Tiana’s Bayou Adventure First Impressions

I am quite late with this in comparison with when I rode the ride, which was on June 16th during the passholder previews, but due to my current incalculable bout of depression, that feels like just yesterday. I wrote this review without looking at anyone else’s opinion, the general consensus on the quality of the ride, or any videos of the ride save the three short 15-second ones I took myself. I favored my memory instead, especially seeing as I titled this ‘First Impressions.’ Do with that what you will.

The few folks who know me well know that despite my cold exterior, robotic demeanor and collection of generally edgy interests, I am actually a huge fan of all things Walt Disney World Orlando Resort. My interest mostly resides in the Orlando parks and resort area itself specifically, rather than just anything Disney touches. Don’t worry, I cringe at all those Disney adult TikToks same as you, and I detest the phrase “Disney Bounding” (you’ll never catch me using it). Yet, I am myself an annual passholder who frequently visits the parks. The root of my passion for Disney World is perhaps a dive for a different blog post, but suffice it to say I have at least a bit more than a passing interest in Disney. I am semi-well-versed in the lore and trends of the resort, which for me is what its all about. It likely comes as no surprise that I am not really much into the princess movies. In fact, I’m not even particularly passionate about the old Disney animated classics, though I can certainly enjoy them and recognize their importance to the history of cinema. But The Princess and The Frog? I like The Princess and The Frog.

I think The Princess and The Frog is a great animated film. Its probably my favorite of the Disney princess films that I do like (I am quite fond of Aladdin as well, and Tangled is ok). I even have a kitten named Tiana, whom I adopted a bit before the new ride opened. So when it was announced awhile back that Splash Mountain would be closing and would be replaced with a reskin themed after The Princess and The Frog, I was generally pleased. Splash Mountain was never a favorite of mine. As a kid, when I visited Magic Kingdom with my family, we seldom rode it. None of us ever really wanted to get wet. I am also not very fond of drops, a distaste that was even more prevalent in my younger years. My other problem with the ride was one I believe many other people shared, especially fellow younger folk. I did not know anything about the characters or the theming. In fact, for a very long time, I thought Splash Mountain was not attached to an IP at all, and stood alone with its own lore like Space Mountain or Jungle Cruise. I probably should’ve assumed otherwise given all the cartoon animatronics. Eventually, I discovered the controversy and the true nature of the ride’s theming. Many people did not recognize the characters from Splash Mountain because its source material, Song of the South was essentially blacklisted (oops) by Disney due to all the controversies and criticisms. Hardly circulated, and not very well-received in the first place, watching Song of the South was not nearly as common as most of the other older Disney animated classics. Now I’m not going to get into any of the political stuff, but it simply cannot be denied that Splash Mountain was outdated, not even exclusively due to the problematic nature of its source material, but because virtually no one consumed or cared about the source material. Of course, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, being a film mostly centered around an empowered, self-driven black woman was obviously a response to the negative political connotation surrounding Splash Mountain and Song of the South, but I don’t really care. Though I recognize this as the case, it doesn’t take away from the fact that a ride who’s IP I never engaged with or cared for was being reimagined using an IP I care for greatly. In summation, if I had had to pick a ride from pre-Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Magic Kingdom that would have to be replaced, it would probably have been Splash Mountain.

Here is a description of my experience even trying to get on the ride, which you can skip if you’re not interested in all the technicalities of the early access system. On select days around and on the weekend of June 16th 2024, Disney offered previews of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure to annual passholders. The passholder previews were done by virtual queue. It worked almost identically to how virtual queues normally work for other big ticket attractions at the parks. Annual passholders with reservations at Magic Kingdom could join the virtual queue from their phones at 7 am. Then, there was a second boarding group call for passholders at 1 pm, which did not require a reservation at Magic Kingdom (meaning you could park hop from a different park). A key difference between the other Disney World virtual queues and this special passholder event was that you actually didn’t have to be in the park to join the 1 pm queue. Like an idiot, I waited too long to make reservations at Magic Kingdom, by the time I went to book a park reservation, there was no availability. The 7 am queue was out. So instead, I made four reservations at Epcot, in the hopes of joining the 1 pm queue from the comfort of my home, going to Epcot if I got in, then park-hopping when my group was called. The day of my first reservation came and I went through the ritual of vigorously refreshing my app at 12:59, then slamming the join queue button as fast as I could when it popped up. I got in. But there was a problem. I currently live over an hour away from the parks and the group I got in was one of the earliest groups possible. I tried to make the drive, hoping to make it in time and/or for some leniency if I was a bit late. As a speed demon, I was confident in my abilities to reduce the drive to 45-50 minutes. Unfortunately though, my group was called maybe 20 minutes into the drive, so I chose to give up rather than drive all the way there and possibly get turned away. On the second reservation day, I went through the ritual again, but I was too slow and did not get into the queue. On the third day, I had a similar experience to the first, only I didn’t even bother to leave because I knew I’d definitely be too late. On the fourth day I was determined. I got my boarding group, and it was a bit later. I knew I’d still probably get there a bit after my boarding group expired, but I hoped to find a way to worm my way in. I braved the dangers of I-4, and likely contributed to them with my Mad Max style driving. My group was called at some point during the drive. I went straight to Magic Kingdom (you can enter after 2 pm without a reservation on most days). I trudged through the Florida heat, up through Adventureland and to the entrance to the new ride, ready to talk my way in. Outside was the dreaded announcer, informing everyone via a belt-mounted amplifier that the ride was closed for maintenance, and that they had no idea when it would reopen (for some reason, Thunder Mountain was closed too). I decided to ride The Haunted Mansion (one of my all time favorites) to kill time until the ride reopened. I realized the ride’s closure could be viewed as a good thing, I could just say I couldn’t get on when my group was called because the ride was closed. But I had no idea how long the ride had actually been shut down so that could’ve easily exposed my lie. After riding The Haunted Mansion, I walked back over and made sure to ask a cast member if I was good to get on before I got in line. He basically told me that as long as my group had been called, it didn’t matter when I boarded. I had been overthinking it the whole time. The line ran past the entrance, up through Frontierland, past the little snack shack that my uncle always reminds me used to serve McDonald’s fries, all the way up to the shop at the exit of Pirates of The Caribbean. This was before you even entered the actual themed line area. In my head, I assumed this line would take a couple hours, but I timed it, and it was only around 45 minutes. I scanned in just fine.

Ok, now the ride. I hope this paragraph is similar in size at least to the last one since this is the advertised and interesting part for most people. The theming of the ride area is rather interesting, but bizarrely… industrial? It is made abundantly clear throughout the queueing experience that the ride hypothetically takes place quite a bit after the movie. The story goes that Tiana used the profits from her restaurant to start “Tiana’s Foods” which at first seemed like a catering service, but then I came to understand it as more of like, a brand, a la Chef Boyardee or something. It was kind of funny to me that the whole story is about Tiana being a strategic and analytical businesswoman, straying away from the flashier and romanticized restaurant scene into mass food production. Not only that, but for some reason (perhaps because of possible rider negative associations with labor and the industrial sector), it is also made abundantly clear to us that Tiana treats her workers very fairly. There were multiple newspaper clippings and such hung up talking about—I’m having trouble remembering specifically— but just generally expressing how the working conditions at Tiana’s Foods are totally ideal. There was even a time clock at one point in the queue that I seem to recall having an encouraging poster or two near it. Despite all this lore about Tiana’s new company, the story of the ride itself is just that Tiana is throwing a Mardi Gras party for all of New Orleans and is looking to the Bayou for bands to play. Though the Tiana’s Foods lore serves to explain what Tiana has been up to since the film and allows for greater variation in set pieces for the queue, the story of the ride itself could’ve functioned just fine without it. I quite enjoyed the queue. Throughout the outside portion (which is most of it), you’re treated to a fictional radio station playing over the speakers. The DJ talks about Tiana’s upcoming party and plays several jazz tunes. I love jazz. The indoor portions are great too, all full of easter eggs in the form of framed newspaper clippings, letters, and awards, posters, whole set pieces relevant to the food production at Tiana’s new company. It was exactly how I think Disney World queues should be. It should feel like you just stepped into a cartoon. It reminded me of the old Mickey and Minnie houses walk-through attractions which I loved as a kid. The beginning of the ride is perhaps my favorite part. The song “Down in New Orleans” from the movie plays as your log boat travels over the first tiny hill and into the world of The Princess and The Frog. Down in New Orleans is such a great song and this whole part has such a celebratory atmosphere as you begin your journey. The energy seemed to shift almost immediately when the ride started. The other folks on my boat were dancing along, and I shared a quick laugh with the cast member who made sure our lap bars were secure because he poked fun at me for very obviously recording with my phone. I turned the camera off for most of the ride from there. Tiana tells you that you and her are heading to the Bayou to look for some good music for her party and you continue through the outdoor section of the ride. Side note, the track is, of course, the same as Splash Mountain so they worked with what they had. For example, this outdoor part of Splash Mountain was always a bit boring in comparison with later parts, which holds true in Tiana’s Bayou Adventure as well. Splash Mountain was also a very long ride, so you also get plenty of time with Tiana and her friends too. You go through several show scenes where Tiana and Louis meet various critters in the Bayou who play instruments. This is where the ride first introduces its original music. The original music is fine, but its nothing in comparison to the soundtrack from the movie, which is one of my favorite Disney soundtracks of all time. I don’t dislike the original music for the ride, I think it simply serves its purpose quite well, nothing more. Part of me would’ve preferred there be more music from the film instead of original music, but in parts like these, it simply wouldn’t have made sense. These earlier show scene’s settings seemed to have changed very little from how they looked in Splash Mountain since swamps and bayous are very similar biomes. I had no problem with this really. It made sense, and the atmospheric sets from Splash Mountain were perhaps the part I liked the most. The animatronics throughout the ride appear to be a direct response to the negative feedback to the animatronics in Epcot’s Frozen Ever After. Many people complained about the projected-on faces in that ride, often citing them as creepy. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure does away with this technique in favor of a more classic style of animatronic, but with more advanced movements. They look great. I never had as much of a problem with the animatronics from Frozen Ever After as most people did, but these are far better. They kind of hit that sweet spot to where they’re still obviously animatronics so there’s not much of an uncanny valley feeling, but they’re given plenty of personality and flair through their movements. I did find the Louis animatronic to be a bit unsettling for some reason though. One problem with the ride is some barren show scenes. This could be chalked up to budgetary or creative reasons or both. It would probably be a bit too expensive to stick an advanced animatronic in every room, and from a creative standpoint, it might begin to feel like overkill at that point anyways. I like some of the ways they got around it, like putting in a screen with Tiana and Louis looking down at you after Mama Odie shrinks you down. But in some scenes, they don’t bother with anything interesting like that and you’re stuck looking at, like, two big mushrooms. You get to the prior mentioned shrinking part maybe halfway into the ride. Mama Odie casts a spell on you which hits you via a blast of air and several beams of light. This is arguably the worst part of the ride. A bit boring. An interesting way to shakeup the setting a bit though, which I appreciated. I guess Mama Odie unshrinks you as you’re climbing up to the iconic big drop at the end. This brings me to probably my most major complaint. Dr. Facilier has no presence on this ride whatsoever. Dr. Facilier is probably my favorite Disney villain of all time and his song “Friends on The Other Side,” is probably my favorite Disney song of all time. I quote it often with a friend of mine. To see such an important part of what made the movie great totally left out of the ride was beyond disappointing. Now I know what you’re thinking, there is an obvious explanation for this. Like I said, the ride takes place after the movie so Dr. Facilier has long been taken by his (ex)friends on the other side, and is presumably dead. But listen. There are many other examples of Disney rides that take place after the villain of their respective IP’s has been killed or otherwise defeated or banished that found a way to incorporate said villains, presumably due to their popularity and importance to their franchises. I think Tiana’s Bayou Adventure should have been another example of a ride that pulls this off. Part of my reasoning is that there’s such an obvious way to do it within the confines of the direction they already took the ride. When Mama Odie casts a spell on you and shrinks you down, it is sort of implied from the change in color palette and atmosphere that perhaps you’ve been transported into some kind of voodoo quantumverse realm. They could have very easily stuck Dr. Facilier in this ‘realm’ with the implied explanation being that he was trapped there after being reclaimed by all the voodoo spirits. The part right before the drop on Splash Mountain was always the “dark” part of the ride. You enter the bramble patch and the colors become blacker and there’s ominous crows taunting you. Then there’s the drop and the big celebration payoff, like you conquered the danger. Wouldn’t it have made perfect sense to give this part to Dr. Facilier, maybe have a bit of his song and have it mirror that dark part of Splash Mountain? Instead we get like, a screen with Mama Odie stirring a gumbo pot and saying something indiscriminate. Lame. When we got to the drop on my boat, the lady in front of me, I guess a fan of Splash Mountain, yelled “We’re so back!” before we went down. I screamed like a little bitch. The other contender for my favorite part of the ride is the final show scene. After the drop. You enter the Mardi Gras party, a beautiful, colorful show scene with more animatronics in one room than I think I’ve ever seen in any other ride except Pirates. Tiana is joined by all her friends, and some of the new friends you met in the Bayou along the way. Most of the animatronics are adorned in fabulous over-the-top costumes, and it was nice to see animatronic versions of some of the other characters from the film like Charlotte, Prince Naveen and Tiana’s mom. The ride ends with one final animatronic of Mama Odie yelling at her pet snake to stay away from her beignets.

Looking back, despite never being that interested in actually riding the ride all too often, Splash Mountain always had a sort of legendary status in my brain. It opened before I was born. It had that iconic ‘mountain’ title, which made me put it in this subconscious pantheon of Magic Kingdom ‘mountain rides’ alongside Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain. Pictures from the drop earned meme status before I even knew what a meme was. There was even a cleverly named infamous website that compiled ride photos where passengers were revealing themselves as their photo was taken. My dad never could help himself from bringing that site up anytime the ride was brought into discussion. I’ll never forget those iconic photos of people playing Chess or Smash Bros as they plunged down. But perhaps the only way for something to truly reach legend status is for it to eventually go away. I’ll be able to tell my kids, ‘Yeah this used to be a ride called Splash Mountain,’ and have quite the story to tell if they ask me about it. But I’m happy with that story coming to an end. Because Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is a real treat. The energy is so joyous. The technical elements are well executed. Its just plain fun. I think any fan of The Princess and The Frog will have a hard time not enjoying Tiana’s Bayou Adventure to some extent. It has its faults no doubt, but it makes a great addition to the modern iteration of Magic Kingdom. I’m looking forward to riding it for years to come.