar Ramirez), eventually do combat with our hero and heroine is much too scary for little kids.

That would normally leave the field to teens and grown-ups. But, in a wildly anachronistic exchange, McGregor confides in Frank that his fierce loyalty to Lily primarily springs from the fact that she alone has stuck by him after his repeated refusal to marry made his sexual orientation apparent to friends and family — all of whom, besides Lily, then turned on him.

Leaving aside the fact that such conversations were far from commonplace in the days of Woodrow Wilson, the scene comes across as ham-handed propaganda. The obvious intent of screenwriters Michael Green, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa is to send a message to young moviegoers that, while it poses as an anti-discrimination plea, entirely lacks the moral discrimination for which the subject calls.   

Parents will want to exercise caution, accordingly, in allowing adolescents to screen “Jungle Cruise.” If permission is given, this rough patch in what is otherwise a largely innocuous expedition might be made the starting point for a catechetical discussion highlighting the divergence of current social mores from the unchanging truths of Scripture.

The film contains much raucous but stylized violence, a benign view of homosexual acts, some scatological humor, about a half-dozen mild oaths and a suppressed crude expression. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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The Backside of Water is the 8th Wonder of the World, But Is That Enough to Keep the Jungle Cruise Floating?

Are you ready to sail down the Amazon on the Jungle Cruise? Disney’s latest movie is set in the Amazon jungle and is based on the classic Magic Kingdom Adventureland attraction. My Disney Jungle Cruise Christian Movie Review will give you the information you need to make an informed decision about viewing this film with your children. Furthermore, if you would like to know how I conduct my reviews, visit My Movie Review Guidelines for this information.

If you have ever been to Disneyland or Walt Disney World, you have most likely ridden the tame and quirky Jungle Cruise. While this movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt is based on that ride, and there are certainly some elements and Easter eggs throughout the movie from the attraction, this film departs from the tame ride and morphs into a cross between an Indiana Jones movie complete with snakes, Pirates of the Caribbean movie with skulls and skeletons, and a hint of The African Queen, the 1951 film starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn that was the basis for much of the original attraction and was set in the World War I era.

Jungle Cruise Christian Movie Review Based on Magic Kingdom Ride

Synopsis of the movie:.

Imagine taking a ride on a boat with goofy skippers who tell bad puns and jokes and navigate through the river around fake dangers. Jungle Cruise attraction is the inspiration for this movie. However, the story takes you much deeper into intrigue, danger, and murder in the year 1916. Moreover, you can still expect to hear the bad jokes from the iconic ride, such as the Eighth Wonder of the World – The Backside of Water!

From Disney: “Join fan favorites Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt for the adventure of a lifetime on Disney’s “Jungle Cruise,” a rollicking thrill-ride down the Amazon with wisecracking skipper Frank Wolff and intrepid researcher Dr. Lily Houghton. Lily travels from London, England to the Amazon jungle and enlists Frank’s questionable services to guide her downriver on La Quila—his ramshackle-but-charming boat. She is determined to uncover an ancient tree with unparalleled healing abilities—possessing the power to change the future of medicine. Thrust on this epic quest together, the unlikely duo encounters innumerable dangers and supernatural forces, all lurking in the deceptive beauty of the lush rainforest. But as the secrets of the lost tree unfold, the stakes reach even higher for Lily and Frank, and their fate—and mankind’s—hangs in the balance.”

Researcher Dr. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) enlists Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson), a boat captain, and his boat to guide her and her brother, MacGregor, down the Amazon to find a tree with healing abilities. The petals from this tree – Tears of the Moon – have the power to transform medicine.

Since Lily is a botanist, explorer, and artifact enthusiast, finding this tree has a special interest to her. Furthermore, she wants to follow in her father’s footsteps. Lily steals an Amazonian arrowhead from a British explorers club that bars women from their ranks. This arrowhead will help her find a mythical tree, but not without a boatload of peril and creepy cursed villains. Are Lily and MacGregor ready for danger, adventure, and intrigue that follows when they charter Frank’s boat to guide them into unexplored regions of the Amazon River?

Rating: PG-13 (some disturbing images and action sequences of adventure violence)

Run Time: 2 hours, 7 minutes

Dwayne Johnson says that the “Jungle Cruise” is about adventure and life and living a full life.” Johnson is also a producer on the film. He believes the “Jungle Cruise’ is an adventure: it’s fun, it’s magical, it’s mystical, it’s dangerous, it’s exciting.”

What Parents May Want to Know – Disney Jungle Cruise Christian Movie Review

The good elements of disney jungle cruise:.

My family saw this Disney film in a movie theater and not on Disney Plus. This is an interesting movie. It is generally fast-paced and has as many twists and turns as the Amazon River that Frank and Lily are navigating. There are many surprises along the way that you don’t see coming. Things literally jump out at you, which makes for a suspenseful movie. However, along with suspense are some things parents may want to know before taking your children to see this movie.

Jungle Cruise Christian Movie Review: Content That May Be Objectionable:

First, this movie is rated PG-13, which means that it is a little more intense than a movie made for kids. Furthermore, this movie has so many fight scenes and violent interactions that it is impossible to list them all. People are killed and injured. Additionally, there are skulls, skeletons, explosions, and intense action. Knives, swords, torpedoes, blow darts, and guns are thrown in for good measure!  Additionally, a German prince is navigating a submarine in the race to find the tree first, and he is bent on getting to the tree and claiming it for Germany!

Men are kicked or hit in the crotch several times. 

There is a scene where a man’s hands are placed on a gas burner. (I looked away)

In addition, people are hit with blow darts, and there is the threat of cannibals eating people.

A man is crushed with a falling boulder.

Language that May Be Objectionable:

There is one instance of the word sh-t, but it is said in German. H-ll is also spoken. God’s name is misused.

Additionally, there are numerous occasions that words are used to imply bodily functions such as “liquid fear,” and a man covers his crotch to signify that he peed himself. Another man says, “I warmed it for you,” to say that he peed in the river.

“If you believe in legends, you should believe in curses too.” Be aware that a significant storyline involves people being held in a curse and trying to escape from that curse.

“Take your invitation and shove it up your association.” The implication of this phrase is obvious.

“…they eat you and wear your eyes for beads.”

Sexual Content:  

A man talks about being gay. He never uses the word. However, he says, “my interests happily lie elsewhere,” when talking about women, and he goes on to explain in greater detail how he came out and that only his sister supported him.

The phrase, “Would you like to bit down on my stick” is said. The man who says this is holding a stick, but it is taken out of context by the person hearing it.

A woman strips to her 1916 long underwear. Since it is 1916, the underwear does not reveal much by today’s standards. In another scene, she is sitting with her leg exposed.

Other Content that Moms and Dads may want to Know About:

Remember that not every parent will object to the same things. What one parent is concerned about may not bother other moms and dads. Additionally, each child is unique and reacts to content differently. I try to list as much as I can so you can make an informed decision when viewing movies.

Frank’s boat, La Quila, translates to “goddess of the moon.” 

A man lies and deceives those around him throughout the entire movie. 

Several people vomit after navigating rapids. And even an animal is shown vomiting.

Alcohol is consumed throughout the movie. An animal drinks alcohol and later walks unsteadily. 

The theme of people being cursed and being trapped in the curse brings yucky characters to the screen. One man has half his head missing and is covered in bees and honey. Another man has snakes throughout his body. These are walking dead.

“Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?” from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). There are so many snakes in the movie that it reminded me of the snake pit from Indiana Jones. In one scene, a snake pops out of a man’s face! And there is also a tarantula and scorpion just to complete the dangerous animal trifecta. 

My Viewing Recommendations: Disney Jungle Cruise Christian Movie Review

This is a very intense movie. It is filled with action and suspense, adult themes, and creepy content. While overall I liked the movie, there were too many scenes that will scare small children or would be difficult to explain to children. I compare it to Indiana Jones films for a reason. It is very intense. For this reason, I would recommend this movie for ages 12 and up.

This movie has a PG-13 rating. Disney is trying to appease all audiences. The LGBTQ+ audience is demanding more inclusion. The conservative base is wanting more family-friendly Disney movies. I believe Disney is testing the waters. Will fans overlook a scene here or there? How much will the Christian audience accept? How much are you willing to accept? Can this be used to teach and educate? Only you can answer these questions for your family!

Teachable Moments:

While this film has many moments that can be used for teaching children or homeschooling content, it is not suitable for all ages. However, I like to include a few suggestions for parents to take advantage of teaching their children even if they are not homeschooling.

History and the Time Period:

First, and the most obvious, is the time period it is set in. The film opens in the year 1916. Notice the clothing and the luggage used. Additionally, society lacks modern-day conveniences. 

Another item to talk about is the fact that Lily chooses to wear pants, and that is odd for many people. Find out when women started to wear pants?

Research 1916. What was going on in the world? When did WWI start and end? Look at a map and see who had control of which countries. England, France, Portugal, Germany, Italy, and other countries raced to gain control of more and more land. How did that affect the areas they were settling?

LOCATION of the Movie:

Look up the Amazon River on a map. How long is the Amazon River? What does Amazon mean? Research the animals of the Amazon River. What is the Amazon River dolphin?

While the movie begins in England, the majority of the movie takes place in South America. Research tribes of South America.

Consequences of Lying:

When you tell lies repeatedly, what happens? People tend not to believe you and then question everything you say. What does the Bible teach about telling the truth and lying? Proverbs 12:22 says, “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy.

Do you know the Aesop Fable about the Boy Who Cried Wolf? Read it to your child and explain the meaning behind it.

Talk about puns and make up some of your own. Watch a YouTube Video of the Disney Jungle Cruise attraction.

Watch The African Queen (1951) or read the original novel by C.S. Forester. This movie/book is set in WWI Africa. While watching the movie compare similarities and differences with the original movie versus the attraction and the Jungle Cruise movie.

Jungle Cruise Christian Movie Review: ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

While in California and Florida, you will experience the Jungle Cruise in a counter-clockwise trip around the river. However, in Tokyo Disneyland and Hong Kong, Disneyland Jungle Cruise guests travel in a clockwise direction.

There is no Jungle Cruise in Disneyland Paris.

Oscar®-winning makeup designer Joel Harlow had to give insect bites, sunburn, body paint, tattoos, and piercings for over 400 characters. 

A 100 piece orchestra performs the music for this film. Furthermore, the Metallica song, “Nothing Else Matters was reimagined and played in two different scenes. The musical score was created to set a mood throughout the film. Pay special attention to the music when Frank and Lily appear onscreen together.

To watch more about the attraction, Jungle Cruise, tune into Disney+ Behind the Attraction. This series is produced by Dwayne Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions. It explores attractions, and the first episode in the series shows how Walt Disney Imagineering created the magic behind the Jungle Cruise. While learning more about this 1955 opening day attraction in Disneyland you will watch actual footage of the transformation of California dry land into a jungle with a river, trees, and animals. Listen to Walt Disney Imagineers recall how they created and built this magical attraction. Additionally, you can find the Jungle Cruise in Walt Disney World, Florida since opening day 1971, Tokyo Disneyland since 1983, and a modified version called the Jungle River Cruise in Hong Kong Disney since 2005.

Dwayne Johnson has a private gym called the Iron Paradise. Emily Blunt received an invitation to train there, and it is very rare to receive an invitation to Johnson’s private sanctuary.

Another fun fact, the 1951 classic film “The African Queen,” starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, was the inspiration for The Jungle Cruise ride. Humphrey Bogart played Charlie Allnut, and you can definitely see a nod to Charlie in the clothing and even some of the scenes with Dwayne Johnson.

Using two engines, the La Quila was able to obtain speeds of up to seven knots. That’s a little over eight miles per hour.

The following languages are heard in the Jungle Cruise movie: Old Spanish from the 16th century, Omagua, the language of the Tupi-Guarani family of southwestern Brazil, Italian, Portuguese, German, and English.

EASTER EGGS:

The name Dr. Albert Falls is on several crates. Furthermore, his name is said throughout the movie.

Schweitzer Falls is the waterfall in the Jungle Cruise in the Disney Parks. In fact, it is this very waterfall that is discovered by Dr. Albert Falls, the founder of the Jungle Navigation Company. This is the famous backside of water, and is mentioned in the movie.

Additionally, the skipper tells numerous puns during the movie that are heard on the Jungle Cruise attraction.

Furthermore, there are Easter Eggs from the movie that have been added to the Jungle Cruise attraction in Disneyland.

Is Trader Sam in the Movie?

Yes. However, in the movie Trader Sam is played by a woman.

Does the Movie have an end credits scene?

Unfortunately, there is no post-credit clip at the end of this movie.

Where was the Jungle Cruise Filmed?

In the theme parks, the Jungle Cruise attraction sails down the rivers of Asia, Africa, and South America. However, this Disney adventure movie was filmed in less exotic locations of Hawaii and Atlanta.

When will Jungle Cruise be free in the Disney+ Library?

Beginning on November 12, the Jungle Cruise will be available to all Disney+ subscribers without any additional fees. Up to that time, you can access it with a subscription to Disney+ and Premier Access for $29.99.

Will there be a Jungle Cruise 2?

While Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson exhibit onscreen chemistry, is that enough to warrant a sequel? There are reports that there have been discussions of a Jungle Cruise 2. However, I believe box office sales from the first movie will determine this. It does appear that this movie will underperform, and for this reason, I believe that if a sequel happens it will be released directly to Disney+.

CAST from Disney Jungle Cruise:

Captian Frank Wolff: Dwayne Johnson 

Dr. Lily Houghton: Emily Blunt 

Aguirre: Edgar Ramírez 

MacGregor Houghton (Lily’s Brother): Jack Whitehall 

Prince Joachim: Jesse Plemons 

Nilo: Paul Giamatti

Trader Sam: Veronica Falcon

Proxima: The jaguar – a CGI creation

Jaume Collet-Serra

John Fox 

Dwayne Johnson 

Hiram Garcia 

Dany Garcia 

Executive Producers:

Scott Sheldon 

Doug Merrifield

John Norville 

Josh Goldstein 

Glenn Ficarra 

Screenplay By:

Michael Green 

Quote from Director Jaume Collet-Serra: “The Jungle Cruise ride is a very famous and well-known ride. It’s one of the original rides at Disneyland, designed actually by Walt Disney. So it’s beloved by many people, not only because it’s been there for a long time, but because it’s one of the only rides that the whole family can enjoy together. You can bring a baby, and you can bring your grandma — so in a way, we wanted to make a film that reflected that. A film that the whole family could enjoy together — that was the starting point for us.”

Ride THE THEME PARK ATTRACTION: Disney’s Jungle Cruise set in Adventureland

This Disney Ride is set in Walt Disney World. The following YouTube video shows the entire ride and some of the queue. Additionally, it is a family-friendly channel. We invite you to follow our family’s Disney theme park adventures.

Twitter: @JungleCruise Facebook: @JungleCruise Instagram: @DisneysJungleCruise Hashtag: #JungleCruise

Reviewing movies for parents from a Christian perspective since 2005. Know Before You Go!

Christian Homeschooling mom – 30 years and counting

Autism Mom & Disney enthusiast

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Jungle cruise.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 36 Reviews
• Kids Say 66 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Ride-based adventure is fun, if predictable; peril, scares.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Jungle Cruise is an action-fantasy adventure inspired by the classic Disneyland ride. Set in 1916, it follows intrepid Dr. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt), who hires skipper Frank Wolff (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) to guide her and her brother down the Amazon River in search of a mythical…

Why Age 11+?

Frequent peril/tension, action violence, physical comedy, creepy imagery -- incl

This movie is based on/promotes a Disney ride. Lots of merchandise tie-ins off c

Adults drink in taverns, where some background characters seem to be drinking he

Lily and Frank banter and flirt, eventually sharing longing looks. Characters sh

"Oh my God," "ruddy," "fresh hell," "crusty old farts," "shove it up your associ

Any Positive Content?

Promotes courage, perseverance, teamwork. Characters work together and think cre

Lily is a pioneering botanist and adventurer -- a Ph.D. who's never afraid of be

Violence & Scariness

Frequent peril/tension, action violence, physical comedy, creepy imagery -- including conquistadores being turned to stone or coming back to "life" while made of bees, snakes, etc. Native Amazonians are killed, a villain is squashed. At one point, it's suggested that a key character has died. People get abducted, slapped, stabbed, bitten by snakes and piranhas, threatened/attacked by a jaguar. Falls, chases, explosions. Torpedo and guns fired, swords and knives brandished. A villain callously smashes bees. Amazonians are described as cannibals, but ( spoiler alert ) it's just for show. Arguments/yelling.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

This movie is based on/promotes a Disney ride. Lots of merchandise tie-ins off camera.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adults drink in taverns, where some background characters seem to be drinking heavily. Characters drink whiskey from a flask, liquor from bottles. A jaguar drinks spilled wine, gets tipsy. MacGregor brings an entire suitcase of liquor on board.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Lily and Frank banter and flirt, eventually sharing longing looks. Characters share a kiss. A conversation about extracting a knife borders on suggestive.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

"Oh my God," "ruddy," "fresh hell," "crusty old farts," "shove it up your association," "booga booga," "wimpy," etc.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Promotes courage, perseverance, teamwork. Characters work together and think creatively to defeat a curse, vengeful enemies, a sociopathic villain. Characters' stories/journeys promote idea of personal growth and value of acceptance and living a nontraditional life. You don't have to be what everyone expects you to be.

Positive Role Models

Lily is a pioneering botanist and adventurer -- a Ph.D. who's never afraid of being the only woman in a room. She's brave, smart, resourceful, goes after what she wants (often bending rules to do so). Frank is knowledgeable, protective. Both are willing to put themselves in danger for their missions -- and each other. MacGregor is a dedicated brother who accompanies and supports Lily; he implies but never says outright that she was the only person who stuck by him when he realized he was gay. Native Amazonians are initially portrayed as cannibal warriors out to capture (and eat) foreigners, but ( spoiler alert ) it turns out to be for show. Still, the story exploits those stereotypes and certain others (MacGregor is fussy and high maintenance, Joachim is cartoonishly German, etc.), and Joachim's accent is played for humor.

Parents need to know that Jungle Cruise is an action-fantasy adventure inspired by the classic Disneyland ride. Set in 1916, it follows intrepid Dr. Lily Houghton ( Emily Blunt ), who hires skipper Frank Wolff ( Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson ) to guide her and her brother down the Amazon River in search of a mythical healing tree. Violence and peril are the biggest issues: Expect frequent danger, creepy cursed villains (as well as a cartoonishly evil German baddie), weapons (guns, torpedoes, swords, knives), an implied significant death (and some actual less significant ones), threatening snakes, and a jaguar that looks more vicious than she actually is. Adult characters drink from flasks and bottles, and an animal gets tipsy. One conversation about removing a knife from someone's body could be perceived as suggestive (though the double meaning will likely go over kids' heads), and there's some flirty banter and a couple of kisses. Without saying it outright, one character comes out to another, who's supportive. While main characters demonstrate impressive courage, perseverance, and teamwork, the movie's initial depiction of Native Amazonians as a tribe of angry cannibals is concerning, even though ( spoiler alert ) it turns out it's largely for show. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (36)
• Kids say (66)

Based on 36 parent reviews

Turn it off about an hour in...

Action and adventure, what's the story.

Set in 1916, JUNGLE CRUISE opens with bold botanist Dr. Lily Houghton ( Emily Blunt ) stealing an Amazonian arrowhead from an elite -- and anti-woman -- British explorers' club. The artifact is supposed to lead Houghton to a mysterious location on the Amazon River where legendary healing flowers bloom on an ancient tree. Lily and her brother, MacGregor ( Jack Whitehall ), head to the Amazon and hire brash skipper Frank Wolff ( Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson ) to guide them on the perilous river trip. Along the way, Lily and Frank must avoid not only the natural dangers of the Amazon but also a villainous German prince ( Jesse Plemons ) who's also searching for the tree, as well as a group of Spanish conquistadores who need the flower's petals to reverse their immortal curse.

Is It Any Good?

The irresistibly charming stars help make this adventurous, occasionally swashbuckling ride adaptation amusing, if not as memorable as The Mummy or Pirates of the Caribbean . Johnson can make nearly any character likable; here, Frank's silly, punny jokes are also a fun nod to the Disney ride's vibe. Blunt, likewise, is ideally cast as the pioneering Dr. Houghton. Lily bucks social mores of the time by having a job and a Ph.D., knowing how to defend herself, and even wearing trousers (Frank calls her "Pants"). She also has a refreshingly close relationship with her brother, who's posh and fussy but is still willing to follow her into murky, life-threatening situations. Other members of the cast are underused -- like Paul Giamatti as a local riverboat mogul and Edgar Ramirez as head conquistador Aguirre -- or they overact, like Plemons' caricature of a sociopathic German villain, Prince Joachim.

The movie's landscaping and production art are vibrant and immersive, and director Jaume Collet-Serra should be applauded for making sure to organically include themes of gender, class, and discrimination against the Amazonian natives -- without being preachy. Still, the movie's portrayal of those natives is a bit cringey, even if the movie course-corrects to subvert the same stereotypes it initially seems to be perpetuating. Luckily, Blunt and Johnson cheerfully elevate the story enough to make audiences gloss over some of the screenplay's missteps and enjoy the ride.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the level of violence in Jungle Cruise . Does stylized or fantasy violence impact viewers differently than more realistic violence?

How do Lily's actions convey that she is both brave and smart? Do you consider her a role model ? What character strengths does she demonstrate?

How is drinking depicted in the movie? Are there consequences for any character's drinking? Why does that matter?

Did you notice any stereotypes in the film? Why is the initial depiction of the Native Amazonians problematic? Is it excused by the fact that the tribe is in on the joke/plan?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 30, 2021
• On DVD or streaming : November 12, 2021
• Cast : Emily Blunt , Dwayne Johnson , Edgar Ramirez , Jack Whitehall
• Director : Jaume Collet-Serra
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors, Polynesian/Pacific Islander actors, Latino actors
• Studio : Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Topics : Magic and Fantasy , Adventures , Brothers and Sisters
• Character Strengths : Courage , Perseverance , Teamwork
• Run time : 127 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : sequences of adventure violence
• Last updated : June 23, 2024

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Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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What to watch next.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

The Mummy (1999)

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Romancing the Stone

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

Tomorrowland

The African Queen

The Goonies

Excellent adventure movies for family fun, best disney movies, related topics.

• Perseverance
• Magic and Fantasy
• Brothers and Sisters

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• DVD & Streaming

Jungle Cruise

• Action/Adventure , Comedy , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

• July 30, 2021
• Dwayne Johnson as Frank Wolff; Emily Blunt as Lily Houghton; Jack Whitehall as MacGregor Houghton; Edgar Ramírez as Aguirre; Jesse Plemons as Prince Joachim; Paul Giamatti as Nilo; Veronica Falcón as Trader Sam

Home Release Date

• Jaume Collet-Serra

Distributor

• Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Positive Elements   |   Spiritual Elements   |   Sexual & Romantic Content   |   Violent Content   |   Crude or Profane Language   |   Drug & Alcohol Content   |   Other Noteworthy Elements   | Conclusion

Movie Review

Conquistadors were suckers for a good legend.

They scoured the New World looking for El Dorado. They discovered Florida seeking the Fountain of Youth. And one intrepid Spaniard—a fellow named Aguirre—even dared brave the mighty Amazon in search of the Tears of the Moon, petals from a hidden tree that would supposedly cure any disease.

Those petals would’ve been nice, given all the diseases that Conquistadors introduced to the New World, but no matter. Aguirre and his cohorts disappeared in those Brazilian jungles long ago, and the Tears of the Moon faded into barely remembered myth—a bedtime story for a few, perhaps, but nothing more.

But Lily Houghton and her brother, MacGregor, heard those bedtime stories and believed . And Lily believes something else, too: That she can succeed where Aguirre and everyone else has failed.

And given that the year’s 1916—the middle of the Great War, when millions of people are dying from battle and disease—the Tears have never been more needed.

Lily has maps of important twisty, turny Amazon tributaries—maps allegedly made by Aguirre’s own cartographer. Soon she has an important arrowhead, too, which she thinks may be the key to unlocking the Tears’ centuries-old secret. Now all she and her brother need is a boat captain to take them upriver, through the mysterious and perilous jungle. Someone brave. Strong. Honest.

Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

Frank Wolff isn’t honest. In fact, he makes his living lying. He takes gullible tourists upriver and shows them the (ahem) wonders and terrors of the Amazon, be they fearsome headhunters (actors in Frank’s employ) or horrifying hippopotami (not native to Brazil) or the skeletonized remains of dead conquistadors (well, the skeletons look real enough). He glories in terrible puns and proudly shows his guests the “eighth wonder of the world”—a pitiful little manmade waterfall that Frank sails behind. “The backside of water!” he proudly exclaims to his less-than-impressed clientele.

Why, when he first meets Lily, Frank is even lying about being Frank . She finds him in the office of another (much more successful) riverboat captain, apparently picking a lock. She mistakes him for the (much more successful) riverboat captain, and who is Frank to say otherwise?

Still, Frank is roughly the size of a boat himself, which suggests he’s strong. He must be brave, too, living as he does in this little-explored jungle. And he works cheap.

But the dangers Frank, Lily and MacGregor face are no lie. To get to where the Tears of the Moon supposedly can be found, they’ll have to brave wild animals, fearsome rapids and maybe even a German U-Boat or two.

And the deep, dark jungle hides a secret, as well. Those old, lost conquistadors might not be quite dead yet. Yes, the Tears of the Moon make a tantilizing bedtime story—one that Lily banks on being much more. But before this jungle cruise is over, she might be shedding a few tears of her own.

Positive Elements

Lily wants to find the Tears of the Moon for a whole bunch of reasons: To redeem her family name; to mark herself as a scientist of note; and because it’d be fun. But above all, she believes the Tears can save lives—lives that, at this juncture in history, are being lost at a staggering pace. “I don’t have to know someone to care,” she tells Frank.

The riverboat captain respects that. But for him, he needs to be closer to someone to truly care for them—and he’s been looking for that connection for a while now. “One person to care about in this world—that’s enough for me.” Which is also a nice sentiment.

All that caring leads all of them (MacGregor, too) to take risks for each other—even to the point of making the ultimate sacrifice.

In flashback, we also see an indigenous group show great kindness to a handful of conquistadors. And we learn that at least one of those conquistadors sought out the Tears for a pretty good reason of his own.

Spiritual Elements

The Tears themselves were a gift from the gods, it’s suggested, and Frank named his boat after the goddess of the moon (Quilla, an actual Incan deity). The history of the tears is filled with magical happenings and elements, too, including a very effective curse. Part of that curse involves an element of undead immortality. Apart from that, though, there is little apparent hope of an afterlife, but rather eternal rest.

Lily spies some Brazilian dolphins. Frank cautions her to not look them in the eyes: Those dolphins, he says—repeating a real Brazilian legend—are said to be shapeshifters who might just steal you away. “If you believe in legends,” he cautions, “you should believe in curses, too.” Indigenous tribespeople don masks made out of skulls, and the leader has painted an eye on her hand—suggesting an adherence to some sort of mysterious religion.

There’s a reference to the Garden of Eden. It’s said that Lily wants to be the “Darwin of flowers,” a reference to the naturalist who popularized the notion of evolution.

Sexual & Romantic Content

Before diving into water, Lily strips down to her modest 1916-era skivvies. (“Are you wearing pants under your pants?” Frank asks.) We also see some indiginous folks go shirtless or (in the case of women) shoulder-baring garb. Life-saving, underwater swaps of oxygen resemble a pair of lip-to-lip kisses. Some banter over treating a wound—with Frank asking Lily if it’s her “first time”—is filled with possible light double entendres.

MacGregor, Lily’s brother, is apparently gay. He tells Frank that he had to break the truth to a would-be female match that his “interests lie elsewhere,” and that he would’ve been disinherited and completely ostracized from society for “who I loved,” had it not been for Lily. This is the only reference to MacGregor’s sexual leanings, and it could sail over some younger viewers’ heads. Yet, the context of the conversation might make it more likely that those younger viewers will ask questions later.

Violent Content

The movie opens in earnest in London, where a villain quickly and cartoonishly dispatches a number of bearded scientists. We see no blood, but given the blades involved, there’s no doubt as to the fates of these unfortunates. Someone nearly tumbles to her death during the melee, as well, but instead lands safely on a double-decker bus.

But if London’s a dangerous place, it doesn’t hold a candle to the Amazon. We see creatures nab other creatures, only to get snatched up in turn—the suggestion being that pretty much everything’s subject to being gobbled up and eaten. People are stabbed and shot and nearly drowned, and a couple of unfortunates fall from terrific heights, bouncing off branches and rocks on the way down. Someone is skewered by a pretty nasty blade (we see the end jut out from the other side) but survives—and someone else is forced to pull the blade out. Someone is crushed by a falling rock.

A leopard attacks Frank and bites his wrist. He and the animal wrestle in a bar for a bit (threatened by a nearby tarantula and scorpion, who just minutes before had been locked in an apparent fight-to-the-death). Someone’s foot is seriously injured. A man is thwacked by a golf club. A couple of guys get whacked in their privates (momentarily disabling them). Men burn their hands. People comically run into various hard surfaces, knocking them down or, in one case, plunging from a zip line. People are bitten by snakes, and at least a couple seem to die from the bites. Sunburns look pretty painful. Animals are shot and caught for food. We hear some joking references to beheadings. Piranhas attack Frank.

[ Spoiler Warning ] We should mention those undead conquistadors. They commit plenty of acts of violence, to be sure, but more than that, these guys are just plain scary. Each seems to be cursed as a different jungle avatar: The body of one is alive with slithering snakes, some of which slide out of his skin (which sometimes splits rather grotesquely). Another seems built partly out of honeycombs, with portions of his body missing. If you remember the undead pirates from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie, you can get a sense of the level of ookiness we’re talking about here, but something to be aware of.

Crude or Profane Language

Someone uses the German equivalent of the s-word. We hear one “h—” and about three misuses of God’s name. The movie purposefully calls to mind a harsher profanity, though, when a character rejects an invitation to a prestigious educational body—telling its members that they can “shove it up your association.”

Drug & Alcohol Content

Frank imbibes quite a bit (most likely a nod to Humphry Bogart’s hard-drinking character in The African Queen). He quaffs liquid from a glass flask he always has with him, and he partakes elsewhere, too (ordering, for instance, “two beers and two steaks”). When MacGregor tries to bring seemingly dozens of trunks along, Frank throws most overboard but pointedly keeps the trunk full of liquor.

Frank’s pet leopard laps up some of the alcohol from one of those bottles (wine or port, most likely) and gets drunk. During a visit with an indigenous tribe, MacGregor seems quite impressed with the alcohol they give him, until he learns …

Other Noteworthy Elements

… that the alcohol in question is, in Frank’s words, “fermented spit.”

Three characters (including the leopard) vomit, either on the boat deck or over the rail. Frank tells Lily that she can take a bath in the Amazon itself—slyly mentioning that he warmed it up for her earlier (that is, urinated in its waters). When Lily gets splashed, Frank looks at her trousers and says, “Looks like you wet your pants, Pants (his nickname for her).”

Lots of characters—including the good guys—lie and steal here. Indeed, the arrowhead that Lily needs to complete its quest is snatched from its apparently rightful owners (an act she would frame as one of “liberation”).

The inspiration for Jungle Cruise isn’t found in ancient legend or turn-of-the-century storybook, but rather a ride—the beloved Jungle Cruise ride found at most Disney parks.

The ride itself is considered a classic. It opened along with the original Disneyland way back in 1955, and countless guests line up to experience its charm—the animatronic animals, the wisecracking captains, the “backside of water”—every year. And while it has undergone its share of revisions (redesigning the boats and stripping the scenery of some uncomfortably racist elements), the ride that 7-year-olds experience today isn’t that much different from the ride their parents might’ve loved decades before. You could argue that the Jungle Cruise, the ride, is timeless.

The movie? Not so much.

Paradoxically, it embraces a few truly timeless films: It definitely exhibits a strong Indiana Jones vibe, and the characters Lily and Frank strongly echo (in word and garb) the characters from one of the ride’s big sources of inspiration: The African Queen .

But this Jungle Cruise —despite being set more than a century ago and paying homage to a ride nearly 70 years old—is a product of our secularly moralistic age. It’s concerned with issues that our society is concerned about, from feminism to the environment to LGBTQ issues.

That’s not all bad, of course. But it does stamp Jungle Cruise with a “best buy” date, because what society values shifts as society itself does. The morals culture embraces today may feel retro and even embarrassing 40 years from now. And even in this age, Jungle Cruise can feel a bit proselytizing.

In addition, the movie has more content issues than you might expect. While its pretty innocuous when it comes to skin and sensuality, Jungle Cruise is surprisingly violent and pretty scary. And I’ve not seen so much drinking in a film designed for families since Bogey and Hepburn sailed up the Congo on the African Queen .

The film boasts some delightfully hideous puns and stars a couple of charismatic Disney vets in Emily Blunt and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. It can be fun. But in many ways, Jungle Cruise sails off course. And for some families, some unexpected rapids loom downstream.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Jungle Cruise

In the pantheon of Disney movies based on Disney theme park rides, “Jungle Cruise” is pretty good—leagues better than dreck like “Haunted Mansion,” though not quite as satisfying as the original “Pirates of the Caribbean.” 

The most pleasant surprise is that director Jaume Collet-Serra (“ The Shallows “) and a credited team of five, count ’em, writers have largely jettisoned the ride’s mid-century American colonial snarkiness and casual racism (a tradition  only recently eliminated ). Setting the revamp squarely in the wheelhouse of blockbuster franchise-starters like “ Raiders of the Lost Ark ,” “ Romancing the Stone ” and “The Mummy,” and pushing the fantastical elements to the point where the story barely seems to be taking place in our universe, it’s a knowingly goofy romp, anchored to the banter between its leads, an English feminist and adventurer played by Emily Blunt and a riverboat captain/adventurer played by  Dwayne Johnson . 

Notably, however, even though the stars’ costumes (and a waterfall sequence) evoke the classic “The African Queen”—John Huston’s comic romance/action film starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn ; worth looking up if you’ve never watched it—the sexual chemistry between the two is nonexistent, save for a few fleeting moments, like when Frank picks up the heroine‘s hand-cranked silent film camera and captures affectionate images of her. At times the leads seem more like a brother and sister needling each other than a will they/won’t they bantering couple. Lack of sexual heat is often (strangely) a bug, or perhaps a feature, in films starring Johnson, the four-quadrant blockbuster king (though not on Johnson’s HBO drama “Ballers”). Blunt keeps putting out more than enough flinty looks of interest to sell a romance, but her leading man rarely reflects it back at her. Fortunately, the film’s tight construction and prolific action scenes carry it, and Blunt and Johnson do the irresistible force/immovable object dynamic well enough, swapping energies as the story demands.

Blunt’s character, Lily Houghton, is a well-pedigreed adventurer who gathers up maps belonging to her legendary father and travels to the Amazon circa 1916 to find the Tears of the Moon, petals from a “Tree of Life”-type of fauna that can heal all infirmities. She and her snooty, pampered brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) hire Frank “Skipper” Wolff (Johnson) to bring them to their destination. The only notable concession to the original theme park ride comes here: Wolff’s day job is taking tourists upriver and making cheesy jokes in the spirit of “hosts” on Disney Jungle Cruise rides of yore. On the mission, Johnson immediately settles into a cranky but funny old sourpuss vibe, a la John Wayne or Harrison Ford , and inhabits it amiably enough, even though buoyant, almost childlike optimism comes more naturally to him than world-weary gruffness. 

The supporting cast is stacked with overqualified character players. Paul Giamatti plays a gold-toothed, sunburned, cartoonishly “Italian” harbor master who delights at keeping Frank in debt. Edgar Ramirez is creepy and scary as a conquistador whose curse from centuries ago has trapped him in the jungle.  Jesse Plemons plays the main baddie, Prince Joachim, who wants to filch the power of the petals for the Kaiser back in Germany (he’s Belloq to the stars’ Indy and Marion, trying to swipe the Ark). Unsurprisingly, given his track record, Plemons steals the film right out from under its leads.

Collet-Serra keeps the action moving along, pursuing a more classical style than is commonplace in recent live-action Disney product (by which I mean, the blocking and editing have a bit of elegance, and you always know where characters are in relation to each other). The editing errs on the side of briskness to such an extent that affecting, beautiful, or spectacular images never get to linger long enough to become iconic. The CGI is dicey, particularly on the larger jungle animals—was the production rushed, or were the artists just overworked?—and there are moments when everything seems so rubbery/plasticky that you seem to be watching the first film that was actually shot on location at Disney World.

But the staging and execution of the chases and fights compensates. Derivative of films that were themselves highly derivative, “Jungle Cruise” has the look and feel of a paycheck gig for all involved, but everyone seems to be having a great time, including the filmmakers.

In theaters and on Disney+ for a premium charge starting Friday, July 30th. 

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor-at-Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

• Dwayne Johnson as Frank Wolff
• Emily Blunt as Dr. Lily Houghton
• Edgar Ramírez as Aguirre
• Jack Whitehall as McGregor Houghton
• Jesse Plemons as Prince Joachim
• Paul Giamatti as Nilo

Cinematographer

• Flavio Martínez Labiano

Writer (story)

• Glenn Ficarra
• John Norville
• Josh Goldstein
• James Newton Howard
• Jaume Collet-Serra
• Joel Negron

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‘Jungle Cruise’ Review: Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt in Disney’s Bumptious Rom-Com Theme-Park Joyride

The two stars have an undeniable plucky chemistry in a fantasy adventure so rollicking it threatens to turn romance into one more special effect.

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In “ Jungle Cruise ,” a Disney adventure that demonstrates how basing a movie on a theme-park ride may now be a more natural occurence than adapting it from a novel, Emily Blunt plays Dr. Lily Houghton, a London researcher-explorer who’s as fearless, in her demure way, as Indiana Jones, and Dwayne Johnson is Frank Wolff, the friendly huckster of a river-boat captain who ferries her down the Amazon at the height of World War I.

He wears a hat just like the one Humphrey Bogart wore in “The African Queen,” and she wears pants — which, of course, were an early adaptation of Katharine Hepburn’s. For anyone old enough, or old-movie-centered enough, to care (which is maybe five percent of this movie’s prospective audience), the banter between these two could be said to evoke Bogart and Hepburn — or, at least, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in “Romancing the Stone.” Frank, a charlatan with a chip on his shoulder, calls Lily “Pants” and tells godawful jokes. She call him “Skippy” and rolls her eyes. And as they go at each other with gusto and bite and a touch of venom, you can sit back and feel, at moments, like you’re at a romantic comedy.

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But it’s like watching a romantic comedy while strapped to a roller-coaster with a VR headset on. “Jungle Cruise” is at once a love story, a made-for-4DX action movie, a “Pirates of the Caribbean”-style fairy tale featuring a ghostly conquistador (Edgar Ramirez) and his pewter-armored henchman with digital snakes slithering through their bodies, and God knows what else. Blunt, appealingly brash, makes mincemeat of Frank the lug but lets you know she likes him anyway, and Johnson knows how to deliver a genial putdown that still stings. They’ve got a chemistry, no doubt about it, but in a funny way the romantic pluck of “Jungle Cruise” plays like one more trick effect. You can practically touch the one-liners as they ping off the screen.

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I enjoyed the movie more than I did the two recent “Jumanji” films, because you can kind of pretend that there’s something at stake, and the director, Jaume Collet-Serra, stages it all with a certain breathless bravura. Leaving the dock in the Brazilian jungle where Frank plays P.T. Barnum to gullible tourists, our heroes set off in his barely seaworthy steamboat, only to have to get out of the way of a torpedo launched by Prince Joachim, a Teutonic megalomaniac played by Jesse Plemons with a smirky flourish. The ship plows right into Frank’s docking station, which blows up real good.

There’s a turbulent sequence in which the boat speeds toward a waterfall, and a funny one that fools us into thinking, for a moment, that the movie is going to exploit the woefully outdated stereotype of a “primitive” tribe of cannibals wearing skull masks. (It’s actually mocking it.) Lily has brought her brother, MacGregor, along for the ride, and he’s a pampered dandy who think it’s not dinner unless you’re wearing a dinner jacket. He’s played by Jack Whitehall, in a pinpoint performance that benefits from not having to repress the implication that the character is gay, though it might have benefited even more if his coming-out speech to Frank didn’t dance around the subject nearly as torturously as the old repression.

“Jungle Cruise” is a movie that implicitly asks: What’s wrong with a little good old-fashioned escapism? The answer is: Absolutely nothing, and “Jungle Cruise” is old-fashioned, expect that it pelts the audience with entertainment in such a lively yet bumptious way that at times you may wish you were wearing protective gear. Lily has in her possession a mystical arrowhead, which everyone wants, because it’s the totem that will lead her to the Tears of the Moon, a legendary tree (it’s like the Fountain of Youth) with magical healing properties. That sounds like a Disney MacGuffin, and is, except what struck me after a while is that the real preoccupation of “Jungle Cruise” isn’t romance, or even adventure, but metamorphosis. Tree vines grow and wrap themselves around historic explorers; a fearsome tiger is revealed to be a pussycat; a key character turns out to be 400 years old; a theme-park ride turns into a love story and then back again. All that remains unchanged is the price of an oversize box of Raisinets.

Reviewed at AMC Lincoln Square, New York, July 26, 2021. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 127 MIN.

• Production: A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a Davis  Entertainment Company, Seven Bucks/Flynn Picture Co. production. Producers: John Davis, John Fox, Beau Flynn, Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia. Executive producers: Scott Sheldon, Doug Merrifield.
• Crew: Director: Jaume Collet-Serra. Screenplay: Michael Green, Glenn Ficarra, John Requa. Camera: Flavio Labiano. Editor: Joel Negron. Music: James Newton Howard.
• With: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Édgar Ramírez, Jack Whitehall, Jesse Plemons, Paul Giamatti, Veronica Falcón, Dani Rovira, Quim Gutierrez.

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Disney’s Jungle Cruise Is Murder

“The jungle,” Werner Herzog used to say, “is murder.” Although Disney’s Jungle Cruise is ostensibly based on the popular theme-park ride, one could say that it has taken Herzog’s immortal maxim as a kind of surface inspiration. “Know this about the jungle,” Dwayne Johnson’s riverboat captain Frank says early in the film, “everything you see wants to kill you — and can.” There are other Herzog callbacks in the film: The villains include the Spanish conquistador Lope de Aguirre (the subject of one of Herzog’s best-known films, Aguirre, the Wrath of God ) as well as an obsessive German aristocrat named Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons), who seems to sport Herzog’s accent ; there’s even an extended gag at one point about the Herzogian way Joachim pronounces “jungle”: “chonk-leh.” Whatever. I chuckled. Sue me.

Herzog is an odd reference point, surely, but that’s also in keeping with the central tension in Jungle Cruise , between the darker, more intense and exciting movie it clearly wants to be and the mealymouthed CGI panderfest that it is. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra — a filmmaker previously known for gonzo thrillers like Orphan and The Shallows and some of the more compelling entries in the Liam Neeson dadsploitation subgenre — the picture might have amounted to something had it been able to deliver on the one essential element any kind of adventure (even one made primarily for kids) needs: a real sense of danger.

It didn’t need to be this way, surely. The opening scenes show some promise. We first meet the spirited Dr. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) as she sneaks around in the back rooms of the Royal Geographic Society, looking for an ancient arrowhead that holds the key to finding a magic, all-healing Amazonian blossom called the Tears of the Moon. But it’s 1916, two years into the Great War, and there’s a sinister German aristocrat — the aforementioned Joachim, who may or may not be Kaiser Wilhelm’s son — also after this artefact.

In his previous works, Collet-Serra proved quite adept playing with screen geography, and he brings charm and energy to these early scenes of Lily maneuvering around this place while Joachim pursues her, each of them using the various objects around them. Similarly, when we meet Frank “Skipper” Wolff (Johnson), the captain of a decaying, rickety Amazon riverboat, we see him conning tourists into seeing fake sights such as a phony giant hippo, a rickety waterfall, and a group of supposedly savage natives whom he’s secretly paid off to scare the foreigners.

There’s a Rube Goldbergian verve to these early sequences, and by the time Lily and her brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) have employed Frank to take them into the heart of the Amazon, you might be fooled into thinking that Jungle Cruise is poised to recapture the swashbuckling magic of classics like Raiders of the Lost Ark , The Mask of Zorro , the 1999 iteration of The Mummy , or the original Pirates of the Caribbean , with a little African Queen thrown in. It certainly liberally borrows from just about all of them.

But such films were also not afraid to scare us, to make us care about their characters by putting them in real danger. And here, Jungle Cruise sadly falls back on its corporate theme-park origins. It’s a safety-first kind of movie, seemingly too afraid to ever make us fear for our heroes. A jaguar that attacks early on quickly turns out to be Frank’s pet, Proxima (another aide in his many scams). It would probably constitute a spoiler to give more details about other elements that are initially presented as sources of fear but turn out ultimately to be harmless. (Even the supposedly psychopathic Prince Joachim comes off as weirdly cuddly at times, with Plemons playing him as a subdued bore. Why exactly is this movie set during WWI anyway? Were they afraid to make Joachim a Nazi?) It feels at times like the filmmakers are reluctant to suggest that the Amazon might actually be a dangerous place. Maybe that sort of thing makes for admirable messaging (does it?), but it certainly doesn’t quicken the pulse.

The exception to all this winds up proving the rule: When the aforementioned Lope de Aguirre (Edgar Ramirez) and his men, who all supposedly vanished upriver in the 16th century, come back as a ragtag supernatural phantom army to fight our heroes, they’re clearly meant to provide the menace that the film has been so lacking. And to be fair, a flashback to how they got their curse is one of the film’s highlights; if nothing else, it gives Collet-Serra an opportunity to briefly show off his horror chops. But once these villains enter the story, their presence, even in its finer details and twists, so recalls the far-superior Pirates of the Caribbean that we might wonder if we’re just watching something created on the same software as that earlier picture, only with a different set of features selected from the drop-down menus.

Even so, derivativeness and predictability aren’t always fatal flaws. Jungle Cruise could have been saved had it at least provided some decent comedy and romance. On the latter front, Johnson and Blunt don’t have much chemistry. The film has a good idea in positioning them as opposing temperaments — the more bickering, the more chance of a spark, cinematically speaking — but even that winds up being half-baked. In the end, they don’t argue all that much.

Over and over, we can see the far superior movie Jungle Cruise wants to be: a freewheeling, romantic, swashbuckling epic about a couple of beautiful, brave souls who bicker their way into each other’s hearts, all the while facing off against the many dangers of the jungle and a variety of villains both human and supernatural. But it is so not that movie. And the clarity of its aspirations just makes the film’s downfall that much more pathetic, like a baseball player pointing to the home run he’s about to hit and then completely whiffing and landing on his ass.

Meanwhile, Whitehall is given the thankless task of portraying what is supposedly Disney’s most “out” gay character yet. The film still plays it kind of coy: Talking to Frank one night about how he couldn’t get married, MacGregor says that he “had to tell the lady in question that I couldn’t accept the offer — or indeed any offer, given that my interests happily lay elsewhere.” He then adds, “Uncle threatened to disinherit me. Friends and family turned their backs, all because of who I love.” Maybe this could have been a touching character note, but it doesn’t actually do much to develop MacGregor; his confession seems to exist primarily to show what a decent guy Frank is in accepting him. MacGregor, meanwhile, remains the butt of many of the movie’s (mostly unfunny) jokes — a hopelessly vain dandy who pees himself at the first sign of danger. I’m not sure any of this is progress. The jungle might not kill you, but Jungle Cruise could kill your soul.

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Jungle Cruise

Based on Disneyland's theme park ride where a small riverboat takes a group of travelers through a jungle filled with dangerous animals and reptiles but with a supernatural element. Based on Disneyland's theme park ride where a small riverboat takes a group of travelers through a jungle filled with dangerous animals and reptiles but with a supernatural element. Based on Disneyland's theme park ride where a small riverboat takes a group of travelers through a jungle filled with dangerous animals and reptiles but with a supernatural element.

• Jaume Collet-Serra
• Michael Green
• Glenn Ficarra
• Dwayne Johnson
• Emily Blunt
• Edgar Ramírez
• 1.2K User reviews
• 298 Critic reviews
• 50 Metascore
• 5 wins & 9 nominations

Top cast 99+

• Frank Wolff

• Lily Houghton

• MacGregor Houghton

• Prince Joachim

• (as Quim Gutierrez)

• Sir James Hobbs-Coddington

• Chief's Daughter

• Society Guard

• Society Member

• Society Worker
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Dwayne Johnson & Emily Blunt Answer Burning Questions

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia Many of the puns Frank uses are taken directly from the Disney Parks attraction on which the movie is based. These "so bad they're good" jokes are one of the reasons why Jungle Cruise skippers are so important to the ride experience.
• Goofs Prince Joachim knows where the trapped Spanish are located. There was no record of this because only Skipper knew where he trapped them.

Frank Wolff : If you're lucky enough to have one person in this life to care about, then that's world enough for me.

• Crazy credits The bay in the Disney logo is seen to have the water glowing purple, and after the Disney logo fully appears the camera dives into the water and leads to the Tree of Life, which opens the film.
• Connections Featured in AniMat's Crazy Cartoon Cast: D23 Expo 2019 Extravaganza (2019)
• Soundtracks Nothing Else Matters Reimagined by Metallica and James Newton Howard With featured performances by James Hetfield , Lars Ulrich , Kirk Hammett , Robert Trujillo Written by James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich Associate Producer and Engineer Greg Fidelman

User reviews 1.2K

• deloudelouvain
• Oct 25, 2021
• How long is Jungle Cruise? Powered by Alexa
• Will 'Weird Al' Yankovic's song 'Skipper Dan' about Disney's Jungle Cruise ride be featured in this movie?
• July 30, 2021 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Thám Hiểm Rừng Xanh
• Kaua'i, Hawaii, USA
• Davis Entertainment
• Flynn Picture Company
• Seven Bucks Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $200,000,000 (estimated)
• $116,987,516
• $35,018,731
• Aug 1, 2021
• $220,889,446

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 7 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
• IMAX 6-Track

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JUNGLE CRUISE

"family entertainment marred by political correctness".

What You Need To Know:

Miscellaneous Immorality: Stealing.

More Detail:

JUNGLE CRUISE is a big, sweeping action adventure movie based on Disneyland’s popular ride, which has been crafted into a story about a young Englishwoman who hires a debt-ridden boat captain to take her down the Amazon River to find a fabled tree with leaves that supposedly can cure any disease. Laced with lots of humor but no obscene language, JUNGLE CRUISE has many exciting escapades and beautifully filmed action sequences, with some Christian, redemptive metaphors and elements, but the movie has a strong Romantic worldview with some with politically correct, feminist, pro-homosexual elements attacking traditional morality, and the story contains some scary characters and situations involving slithering snakes.

The movie opens in 1916 with MacGregor Houghton trying to convince the Royal Academy in London to finance an expedition into the Amazon to find a mystical, magical tree with fabled healing properties. The stuffy scientists in attendance mock MacGregor off the stage. Meanwhile, his sister, Lily, who put her prissy brother up to making the public request, sneaks into the archives of the Academy. There, she steals an arrowhead from the last Amazon expedition, which supposedly is a key to unlock to unlock the location of the magical tree. She steals the arrowhead right under the very nose of a German prince named Joachim, who’s rumored to be the son of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. The curator of the archives had just finished a deal with Prince Joachim to give him all the artifacts from the expedition, in exchange for a very large donation.

Cut to the Amazon, where Captain Frank Wolff is giving one of his pun-infested tours to some tourists on his ramshackle boat. Part of the tour is clearly fake. Frank even uses some local people to pretend to be savage headhunters to scare the tourists.

Unhappily for Frank, he owes a lot of money to his rival in the tour business, a portly Italian named Nilo who repossesses Frank’s boat engine when he returns to town. Lily meets with Frank to rent his boat to travel down the Amazon to the legendary location of the magical tree. Frank at first refuses, because he thinks she’s on a wild goose chase, but Lily offers him lots of money.

With Lily’s brother along for the ride, they’re soon on their way down the Amazon. After, Fran steals back his engine from Nilo, of course. However, Prince Joachim is hot on their trail in his very own German submarine.

Of course, innumerable other dangers await them down river, including some supernatural ones, in the form of a group of cursed Spanish conquistadores awakened from suspended animation.

JUNGLE CRUISE features many exciting escapades and beautifully filmed action sequences. In many ways, it’s similar to Disney’s PIRATES movies, the Indiana Jones movies and the 1984 movie ROMANCING THE STONE. The action does slow down slightly in the middle, but not by much. Dwayne Johnson, who plays Frank, and Emily Blunt, who plays Lily, have some good chemistry together. This definitely helps the movie when it comes time for their characters to develop strong romantic feelings for one another. Viewers will root for these two characters when it looks like they’re going to be separated forever. Admittedly, the chemistry isn’t as special as Indy and Marion in the original Indiana Jones movie, but that’s a high bar to set. JUNGLE CRUISE is also laced with lots of fun humor. For example, the movie borrows heavily from the puns that the tour guides on the Disneyland ride subject on Disneyland visitors.

As with many Disney adventure movies, the action sequences involve some scary moments. The heroes not only have to avoid a huge, deadly waterfall. They also encounter the scary leader of the cursed conquistadores, who was cursed centuries ago with slithering jungle snakes.

Sadly, despite some Christian, redemptive metaphors about life, death and resurrection, JUNGLE CRUISE has a strong Romantic worldview overall. The heroine is a spunky female who’s bucking the staid, corrupt male establishment of the Royal Academy. The traditional rules don’t apply to her, so she steals the arrowhead from the Academy. Also, the movie reveals in the middle that Lily defended her brother when it came out that the reason he didn’t marry any of the women their family offered to him was because he’s homosexual. Their family disowned Lily’s brother, but she stood behind him. Lily’s brother reveals all these facts to Frank in one scene. Also, at one point, the brother, holding a spear, makes a crude, unnecessary sexual innuendo when he asks a wounded Frank, “Would you like to bite down on my stick?” The filmmakers are careful not to include any obscenities in their movie, so the lewdness of this line is unexpectedly strong and rather disturbing. In fact, the homosexual brother is played with such a prissy quality that one wonders if LGBT activists are going to look as favorable on it.

All in all, MOVIEGUIDE® must advise extreme caution for this particular trip down the Amazon. It’s somewhat of a missed opportunity to provide moviegoers with a truly family-friendly experience. That’s what happens when you let silly leftwing politics creep into your art and entertainment, not to mention your commerce.

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• Entertainment

Jungle Cruise review: Fun Saturday afternoon adventure hits Disney Plus

Emily Blunt and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson make this boat trip worth the ride as it comes to the streaming service at no extra cost on Friday.

The Rock and Emily Blunt are joy to watch in Jungle Cruise.

A creaky old Disneyland ride littered with creaky old dad jokes isn't the most obvious inspiration for a big-budget cinematic journey, but Jungle Cruise hits on most of the classic summer adventure notes. It does so by reveling in the silliness of its source material, riffing on the ride's original source of inspiration.

Jungle Cruise stars  Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson  and  Emily Blunt  as a riverboat captain and his scientist passenger. Their old-timey riverboat quest mirrors the dynamic between Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in  The African Queen , a rousing 1951 adventure that won Bogart  his only Oscar  and gave Disney Imagineers an idea for a ride that's endured for more than 60 years.

Like Marvel's Black Widow , this adventure hit Disney Plus over the summer, but you had to pay an extra fee on top of your subscription. It joined  Shang-Chi and Home Sweet Home Alone in the streaming service's regular library Friday, so subscribers can watch it at no extra cost .

This 1916-set adventure -- directed by Jaume Collet-Serra  (who will rejoin Johnson for 2022 DC movie Black Adam ) -- oozes charm right from its opening minutes, thanks to sharp writing and the charisma of Johnson, Blunt and Jack Whitehall as her hilariously ill-prepared brother. That appeal only grows once they're together on the boat and traveling down a jungle river, sparking off one another brilliantly.

Johnson has an endless supply of groan-worthy puns (echoing the silly skippers of Disney's ride) and a capacity for deception, putting him at odds with the assertive, direct Blunt. The love-hate relationship that develops is a delight to watch, with Whitehall's dry comments adding another layer of levity.

Their journey is punctuated by sharply edited action sequences reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean and The Mummy . The colorful, varied environments give each a distinct visual flair, with the world's lived-in quality and colorful cast of characters making it all feel tangible and relatable. ( Paul Giamatti 's red-faced harbormaster badly needs a dab of sunscreen, though.)

The baddies aren't quite as well developed or memorable as our heroes because the movie doesn't devote enough time to them. Jesse Plemons ' German prince is elevated by a flamboyant performance and exquisite costume, but his character's motivation ultimately feels cliche.

Jack Whitehall (right) joins Blunt and Johnson on the journey.

He also shares the villainous limelight with a band of malefactors led by Edgar Ramírez , who does the best he can to bring some humanity to this group. The introduction of a supernatural menace spices up the second hour, but some slightly unconvincing shiny CGI leaves the villains feeling more slippery than threatening.

All of the groups clash in a finale that riffs hard on the first Pirates of the Caribbean. But by that point you'll care enough about our heroes' fates to forgive those similarities and some forgettable villains.

New Movies Coming in 2023 From Marvel, Netflix, DC and More

James Newton Howard 's score adds to the grandiosity of the adventure, with one orchestrated version of an iconic power ballad adding dramatic weight to a pivotal moment.

Jungle Cruise is a worthy addition to Disney's live-action adventure library, with Johnson, Blunt and Whitehall bringing suitable emotional depth and plenty of laughs. Whether we'll still be talking about it decades in the future is debatable, but it'll go down as a memorable summer romp that families can watch on a Saturday afternoon for years to come.

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Jungle Cruise Reviews

The poor visual effects, questionable stylistic choices, and a dragging story with a poor script distract you from the good aspects the film has.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Sep 8, 2024

At best, Jungle Cruise is mildly entertaining, with traces of a better film peppered throughout. At worst, it reminds you that Pirates of the Caribbean did all this way better twenty years ago, and nothing seems to have progressed since.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 5, 2024

I think we would all agree to hop in a boat with these two as they take us on an adventure.

Full Review | Aug 22, 2023

The SUMMER ADVENTURE you all need to go on! With vibes from Raiders of the Lost Ark to Pirates of the Caribbean! this movie will bring a smile to your face the entire cruise.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

Sometimes movies should exist to be entertainment, purely and simply. Jungle Cruise should have been that, and it’s a shame there was not enough charisma to keep it afloat.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

Jungle Cruise is exactly what it makes itself out to be: a big-name summer blockbuster...

Full Review | Feb 23, 2023

A family adventure through familiar, albeit shallow, waters.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Feb 13, 2023

Any minor quibbles are outshone by the star power wattage generated by Johnson and Blunt. If Johnson is still the Most Electrifying Man In Entertainment, then Emily Blunt is a superconductor.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 12, 2022

Book your trip on Jungle Cruise now. It’s a first-class ticket.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 9, 2022

JUNGLE CRUISE (the movie) was based on "Jungle Cruise", a Disneyland ride, so I wasn't expecting much, and was definitely pleasantly surprised. All in all, this is a fun movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Sep 18, 2022

The script (from the trio of Michael Green, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa) is silly and light-hearted, reminiscent of the late-1960’s pulp you would find at a Saturday afternoon matinee.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 17, 2022

Inspired, too inspired, on its titular Disney attraction ride. Dwayne Johnson is practically the attraction's tour guide. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jul 18, 2022

Jungle Cruise manages to coast on the charm of its two leads, making it a fun, if somewhat forgettable, adventure.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | May 18, 2022

JUNGLE CRUISE is a really enjoyable retro action-adventure film for the entire family, that shines with its great stars, wonderful chemistry and a surprisingly good and always entertaining story.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Apr 7, 2022

Despite the flaws, theres something about Jungle Cruise that just works. Its a traditional summer blockbuster that combines charming leads with enough adventure to keep everyone happy.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 3, 2022

Unlike the vast majority of other recent Disney Live-Action features, Jungle Cruise is a film easy to have a good time with.

Full Review | Feb 22, 2022

If theres a ride that the Jungle Cruise feels more like than the Jungle Cruise, its Pirates of the Caribbean. And sadly, I have to say that this is this movies biggest downfall.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Feb 16, 2022

No amount of money, not even the reported 200 million budget, can help Jungle Cruise avoid tasting like a hunk of processed meat from the Disney conveyor belt.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 12, 2022

Jungle Cruise is passable light-hearted family entertainment.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 12, 2022

As far as these things go, this one isn't half-bad, and that's almost entirely due to the presence of Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 21, 2021

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Not even Emily Blunt, doing her best Katharine Hepburn impression, can keep this leaky boat ride afloat.

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By Jeannette Catsoulis

Like Vogon poetry , the plot of Disney’s “Jungle Cruise” is mostly unintelligible and wants to beat you into submission. Manically directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, this latest derivation of a theme-park ride shoots for the fizzy fun of bygone romantic adventures like “ Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) . That it misses has less to do with the heroic efforts of its female lead than with the glinting artifice of the entire enterprise.

Emily Blunt plays Lily, a sassy British botanist weary of being disrespected by London’s chauvinistic scientific community. The Great War is in full swing, but Lily is obsessed with reaching the Amazon jungle to search for a flower that’s rumored to cure all ills. A roguish riverboat captain named Frank (Dwayne Johnson) is hired, and soon Lily and her fussy brother (Jack Whitehall) — whose discomfort with all things Amazonian is a running gag — are heading upriver into a host of digital dangers.

As snakes, cannibals and maggoty supernatural beings rattle around the frame, “Jungle Cruise” exhibits a blatantly faux exoticism that feels as flat as the forced frisson between its two leads. The pace is hectic, the dialogue boilerplate (“The natives speak of this place with dread”), the general busyness a desperate dance for our attention. Jesse Plemons is briefly diverting as a nefarious German prince, and Edgar Ramírez pops up as a rotting Spanish conquistador named Aguirre. Werner Herzog must be thrilled.

Buffeted by a relentless score and supported by a small town’s worth of digital artists, “Jungle Cruise” is less directed than whipped to a stiff peak before collapsing into a soggy mess.

“Everything you see wants to kill you,” Frank tells his passengers. Actually, I think it just wants to take your money.

Jungle Cruise Rated PG-13 for chaste kissing and bloodless fighting. Running time 2 hours 7 minutes. In theaters and on Disney+ .

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Jungle Cruise review: Disney’s river adventure makes it easy to get swept away

Disney’s film vault is filled with blockbusters, but the studio doesn’t have the best record when it comes to turning its popular theme park attractions into movies. Out of six attempts at starting a new franchise, only Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl managed to achieve the kind of success one expects from a Disney feature. All of the rest — from 1997’s  Tower of Terror to 2015’s Tomorrowland — have been critical and commercial disappointments.

Three times the charm

• More Pirates, less Haunted Mansion

Dark and delightful

Rolling on the river.

Disney is persistent, though, and that’s good — because the latest ride-to-film adaptation, Jungle Cruise , feels like the fresh hit they’ve been searching for all along.

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra , Jungle Cruise casts the wonderfully talented Emily Blunt as Dr. Lily Houghton, a scientist during the World War I era who refuses to let the oppressive, male-dominated scientific community hamper her quest for the Tree of Life, an arboreal enigma of the deep jungle rumored to have magical healing properties. Along with her brother, a dapper British bachelor played by Jack Whitehall, Lily embarks on a journey into the jungle guided by Frank Wolff, a charismatic steamboat captain played by Dwayne Johnson. The trio is menaced by threats from both the jungle itself and a sinister German royal played by Jesse Plemons, who wants the Tree of Life’s secrets for his own nefarious purposes.

It’s no surprise that both Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt are endlessly entertaining to watch in  Jungle Cruise , as the pair have proven themselves many times over in roles that blend action and humor in films that also rely heavily on visual effects. They’re both in top form in the film, with great chemistry that makes every scene they share entertaining.

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More unexpected, however, is the energy and positive attributes that Jack Whitehall brings to the film in a role that could have easily become a disposable, third-wheel character. Whitehall’s character initially appears to be the typical caricature of a British dandy, but as the film unfolds, the combination of the Bad Education actor’s performance and the script’s unwillingness to let him disappear into the background make him one of the story’s most fascinating, fun characters.

While Johnson and Blunt hit all the right notes to keep  Jungle Cruise funny and sweep you along, it’s Whitehall’s character that keeps the story feeling fresh and less predictable.

More Pirates , less Haunted Mansion

On the surface, J ungle Cruise seems to follow the formula that made the  Pirates of the Caribbean franchise so successful: Take two, strong-willed lead characters destined for romantic entanglement, add a charming wildcard to the mix, and fill their adventure with plenty of dark, fantastic eye candy. It’s hard to argue against the formula, too, given the Pirates franchise’s $4.5 billion dollar haul across five films.

Fortunately, Jungle Cruise puts its own stamp on that basic structure, with Johnson and Blunt filling the film with a level of charisma and witty banter to match its impressive action, and Whitehall’s performance complementing those of the leads instead of distracting from them.

The story also strikes just the right balance of humor, heart, and horror — much like the aforementioned  Pirates films. There’s an emotional core to each of the characters in Jungle Cruise that comes across enough to give them depth without bogging down the story, and they play off each other well, whether they’re sharing a sad memory, spouting bad puns, or fleeing all manner of deadly threats — supernatural or otherwise.

Much like the  Pirates of the Caribbean films,  Jungle Cruise delivers plenty of impressive visual effects that are both beautiful and terrifying to behold.

Johnson and Blunt are no stranger to effects-driven features, and Jungle Cruise delivers some truly memorable moments of spectacle . As the story progresses, the trio of adventurers finds themselves contending with various magical threats in addition to dangers presented by humans and the usual range of jungle creatures. Without venturing into spoiler territory, these supernatural enemies are depicted in some creative, technically impressive ways that make each enemy stand out from the rest.

That attention to detail made Davy Jones’ crew of mutated, ghostly pirates in 2006’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest one of the film’s most memorable elements, and it’s on full display in Jungle Cruise when the story embraces its mystical dark potential.

Whether  Jungle Cruise kicks off a new franchise for Disney or ends up a standalone adventure, the film offers an extremely satisfying, exciting movie experience for the whole family.

Johnson and Blunt are at their best in the film, with Whitehall making a good story even better with his performance. All of that entertainment is supported by a great cast of secondary characters and breathtaking visual effects that make the world of  Jungle Cruise vibrant and enchanting throughout the trio’s adventure.

It’s no simple task to turn a theme-park attraction into a compelling big-screen adventure, but a great cast, impressive visual effects, and a fun story help Disney make it look easy in Jungle Cruise .

Disney’s Jungle Cruise premieres July 30 in theaters and on the Disney+ streaming service with Premier Access (at an additional cost).

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Blame Johnny Depp.

I mean, listen, feel free to blame the actor for any number of things , if you want. But specifically, in terms of riot-act reading, let’s go back to 2003, when Mr. Depp slapped on a head scarf, trotted out his best Keef Richards wobble and slur, and turned what felt like a Disney Hail-Mary I.P. cash-in into a cash cow. No one expected a movie based on an amusement park ride based on creaky, age-old seafaring stories to give birth to a popular franchise; no one expected a movie about 18th century pirates to show up in the early part of the 21st century, period. (What is this, the Watchmen universe ?)

Depp is responsible for turning the Pirates of the Caribbean films into hits, even when the series slipped into diminishing-returns territory. More importantly, he helped to prove a Mouse House theorem: When it comes to licensing, exploiting and rebooting, why stop at your best-known characters? Find the right actor, and you can sell your park properties’ greatest hits as intellectual properties too. If you can hire a better-than-decent director and keep the pace frantic, all the better. The movies then direct customers back to the park, and the circle of l̶i̶f̶e̶ commerce continues. The question was not whether this was the beginning of a trend but what the next “title” would be and how soon we’d be E-ticketing to a theater near us.

The reprieve lasted longer than we thought, enough to lull us into a false sense of security. Maybe it’s unfair to blame the ghost of Jack Sparrow and the Pirates boom-bust of yore for Jungle Cruise . But dear Walt in the heavens, the shadow of that series looms large over this attempt to sell the Magic Kingdom’s vintage, colonialism-a-go-go boat ride as the next big endless-summer-movie thing. To be fair, so too does the specter of the Indiana Jones films, The African Queen, steampunk, old-school Werner Herzog, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rudyard Kipling, Jules Verne, the entire previous filmography of the Rock, that book on Ponce de Leon you forgot to return to your library in fourth grade and every boys’ adventure ever written. Still: the wisecracking, trickster rascal? The hyper-capable and social-sexism-thwarting heroine? The mystical, supernatural villains, and their imperialistic, human bad-guy counterpart? The set pieces that update bits of ye olde derring-do, often digitally and occasionally successfully? You’ve seen this film. Only the hats, the source material’s location in the park and the size of the biceps have changed.

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Stream Jungle Cruise on Disney+

First, your lovable scamp of a skipper: His name is Frank Wolff, but feel free to call him Dwayne Johnson. This is a great example of what a movie star, a real one, does when you hire them: gives you their screen persona and molds it to fit the container without changing the essential recipe. It’s the one big difference between this and other Disney’s other big cinéma du amusement park entry, in that Depp injected everything an odd sense of unpredictability and Johnson gives us the reassuring feeling we’re watching a Dwayne Johnson movie. Except this time, it happens to be 1916, we’re deep in the Brazilian rain forests, and the star is smiling instead of seriously scowling. Wolff is a tour guide who runs his trusty boat up and down the Amazon for gullible tourists, which — yup — is distinguished by the captain’s facepalm-inspiring banter. Maybe you forgot for a nanosecond that the movie is based on the ride distinguished by a running commentary of puns ranging from bad to very bad to “make it stop, make it stop!!” Anyone who’s been to Disneyland in the past 50 years will recognize the jokes Johnson tells to his hostages (sorry, “customers”). The meta-gag is that even folks in 1916 thought these groaners were god-awful.

Meanwhile, in Merry Olde England, a young man named MacGregor Houghton (Jack Whitehall) is making a plea to ye olde stuffy historical organization to let him access an arrowhead recently found in the Amazon. This artifact, about to be tucked away in their archives, is allegedly the key to unlocking “the Tears of the Moon” — bright flowers found blossoming only on the mystical Tree of Life, and the obsession/downfall of Spanish conquistador Don Lope de Aguirre (Edgar Ramírez). He’s not the Houghton to keep an eye on, however: That would be MacGregor’s sister, Lily ( Emily Blunt ), the headstrong adventurer of the family. She’s keen to prove that the rumors surrounding the magical healing properties of this foliage are true, and thus cure all ills. Yet another party, Germany’s Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons), would also like the arrowhead. There’s a world war going, you see. Having access to the tree’s bounty might give his nation the winning edge.

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We get one rousing set piece involving Blunt and Plemons competing to liberate the arrowhead from its crate — a jumble of feints and moving parts that director Jaume Collet-Serra smooths out nicely; even if you didn’t know he’s logged time putting Liam Neeson through his Action Gramps paces , you see why he got the job — before everyone meets up in South America, and everything settles into a well-worn, familiar Jungle Adventure 101 groove. It turns out that Blunt’s tart apple crisp of a comic performance pairs nicely with Johnson’s beefcake served with a side of ham. The actress, especially, seems to thrive in playing the Hepburn to Johnson’s buffed-up Bogart. (When you watch her spring into action, and see how well the movie plays to her vulnerability and her fearlessness, you remember that this is the filmmaker who also gave us Blake Lively’s alpha-female-in-peril in The Shallows. ) Blunt’s already proven to be a great physical screen performer as well as an expressive one, versatile enough to go deep or stay breezy, and even when she leans heavily on righteous indignation, there’s a verve she brings to all of this. It rubs off on her screen partner, too. She calls him “Skippy.” He calls her “Pants.” (Because she wears pants, and is also a lady.) They can almost jointly convince you this is a cruise worth taking. Almost.

Other than that, well…Plemons’ evil Saxon may worship the Kaiser instead of the Fürher, but he’s a screen Nazi by any other name, and the mustache-twirling giddiness he brings to this stock villain soon dissipates quicker than a cow leg in a piranha pool. Paul Giamatti drops by with a that’s-ah-spicy-meatball accent, a gold tooth and a vibe that scream “my summer house needs renovating, too.” One character’s interest in then-verboten alternative lifestyles doubles as both sympathetic representation and gay-panic-driven punchline, leaving you with a chicken v. egg dilemma over what came first in script rewrites. And the ride’s legacy of blithe exoticism butting up against Tarzan-grade stereotypes — to quote a bit player here, “that booga-booga nonsense” — gets dealt with in a way that suggests a box has been summarily ticked off a previous-grievances list. It wants to have your cannibal-natives cake and critique it too, at least in theory.

There are a few elements in Jungle Cruise that would constitute being labeled as spoilers, but the fact that the movie ends ready and revved up for a sequel is not one of them. Disney would very much like lightning to strike twice, and you can feel moments here — notably when Aguirre and some conquistador comrades return in a, shall we say, more “natural” postmortem state — where they’re purposefully nudging you: “Hey, remember how much you loved those early Pirates movies? So why not give this a try as well?” The ride they’re really asking you to go on, however, isn’t a reprise of their hokey upriver excursion. It’s something closer to an amusement-park attraction named Generic Blockbuster Cruise, where you slowly glide past a bunch of prefab set-ups — over there you’ll see some thrills, look out on your right for some spills and chills — and the whole thing moves inexorably forward on a track, while a skipper cracks the same corny jokes. It’s a decent enough way to kill time once if the lines are short. You won’t be particularly be rushing to jump back on the ride again.

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Review: 'Jungle Cruise' is made from spare parts of better movies but kids will love it

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Emily “millennial Mary Poppins” Blunt knock themselves out in “Jungle Cruise” to keep kids wowed with excitement as everything from headhunters to snapping piranhas go on the attack.

Jungle Cruise

Join Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt for the adventure of a lifetime on Disney's "Jungle Cruise," a rollicking thrill-ride down the Amazon.

The movie, now playing in theaters and streaming on Disney+ Premier Access , is based on a Disney theme-park ride that’s been at it since -- wait for it --1955. That was just a few years after Walt Disney himself watched Humphrey Bogart skipper Katharine Hepburn down river in “The African Queen” and felt inspired to build the still-thriving attraction.

“Jungle Cruise” is nowhere near the league of that film classic. It’s a goofball throwaway that just wants to give family audiences a thrill ride down the Amazon, and it begs to be compared with another Disney excursion, “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

And that’s the problem.

“Jungle Cruise” borrows so heavily from “Pirates,” not to mention “The Mummy” and the incomparable “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” that it’s basically a knockoff. Johnson is a musclebound charmer, but small potatoes next to Johnny Depp, who swanned so deliciously through the role of pirate Jack Sparrow that he won an Oscar nomination.

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Acting awards are not in the cards for “Jungle Cruise ,” though that’ll be no big whoop to preteens who manage to circumvent the film’s inexplicable PG-13 rating. Set in 1916, two years into World War I, the movie is built to distract young’uns with all-stops-out special effects.

Johnson plays Frank Wolff, the captain of a ramshackle riverboat who offers the cheapest jungle cruises in Brazil -- plus a nonstop flow of groan-worthy puns.

“I used to work in an orange juice factory, but I got canned,” Wolff says at one point.

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Blunt has it worse. As British scientist Lily Houghton, a female Indiana Jones who shocks society by wearing pants, she is stuck in an exposition dump of an opening scene about why Houghton and her fussy brother, MacGregor (Jack Whitehall), need to chug down the Amazon.

Houghton is in search of flower petals from an ancient tree, called Tears of the Moon, which can only be found after Houghton steals a sacred arrowhead containing a map that will lead her to there. Even a single, falling petal is said to cure any illness or break any curse.

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It’s all just an excuse for director Jaume Collet-Serra, who pitted Blake Lively against an angry shark in “The Shallows,” to lead Wolff and Houghton through a series of rousing perils. Houghton's brother doesn’t do much, though his coming-out to Frank would have raised eyebrows a century ago.

Wolff and Houghton interrupt their budding romance to fight off Joachim (hammed to the hilt by Jesse Plemons), a mad German prince in a submarine, and Aguirre (Edgar Ramirez), a Spanish conquistador who’s been undead for 400 years and looks like it.

Young audiences may go “ewww” at Wolff and Houghton's awkward smooching, but they’ll perk up at their near-death experiences in treacherous rapids and with poison snakes. The real scene-stealer is a photorealistic jaguar named Proxima, who becomes everyone’s favorite pet.

“Jungle Cruise” is made up of spare parts from better movies and at over two-hours in length, it’ll be tough on short attention spans. On the plus side, it is way better than “Haunted Mansion” and “Tomorrowland,” other Disney rides that morphed into movies.

Amazingly, Johnson and Blunt still sell it. He calls her “Pants” and she dubs him “Skippy,” nicknames they both hate. But their natural warmth as performers humanize characters built from flimsy cardboard.

“Jungle Cruise" may be dim, dopey and derivative, but the kids will love it, and like the Metallica song in the film, “nothing else matters.”

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I Never Thought I'd Enjoy a Disney Cruise — The Wish Proved Me Wrong

As a travel expert, I'm breaking down the deck plan, dining, activities and more — plus, I'm sharing insider tips to ensure you have the best experience.

We've been independently researching and testing products for over 120 years. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more about our review process.

An overview

Ship details & highlights, kids' clubs, entertainment & activities, cruise itineraries, getting there, embarkation and disembarkation, how it compares to other disney cruises, bottom line: is the disney wish worth it.

Whether you're a fan of Disney, an avid cruiser or are just looking for a unique travel experience, Disney cruises are known for bringing stories to life and creating unforgettable experiences. As the fifth and largest ship in the Disney fleet, the Wish is known for its top-quality entertainment and immersive activities for a fun-filled sailing.

I recently sailed on the Disney Wish with my family of four (including two kids). I've visited Walt Disney World with kids over a dozen of times and have sailed on a variety of cruise lines, but this was my first time sailing on a Disney ship. Besides experiencing the cruise firsthand, I was also able to take tours onboard and meet with the Disney Cruise Line team to learn more about the ship and its offerings. I also spoke with other passengers to hear their experiences and takeaways.

So is the Disney Wish worth booking? Ahead, I'm breaking down everything you need to know to decide whether sailing on the Disney Wish is the right vacation for you. And if you've already decided that it is, this insight includes plenty of tips to make it a successful trip, including what I learned and what I wish I knew before I sailed.

The Disney Wish is fairly new; it first set sail in 2022. It's the largest ship in the Disney Cruise Line fleet, holds 4,000 passengers and has 1,254 staterooms. It's also the first ship in its class, meaning the newer models to come in the near future are going to be similar in layout. The ship departs from Port Canaveral (the closest port to Walt Disney World; it's about an hour away from the theme parks) and sails in the Bahamas, with itineraries that are typically between 3-4 days long.

My biggest takeaway from sailing on the Wish was just how much it offers — and the fact that it offers something for everyone . On past cruises, I sometimes felt like I had to search for things to do in order to fill up my day, but on the Disney Wish it felt like there was always something fun and exciting happening. From themed restaurants and bars to unique attractions at sea to live entertainment, character meet & greets and much more, I was amazed by how much my family was able to do in just one day. The Wish also stood out for incorporating a wide-range of Disney franchises, including Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel.

Disney decor

As a lifelong Disney fan, one of the thing I loved most about the ship was its attention to detail. From the outside you can see a Rapunzel figure that appears to be painting the Disney Wish emblem on the back of the vessel, but the inside is filled with hidden touches that are fun to look for.

The Grand Hall (i.e., the main atrium) makes it feel like you're inside a castle when you first walk onto the ship. Not only is there a statue of Cinderella, but the chandelier is designed as an upside-down version of her gown. There are also subtle nods to Cinderella in the rug, light fixtures and more.

Even the art onboard has lesser-known details that were fun to learn about, often with a unique story behind it. I highly recommend signing up for the hour-long walking tour of the ship if you're a Disney fan, art fan or would just like to learn more about the hidden gems.

While the Grand Hall is the main hub indoors, the pool deck is main hub outdoors. It's made up of six small pools named after Mickey and friends. The focal point is a giant screen called Funnel Vision, which shows Disney movies throughout the day. This space is also home to entertainment, including a sail away party as the ship embarks and live shows during Pirate Night. Behind the screen, there's a Toy Story- themed splash area for young kids ages 6 and under and a family-friendly water slide called Slide-a-saurus Rex.

The coolest part of the pool deck area is AquaMouse , Disney's first-ever attraction at sea. You sit on a two-seater inflatable and head into a tunnel with animated scenes from The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse . It then turns into a water ride, including a clear tunnel slide that extends over the side of the ship. Though AquaMouse is known to have lengthy waits throughout the sailings, we found there to be certain times of the day when there was little to no wait. For instance, the mornings of port days when other passengers have headed ashore and around dinnertime.

Adult-only areas

Just above the pool deck is quieter area of the ship for guests 18 and over. Here you'll find the Quiet Cove Pool, Signals pool bar and Cove Café. This area is located at the back of the ship, giving excellent views when the cruise is docked in the Bahamas . There are also some adult-only bars located throughout the ship.

Indoor venues

One of the things that stood out most compared to other cruises I've been on was how many indoor spaces there were onboard the Wish. We'll explore these spaces when going over entertainment and activities, but from a top level, there's a show theater, movie theaters, sports complex, kids' club for each age group, Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, salon, barbor shop, spa, fitness center and more .

Laundry room

Whether or not to do laundry on vacation is highly debatable, but to me, access to a self-service laundry room was one of my favorite aspects of the ship. We combined the vacation with time at Walt Disney World, so knowing that I could do laundry onboard (without having to pay the high costs of sending out for the laundry service) made packing much less stressful. And because I paid with my room pass (it's $3 per machine), I got alerts on my phone via the Disney Cruise Line Navigator App when the washing machine and dryer cycles were finished. This room even has ironing boards, which is a perk given that you can't bring irons or steamers on board. Called Fairytale Fresh Laundry, this space is located on Deck 8 Forward (i.e. the front).

A note on crowds

One thing to keep in mind is that compared to other cruise lines I've sailed on, I noticed more crowds on the Wish than on other ships. It wasn't constant, but it may be helpful to plan around lines at certain times and locations. For instance, there were often lines to get onto the elevators (located at the front and back of the ship) so my family and I opted to take the stairs as much as possible. There were also lines to get into dining reservations, though they did move quickly. It was sometimes difficult to find a good viewing spot for the outdoor shows on the pool deck, so you should go earlier if you want a good view (just like you would for a show at Walt Disney World).

That being said, the overall vibe of the crowds felt fun, casual and spirited compared to other cruise lines. Guests decorate their doors with magnets and participate in "pixie dusting" (the term guests use to randomly surprise each other with small trinkets and gifts). We experienced rain when we were visiting Castaway Cay (Disney's private island in the Bahamas) and as I rode the tram back to the ship from the beach, other passengers were cheering on guests who were walking through the downpour. This camaraderie felt like a perk of choosing a Disney vacation.

There are 1,254 staterooms onboard the Wish. 90% of them face outside the ship, while 10% are interior. Here are the main room types:

These rooms are 169 square feet and like other staterooms, they sleep up to 3-4 guests with a queen bed, a single convertible sofa and a pull-down bed from the wall.

Available as a Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom (218 square feet, sleeps 3-4) and a Deluxe Oceanview Family Stateroom (237 square feet, sleeps 4-5), these rooms have a porthole window.

Available as a Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah (243 square feet including verandah, sleeps 3-4) and Deluxe Family Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah (284 square feet including verandah, sleeps 4-5), these rooms have an outdoor balcony.

Available in a series of staterooms and suites, this top-tier class offers upgraded amenities, a concierge to help with your planning and more add-ons.

My family of four stayed in a Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah. On other cruises that we had previously sailed on as a family, we had opted for larger family rooms with more space. I admit that I was a little nervous about the four of us sharing this stateroom; however, I was pleasantly surprised and found this to be the most functional stateroom we've ever stayed in. Here's what I specifically loved about our room:

My kids slept on the "bunk beds" (i.e., a pull down sofa below and a pull-down berth above) and there's a substantial curtain that separates this area, meaning I could continue to clean up and be productive after my kids went to sleep. 

There was a  ton  of storage in the room, including cabinetry in the vanity area and deep shelves in the closet area. I've always struggled to unpack on other cruises, but I had plenty of space in this stateroom without having to live out of our suitcases. (I packed in  clear, zippered organizers  that went right into the closet shelves.) We could fit all of our luggage under the queen-size bed, and the room had hooks throughout to hang up wet bathing suits and other essentials. And although we weren't traveling with another party, our room did have a connecting door, making it a great choice for larger groups.

Split bathrooms

One bathroom has a toilet and sink, while the other has a shower and sink. What I found to be extremely rare is the size of the shower, which includes a bathtub. This made it much easier to bathe kids compared to other cruises.

The art varies in each room, but my kids loved the Moana-themed art behind the bed in ours. And when the bunk beds were pulled down, there was a celestial design on the ceiling with the phrase "When You Wish Upon a Star." Overall, I found the design of the room to have subtle and tasteful nods to Disney without making it feel excessive.

The restaurants for dinner were next-level fantastic when considering service, food and theming, though the breakfast and lunch offerings weren't quite as good as other cruise lines I've sailed with. This comes down to more crowds and less variety during the day. Still, as a whole, I thought the Wish dining was excellent. Here are more details on the dining experiences that are included in the cost of the cruise (except for alcohol and a few other optional add-ons).

Dining rooms

One of the most unique (and exciting!) aspects of this cruise was the rotational dining for dinner. You dine at each of the three themed restaurants, but your waitstaff follows you so that you have the same servers each evening. This means they get to know you and your preferences — and they can have any special requests ready for you each night. For instance, my daughter ordered chocolate milk the first night, and there was chocolate milk waiting for her each night thereafter.

There are three themed restaurants: 1923 (inspired by the golden age of animation when The Walt Disney Company was founded), Worlds of Marvel (a super hero-themed venue with an interactive show) and Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure ( a celebration of Queen Anna and Kristoff's engagement, with characters and live performances from the Frozen movies ). Each of these restaurants have a themed menu based on the venue, and of course, there's a kids' menu at each. Because we sailed on a 4-night cruise, everyone repeated a dining room twice, but the second time was with the Pirate Night theming and menu.

There are two dinner seatings that you can request when you book. We opted for the earlier dining time and went to dinner around 5:45-6:00 pm. This was an ideal time for us our family to eat dinner, but we did feel a bit rushed to get ready after a jam-packed day of activities, so there's certainly an appeal to eating at the later time, around 8:00-8:30pm. Each dinner was about an hour-and-a-half long, but didn't feel too long (even with kids) given the multiple courses and interactive components.

Quick-service

The buffet on the ship is called Marceline Market (named after Walt Disney's home town) and is similar to other cruise lines in the sense that it offers a variety of stations. Most items are served to you from the stations (instead of helping yourself), which I appreciated from a cleanliness standpoint. It's only opened for breakfast and lunch.

The Wish also has a food court area called Mickey & Friends Festival of Foods , which is located right near the pool deck. Its offerings include grill food, pizza, barbecue, Mexican fare and ice cream. Because the buffet closes after lunch, this is the only place to pick up food during a few hours in the afternoon and we experienced long lines during a late lunch.

Room service

My family typically ordered room service for breakfast; you leave your order on your cabin's door handle the night before and select a 30-minute window for delivery . We also ordered it a couple of times during the day and it arrived fairly quickly (within around 20 minutes). Insider tip: It's not on the menu, but you can order a Mickey ice cream bar to your room with room service. There's no extra charge, but you can leave a tip for delivery.

Additional dining options

There are a variety of venues throughout the ship that cost extra. Although they're not included in the price of the ship, some are definitely worth visiting — for coffee, cocktails, desserts and more — depending on your preferences.

• Cafés : I'm personally a fan of iced coffee drinks, so I opted to buy my morning brew rather than go for hot coffee from room service. Our preferred spot was the Cove Café, located on the adult-only deck, where I got cold brew to go in the morning and latte with Disney designs later in the day. (To be honest, the latte art was a huge highlight of my trip!) Other options include The Wishing Star Café (inspired by Pinnochio ) and The Enchanted Sword Café (inspired by The Sword in the Stone ), which are both located in more common areas of the ship.

• Bars & lounges: There are a variety of bars and lounges to choose from throughout the ship. Standouts (in my opinion) include Nightingale (an adults-only piano bar with hand-crafted cocktails inspired by Cinderella's “Sing Sweet Nightingale"), Bayou (a stunning, kid-friendly lounge inspired by Princess and the Frog with delicious beignets) and Hyperspace Lounge (an adults-only Star Wars -themed spot with immersive details).

• Desserts : Regardless of whether you want extra sweet treats, it's worth a visit to Inside Out: Joyful Sweets. There are life-size figurines of the Inside Out characters and a display of memory spheres from the movie that make for great photos. Plus, the dessert offerings — including gelato, cupcakes and more — are both photo worthy and decadent.

• Adult-only restaurants: My husband I dined at Palo, an Italian steakhouse inspired by Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast . The brunch was fantastic — even the focaccia bread — and we enjoyed having an adult-only meal while our children enjoyed the kids' club. Another adult-only option is Enchanté by Chef Arnaud Lallement for French-inspired cuisine.

Disney Wish had — by far — the best kids' clubs I've seen. They're broken up into four age groups, and I was able to take a tour of all four with cruise staff. My kids were both in the 3-10 age group and couldn't get enough of the club. This meant my husband and I could enjoy some of the adult-only spaces throughout the ship while my kids were (literally) having the times of their lives.

One thing to note is that we often experienced a line at the kids' club, and once had to wait twenty minutes to pick up our kids around 8:15 p.m. So keep in mind that you should buffer in some pick-up time if you're on a schedule, especially around dinner and showtimes. Also, make sure to leave time to register your child on the first day (you can even start this process during online check-in before you sail). You can attend open houses during select times, where you're able to explore the clubs with your children. Here's a breakdown of each of the four clubs:

"It's a Small World" Nursery (Babies & Toddlers)

This space is designed for ages 6 months to 3 years old. It has mats for playing, tables for crafts, cribs for naps and more. From a decor standpoint, this was one of my favorite spaces in the ship, with characters from Disney movies designed into their home countries.

Oceaneer Club (Kids)

This is the biggest kids' space on the ship for ages 3-10. It's made up of a series of themed rooms with different activities happening in each. The club uses bands (or kids can bring their own MagicBand+), which lets staff know what room a child is in at any given time. Disney characters join in on the fun, giving kids more face time than typical meet & greets. These events are for kids only and scheduled times can be found in the Disney Cruise Line Navigator App during your sailing. Here's a look inside to show what makes this space so special.

Slide Entrance

Kids can get checked in through a desk at the club level, or they can get checked in one story above and take a slide down into the club. There are fully automatic handwashing stations immediately upon entering, which kids got a kick out of.

Walt Disney Imagineering Lab

This space shows what went into making favorite attractions at Disney theme parks, and it allows kids be Imagineers by creating their own projects.

Build-Your-Own Virtual Rides

In the Ride Studio, kids can design their own roller coaster (inspired by Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Space Mountain or Matterhorn Bobsleds), then ride it virtually in a capsule.

Fairytale Hall

Children can make art projects in Rapunzel's Art Studio, read books and relax in Belle's Library and play an interactive Frozen -themed video game in Anna and Elsa’s Sommerhus.

Marvel's Super Hero Academy

Here's where they can select a superhero suit with powers, then see the suites brought life in a tech game called "Avengers: Mission Training."

Star Wars: Cargo Bay

This intergalactic-themed room includes a variety of exotic creatures from the franchise and has kids partake in special assignments using augmented reality.

Mickey and Minnie Captain’s Deck

Designed for the younger ages in this club, this is a nautical-themed room with climbing and crawling structures as well as interactive elements, including a screen and wheel that lets kids feel like they're steering the ship.

Pixar-Themed Bathrooms

While this isn't a play space, it's still a hit. Each stall is themed with a Pixar character, and the room contains a row of the kid-favorite hand-washing stations.

Edge (Tweens)

The next kids' club level is for 11-14 year olds. This place is designed just for tweens: It has an urban loft vibe with big screens and gaming areas. There's a good mix of free play with structured activities.

Vibe (Teens)

Offering older teens their own space, Vibe is for 14-17 year olds. It also looks like a loft, but includes retro vibes and amazing views from floor-to-ceiling windows. This space offers screens for movies, games like foosball and plenty of space to hang out.

Disney Wish evenings are designed to be dinner and a show, meaning you're scheduled to see Broadway-style shows in the main theater either before or after your dinner reservation. The three shows include "Disney Seas the Adventure" (which combines favorite songs and characters from a variety of Disney classics), "The Little Mermaid" (which is a modern take on the original story) and "Aladdin" (which has special effects and a comical Genie).

Theme nights & parties

When the cruise sails away on the first day, there's a show on the pool deck with classic Disney characters. You can view it from the pool deck or the deck directly above, which overlooks the space. I tend to skip sail away parties on other cruise lines, but was told this one is a can't miss, and it turned out to be true. This party was a great way to kick off the excitement for the rest of the cruise. It does get crowded, so try to arrive 15 minutes early if you'd like a good viewing spot.

On Pirate Night, mosts guests dress up in pirate-themed gear. Some people go all out with costumes, while others are more subtle. (My family brought pirate accessories and parrot shoulder props to wear.) There were two shows during our sailing's Pirate Night: "Pirates in the Caribbean" was held earlier in the evening and includes favorite Disney characters. Pirate's Rockin' Parlay Pater was held later at night with a pirate-themed rock band and fireworks. This was another highlight of my trip; seeing fireworks at sea is not something you'll find on other cruise lines.

There are two movie theaters onboard: The Wonderland Theater (inspired by Alice in Wonderland ) and The Neverland Theater (inspired by Peter Pan ). Both of these show popular Disney movies throughout the day, including movies only in theaters at the time. You can also access a range of Disney movies from your stateroom.

Onboard activities

Like other cruises, you can find a schedule of big events and low-key activities happening throughout the cruise. My daughter participated in a door hanger decorating activity on the first day and liked being able to hang it in our stateroom for the rest of the cruise. We also heard from other passengers that Bingo was a hit. One thing to note is that unlike most major cruise lines, Disney does not have casinos on its ships.

The Wish also offers a simple yet special goodnight activity called a Kiss Goodnight. Located in the Grand Hall, guests will hear a song and see the lights twinkle. During our sailing, guests could watch a Kiss Goodnight at 7:30 p.m., 10 p.m., 11 p.m. and 12 a.m., offering multiple opportunities to experience this popular winding-down moment.

Recreation center

The Wish has its own indoor sports complex called the Hero Zone, which is unique because many ships only have outdoor areas for sports. Y ou can play basketball, pingpong, corn hole and other games most of the time. This space is also used for the Incredi-Games, an inflatable obstacle course that is typically only set up once during the cruise. It's designed for two people at a time (one on each side), meaning you can make it a friendly competition. Note that you'll need socks to enter this course.

Character Meet & Greets

The ability to meet characters on board is a huge draw for families, especially those with young kids. You can check when the characters will be available for scheduled meet & greets on the Disney Cruise Line Navigator App. Most of these meet & greets take place in the Grand Hall area and have lines (especially popular characters like Mickey, Minnie and friends), so be prepared to wait up to 20-30 minutes to take photos.

There's also an event called the Royal Gathering, where you can make a reservation to meet several princesses at once in the Grand Hall. These reservations are made in advance and book up quickly. During our sailing, we met Rapunzel, Tiana, Belle, Moana and Cinderella, but the specific princess are subject to change.

Beyond that, we interacted with Captain Hook and Captain Jack Sparrow when we walked off the ship at Castaway Cay, Disney's private island. We also saw Spiderman at the Marvel-themed dinner and Anna, Elsa, Kristoff and Oaken at the Frozen-themed dinner, though these interactions are more brief.

Shopping & retail

There are several stores onboard that are opened when the ship is at sea. We browsed the jewelry stores and Mickey's Mainsail for souvenirs, which had a good amount of items for those looking to take home a souvenir tied to the cruise. That being said, my kids preferred to save their souvenir purchase for a store at Walt Disney World, which offers a bigger variety of products.

Kids can visit Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, a store and salon combo that transforms them into princesses, knights or sea captains. (There's also an option for a pirate makeover on Pirate Night.) This experience is known to fill up fast, so make sure to book in advance; though you can certainly try once you're in board in case there are any cancellations.

Spa & fitness

Senses Spa offers massages, facials and other treatments. There's also a salon called Untangled Salon (inspired by Rapunzel), where services include hair styling, manicures, pedicures and more. Lastly, there's Hooks Barbery (inspired by Captain Hook's headquarters) for grooming services, including shavings and haircuts. There's even a hidden bar for speakeasy-style whiskey tastings. I personally didn't visit the spa or salon during our sailing, but my husband had a shave and said it was a great experience.

The fitness center is an adult-only space with views overlooking the water. It seems on par with other cruise lines, including workout equipment, weight machines and group fitness classes. You can also opt for personal training sessions.

Disney Wish offers sailings ranging from 3-4 nights long, leaving from Port Canaveral and sailing to the Bahamas. The stops can include Nassau, Bahamas; Disney Castaway Cay and Disney Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point . We sailed on a 4-night cruise and stopped in Nassau, Bahamas and Castaway Cay. I've typically taken week-long cruises with several stops, but found the 4-day length to be a perfect amount for this cruise (plus we spent some time in Orlando during our trip). My family and I didn't disembark at Nassau, Bahamas; I've been there several times and wanted to experience more onboard the ship, but we did explore Castaway Cay.

Disney Castaway Cay

When it comes to cruising, I'm a big fan of the cruise line private islands because the convenience: It's easy to get around and get back to the ship in a timely matter without having to worry about all of the logistics. This held true to Castaway Cay; we played at the beach, had lunch at Cookie's Too BBQ (a buffet that's included with your cruise package), rode Pelican's Plunge (a large water slide) and much more.

One thing to keep in mind if you visit: We couldn't find any open chairs on the beach when we arrived. This had never happened to me on other private islands, but chairs did eventually open up after lunch time. If you plan to spend a lot of time on the beach, it's worth getting there early to secure a spot.

Port Canaveral is located about an hour away from Orlando and Walt Disney World Resort. My family rented a car and parked in the lot at Port Canaveral, but there are also rental car locations near the port with shuttles that can get you to the ship terminal after you drop off the car. It's also easy to book bus transfers to and from Orlando airport and Walt Disney World resorts through the Disney Cruise Line Navigator App.

Embarkation and disembarkation were surprisingly smooth with no hiccups or issues to report. Just keep in mind: There was a long line when we pulled up to drop off our luggage and there was a long line to disembark the ship on the final morning. These lines moved steadily and did not put a damper in our overall cruise experience. Another tip: Cast members handed out Disney Wish wands to kids in the Grand Hall when you enter, so make sure to keep an eye out for these.

The cost will vary based on the date and room type, but you can expect the price to start around $1,000 a person. I checked sailings for 2025 to include two adults and two kids, and found that Ocenview rooms for a 4-day cruise ranged from starting at $4,600 to over $8,000 depending on the dates. While Disney cruises certainly aren't cheap, the price covers a lot , including top-notch dining, Broadway-style live shows, one-of-a-kind activities and much more.

There are four other cruises in the Disney fleet: Disney Dream, Disney Fantasy, Disney Magic and Disney Wonder. While there are a lot of similarities overall (like having exceptional kids' clubs, unique dining experiences and character meet & greets), the ships vary based on dining venues, entertainment, activities and theming. However, the biggest differentiator between the Disney Wish and most other Disney cruises is the itinerary. Disney cruises sail from all over the world (ports of call include locations in Florida, Texas, California, Australia and Europe). The Disney Wish currently sales from Port Canaveral to the Caribbean, so it's ideal for looking to combine it with a trip to Walt Disney World.

The Disney Wish won't be the newest for long: The Disney Treasure will be setting sail in late 2024. The Treasure is in the same class as Wish, meaning the ship layout is similar. However, the Treasure's theme is "adventure" and its itineraries will be 7-nights long in the Caribbean. Disney Cruise Line also recently announced it will be adding four new ships to its fleet, including the Disney Destiny, which is another in the same class as Wish but will have a heroes and villains theme, as well as additional ships sailing in Asia.

We had a chance to meet with the hotel director, Alberto, and cruise director, Christaan, during our sailing. When asked what they thought made the Disney Wish different from other cruises, they highlighted aspects like the fireworks — currently it's the only Disney ship that has the fireworks show synchronized to the music — and the indoor spaces, allowing for more flexibility with activities.

Yes; at least, my family thinks so! I've sailed on a wide range of cruises and found that the Disney experience was unlike any other. The main highlights that made it so exceptional were the top-notch kids' clubs, unique dining experiences and spot-on theming throughout. I also appreciated that the shorter itinerary allowed us to stack on time in Orlando to our trip.

That being said, the Disney Wish is not for everyone. If you're a fan of the Disney parks but have never cruised before, it's important to consider what a cruise entails. There are a few aspects I heard first-time cruisers complain about on the Wish, but are normal aspects for cruising — like smaller pools, not being able to visit the stores when the ship was in port and having to put their luggage out the night before debarkation if they didn't want to carry it themselves.

I found that the Disney Wish was especially great for families, including extended families. There was truly something for everyone, covering different age groups, Disney franchises and activity preferences. All in all, this is one of the best vacations my family has ever experienced.

Meet Your Disney Wish Guide

Lexie Sachs is the executive director of strategy and operations at the Good Housekeeping Institute , where she oversees travel content ranging from the best luggage to Good Housekeeping’s Family Travel Awards . Lexie has been on nine cruise ships from a range of cruise lines (including Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Carnival and Disney) and has sailed through Alaska, the U.S. East coast, the Caribbean, Bermuda, South America and Europe. She recently sailed on the Disney Wish with her husband and two daughters.

Lexie Sachs (she/her) is the executive director of strategy and operations at the Good Housekeeping Institute and a lead reviewer of products in the bedding, travel, lifestyle, home furnishings and apparel spaces. She has over 15 years of experience in the consumer products industry and a degree in fiber science from Cornell University. Lexie serves as an expert source both within Good Housekeeping and other media outlets, regularly appearing on national broadcast TV segments. Prior to joining GH in 2013, Lexie worked in merchandising and product development in the fashion and home industries.

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