By BRODIE H. BROCKIE

SKIPPER BRODIE AND THE WORLD FAMOUS JUNGLE CRUISE

Brodie at the entrance to Adventureland.

While the rest of the boats were operating with regular Jungle Cruise cast members, each of us honorary skippers would take a turn at the helm of The Amazon Belle and deliver the spiel for three turns through the attraction. Will would go first, followed by Grant, Jason, Amanda, and with me going last.

This left me a lot of time to wait before going on. The shows normally held in Aladdin's Oasis were cancelled for the day, and it was roped off as a waiting area for us. The last thing I wanted to do was quietly sit around for several hours making myself nervous, so I walked out into the onstage area near the Jungle Cruise's exit and tried to keep busy chatting with guests.

The crew who would be filming us was selecting people from out of the line to ride on each of our first two trips. They wanted to make sure we had the same people on the boat both of those times for camera continuity, and I'm sure there was also some demographics work going in to who they selected (it seemed like they wanted mostly families with kids), and of course they would want to make sure people appeared pleasant and weren't wearing shirts with advertising on them or inappropriate phrases.

My parents showed up eventually and they told me they had seen the pirates' show. While recording it for me to watch later, our camcorder's battery had died. Whoops. That was my fault. Christa had gone back to the hotel to charge it before coming back to watch me on The Jungle Cruise. Mom and Dad asked our handlers if they could ride with the other honorary skippers too, and they let them do so.

A Japanese tourist with shaky English skills tried (as many others did) to enter the Jungle Cruise at the exit. Taking the lessons of our Traditions class to heart, I personally led him around to the entrance. It wasn't a heroic move like our Tradition's trainer Lowell's story of reuniting a lost toddler with his mom, but I enjoyed even doing something small that wasn't really required of me.

The newlyweds who voted for Brodie.

I noticed that two of the guests who had been pulled aside to ride with Jason were wearing the distinctive Mickey and Minnie ears that marked them as honeymooning newlyweds. I walked over to congratulate them, but before I could even get a sentence out, the bride interrupted me and said, "I voted for you!" The groom had been a former skipper and the couple had paid attention to the contest. They were happy to see I'd won and wanted to stick around to ride with me too. It was a really nice feeling.

Brodie and Christa with the Jungle Cruise info sign.

We seemed to be getting ahead of schedule and I started to worry that if I went on before my 3:45 timeslot, Christa might not make it on time. I voiced my concern to Rebecca, our guide, who immediately went in to action mode to make calls and try to have someone track Christa down at the hotel. As soon as she started, though, Christa arrived.

I realized that our two trainers were taking turns as drivers/chaperones with the honorary skippers. Jordan had gone first, then Randy, then Jordan... As long as they kept alternating, that meant I would be teamed with Jordan. As much as I liked Randy, I was glad that I'd be teamed with the more lenient-seeming of the two trainers. I imagined that if I made only one or two minor G-rated deviations from the script, there wouldn't be any ramifications.

Brodie on the Jungle Cruise docks.

While Amanda was taking her turn on the attraction, I was wired with a microphone by one of the camera crew. I was nervous and excited to take my turn.

Finally, it was time! Amanda finished up and (as I suspected) Jordan joined me as driver. I stepped onto the Amazon Belle for my three trips through the rivers of Adventureland as Skipper Brodie of the World Famous Jungle Cruise. Mom, Dad, and Christa all climbed aboard as well and would be allowed to stay on for all three trips.

Jordan introduced me and I was warmly received by the boatload of guests. Things started off well as we entered the rain forest section ("here in the rain forest it rains some 365 days a year... That's almost every day!") and pointed out the first sign of danger (literally, a sign with the word "danger" on it). I turned to start the lines about the tiger on our right, and was surprised to not see one there. Where was the tiger? Whoops! I was completely forgetting to do the lines about passing the Indiana Jones ride on our left that comes before the tiger scene! It only made for a little more silence in that section than normal, but I was annoyed at the flub.

After that, though, things went more smoothly. In the hippo pool, I made my first tenuous step away from the script. Normally, real Jungle Cruise skippers fire blanks from a gun to scare away the charging hippos. Since we were not trained to use the guns, we had been instructed instead to just point our fingers and yell "bang." Doing this, we looked like idiots. I was fine with looking like an idiot, as long as I joked about it in some way. After "shooting" the hippos I announced "It's a little known fact that hippos are terrified of people pointing their fingers and yelling 'bang.'"

Everyone laughed (including Jordan).

I stuck to the script the rest of the way through.

The second trip around I relaxed a little and enjoyed it a lot more. As we passed the Indiana Jones ride, we were meant to say "To the right is the Temple of the Forbidden Eye where famed archeologist Indiana Jones is looking for the world's greatest treasure." The day before, Jordan had told us that female skippers had the option of adding, "little does he know, I'm right here!" I took the liberty of modifying it to "little does he know, I've already found her right here" and pointing to Christa, near the front of the boat and wearing her "I heart Skipper Brodie" shirt. This elicited an "awwwww" from the whole boat.

I switched up a few of the jokes to some of the other options and everything went really well... right up until we were very near the end of the ride. Up ahead was another Jungle Cruise boat, and another. Something was slowly down the unloading process.

Brodie introduces Disneyland guests to the backside of water.

"If you look up ahead, you'll see another Jungle Cruise boat. That's you in the future, kind of," I filled. "We're just getting you used to som of the traffic you might face on your way home tonight."

It looked like we'd be sitting there a little longer. What could I do? We could all just stare at each other for a minute OR I could go into some of the non-scripted material I'd wanted to use. I hesitated a moment and then went into it.

"Well, we're almost near the end of our journey. It really always has been my dream to work here at Disneyland. Really, though, my first choice was to work at The Haunted Mansion, but they told me I didn't have a ghost of a chance. I said, 'OK, what about the tea cups,' but they didn't like the new spin I wanted to put on things. I said, 'OK OK, I'll settle for the railroad,' but they took one look at me and said 'we're afraid you'll run out of steam.' So I told them I'd settle for Splash Mountain and they said, 'you're all wet.' It was a wash out."

The path ahead of us was finally clearing, so I wrapped it up.

"Thanks again folks. It really always has been my dream to be a Jungle Cruise skipper, and that's the truth. And I hope, in some small way, maybe I've made your dream come true today too. And if I have, please: aim higher."

It felt great to add some of my own jokes, corny enough I hoped, to blend in with the real script. As passengers unloaded, I turned to Jordan.

"Sorry about going off script there," I said. "It was either that or-"

"Don't even worry about it," he interrupted me. "You did great."

Nice! I had one last trip to go, and this time (in addition to Mom, Dad, and Christa staying on) we just picked up the next load of park guests waiting in line, no recording, no special waivers. They were the best crowd I had, and we all had a great time as I told the familiar jokes about taking pictures of elephants with their trunks on, shot at hippos with my finger, and introduced people to the backside of water for the last time. That final trip through, especially, I felt like a real Disney cast member entertaining real park guests. For all the special treatment and exciting things that had happened - from the surprise limo at the airport, to learning behind the scenes secrets, to watching the fireworks, to meeting John Lasseter - this was still what I had really come to do and it was the highlight of the trip.

After I was done, still high from the experience, we were taken to the upstairs area above the queue and did I final wrap-up sound bites for the camera. When we were done, our trainers and guides showed up to say goodbye. Our guides, Rebecca and Donna gave us a thank-you-note and a Jungle Cruise pin featuring Mickey dressed as s skipper. Our trainers, Jordan and Randy, gave us each a copy of the complete Jungle Cruise script. It was a couple of months later than I'd actually wanted it, but I was glad to have it at all.

Honorary skippers (from left to right) Amanda Dron, Jason Klein, William Betts, and Brodie Brockie (missing Grant McConaughy).

After a few final pictures, we left the Jungle Cruise, followed Rebecca as we weaved in and out of on stage and backstage areas until we returned to the costuming area and had to turn in our costumes for the last time. We'd been given so much, but greedily I hoped that a final surprise might be that we'd be able to keep our costumes or at least our hats. No such luck. It all went back, except for our honorary cast member badges. We were shuttled back to the hotel and bid farewell to our guides.

PART NINE: NOW IT'S TIME TO SAY GOODBYE TO ALL OUR COMPANY...