by Beth Keating
Review
DisneyBizJournal.com
June 19, 2024
I’ll say it right up front – I’ve never been a big fan of log flume rides. I don’t like spending the rest of my day squishing through the parks with wet shoes, or even worse, wet clothes. But more than that, those big drops terrify me.
That all being said, I wasn’t especially heartbroken that Splash Mountain was being re-themed. The other members of the family were, however. (My husband even bought me a framed poster of the “Fifty Foot Plunge Ahead” Splash Mountain sign for Christmas one year. Pretty sure that was something he liked, as I was not a Splash “ride or die” fan.). And we’d never seen (or frankly, even been aware of) the Song of the South movie that the ride was based on. We just knew it as a critter story about a fox and bear chasing a rabbit. Honestly, not even sure we looked that far into that storyline, because the audio on the ride was always so terrible that you just relied on the visuals to figure out what was going on.
Toward the end, no one would argue that Splash Mountain was in serious need of some TLC. More animatronics were not working than were. Time to upgrade.
Enter the re-theme of the mountain. We finally got to ride the new “Tiana’s Bayou Adventure” at Magic Kingdom during Annual Passholder previews this week, but it was not without its trials. The ride formally opens to park guests on June 28, but there have been a number of preview groups in the meantime. In the past, Disney has set it up so that you would go online to a specific link during a select window to choose a day and time to ride a new attraction during passholder previews. By the end of that window, you knew if you’d successfully won a seat, and what the time frame was. You could plan ahead.
This time around, there was a new, very loose framework for riding during passholder previews. You just showed up at the park with your park reservation in hand, and tried for a virtual queue (not always a successful venture on a normal visit). It meant that you were taking a random day off from work, showing up, and hoping for the best, without knowing whether you’d actually be riding.
It did not go well for us on day #1. We didn’t snag a virtual queue in those precious few milliseconds when the “join queue” button lit up. (If you’ve ever stressed making a virtual queue, you know what I mean!). “Day off” used up without riding the preview. And while a day at Disney is always better than a day at work, we’d burned a vacation day that could have been better arranged.
The preview process has been a bit fraught with challenges on Disney’s end as well. Passholder previews, media previews, and cast member days are a bit like a dress rehearsal for a new attraction, and it’s a chance to work the bugs out. But Tiana’s previews had more bumps in the road (or water, as it were) than most openings, particularly considering that it was a re-skin of an existing ride. There was lots of down time, late starts that threw the rest of the day’s riders out of synch, and even a few “in show exits.”
After several tries to grab a virtual queue, my son and I finally got to ride (not so the rest of the family). I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the ride was better than what I was expecting, given how poor the original POV video from Disney was.
In true Imagineering fashion, there were lots of details to take in along the queues. I would have liked to have had more time to take a closer look at the family letters and photos on the wall, the newspaper clippings scattered throughout, and even the tchotchkes on the shelves. (There’s a set of a ceramic bear, fox and bunny on one shelf as an easter egg tribute to the former ride!).
The queue is well done, and I’m sure that each time you ride, you’ll spot more “stuff.” Radio broadcasts set the mood for the time period, and you’ll recognize music from the Princess and the Frog animated film, as well as some original tunes. You’ll be wandering through Tiana’s office, checking out her spice cabinets and shipping boxes, peeking into her kitchen and seeing the beignets and gumbo pot, and then heading down the caverns of the old salt mine that Tiana has converted for her employee-owned company.
On the ride itself, I was most surprised by the size of the animatronics. They were so much bigger in person than I expected. The audio track was light years better than the old one (but still a touch convoluted story-wise – it was initially hard to understand that Mama Odie was “shrinking you down” in the one segment. It didn’t take long to figure it out, but it wasn’t instantaneous.). The spotlight figures of Tiana and Louis were very fluid, much more like the super cool newer models we’ve been seeing in Tokyo Disney and elsewhere. There were also a number of adorable critters that were more like traditional animatronics throughout the ride. A few of those are sure to become favorites of guests. (Sorry I wasn’t able to get on-ride pictures of the animatronics for you. I was afraid of getting my phone wet, so it was safely stowed in my Ziplock bag in my backpack!)
One of the most common complaints on Disney chats (not just about the Tiana ride, either) is Disney’s reliance on screen-based tech, and fans were skeptical about how the use of the screens would impact Tiana’s ride. I did find it a bit jarring in the “shrunk down room,” with enormous Tiana and Louis faces peering in, but I thought the screens really helped to add to the depth and the kinetic energy in the finale scene, where the party is taking place and there are lots of guests dancing and singing. The front of the scene is comprised of three-dimensional physical sets with animatronics, including many of your favorite characters from the movie, such as Ralphie, Lottie, and Naveen, but the restaurant façade behind the characters is comprised of screen tech in the restaurant windows, filled with lots of other guests. It’s a party! In this case, the screen tech works, and fills out the rest of the scene.
On the downside, the logs themselves were a little bumpier than anticipated. The underwater track is the same as the Splash Mountain one, and I expected that the ride would be smoother given the refurb, but the logs were scraping (and squealing) in a few places, and there were a few rough clunks along the way. For those of you that enjoy the spray of swampy bayou water on your log flumes, this ride also seemed to get us much wetter than the old Splash…. Maybe that’s just my memory, but my son seemed happy with the splashier ride. Be reassured that when the Critter Co-op store launches to all park guests at the end of the month, there will be towels available for sale. Just in case.
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Beth Keating is a theme parks, restaurant and entertainment reporter for DisneyBizJournal.
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