We shared a Rapunzel Sundae and took a few minutes to rest. The internet says we were eating lemon & berry swirl dole whip with shortbread pieces, berry compote, whipped cream and sugar flowers. I don’t have a picture cause it looked like soup after all of 2 seconds, but I finger painted a picture in my phone notes so you can have an idea:
After ice cream, we had one hour left until park closing and there was one thing that I still really wanted to do: Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. I have to tell you all, this ride was stressing me outtttt. I missed my chance to ride it last year. And after all of the drama and people going on about the broken animatronics and how it’s an abomination to Walt’s name etc etc I was getting more and more antsy. Unfortunately the constant down time makes it really hard to ride. And the virtual queue was gone so it was stand by or nothing. I have had STRESS DREAMS about riding this ride. DREAMS. MULTIPLE. I needed to ride so I could move on with my life
The app said Tiana’s was open for business so we hurried over.
Despite what this picture looks like, we were not in the queue. No one was, in part because it was 60 degrees out at this point, and in part because it had just shut down. Again.
Here was the dilemma: we could wait and see if it reopened, but with so little time left in operating hours it was just as likely that they’d call it a night and not bother to open back up. My poor mom was ready to call it a night, but she graciously said she’d defer to me. I decided we’d give it 15 minutes. In the meantime, we wandered into Critter Co-Op for some warmth and gumbo:
Right at the 15 minute mark, we heard a cheer— the ride was back open! We hurried into line before Tiana could change her mind. Luckily, she was out of the office.
Within no time at all (no really, the place was empty), we were going down the bayou!
A trippy photo to commemorate the occasion:
LOUISSSSS!!! I KNOW HIMMMMM!!!
It’s time to partyyyyyyyy!
It was so cute and the songs were super catchy! And bonus, all of the animatronics were running! I personally was never a big Splash Mountain fan and almost never rode it. Tiana’s is not perfect by any means, but I would definitely ride again. I just wish the finale was slower— you cruise by the party so fast it’s hard to take in the details. Using my super speed, I managed to snap this picture of Tiana in her party dress as we zoomed by:
Our ride photo wasn’t the greatest, but we aced the “duck and cover” pose
Admittedly, a good portion of why I never rode Splash that often is because I hateeeeeee flume rides/being wet in a theme park (water parks don’t count— you’re supposed to be wet there). This time, however, I came prepared with ponchos. They didn’t end up being that necessary this particular evening, but they did help trap in the heat, which we were both thankful for at that point!
With the sweet relief that Tiana and her bayou adventure would haunt my dreams no more, we headed for the exit. We took our time admiring the lights as we walked and stopped in Casey’s for a drink to go, and then it was on the bus back to Music. We didn’t need to be up so early the next day, so we set our alarms a little later and settled in for the night.
I get the need for air conditioned sitting spots but they look like they’re right in the middle of traffic. And adding seating for 10 isn’t solving enough problem to offset the additional traffic problem it creates. At least they tried, I guess?
).
