I'll reiterate that the last claim I was made aware of is that the overhaul has a very healthy budget now. Substantially increased multiple times after initial negative reactions. And it will apparently not result in a reduction of the animatronics. Allegedly they're keeping the existing Splash AA's and also adding a decent number of new top of the line ones for the added human characters (I assume this to mean the type used for Beauty and the Beast with physical robotic faces, not projection).
Feel free to take this with a mine of salt. But again, these claims are from someone who is most definitely no Disney shill (quite the opposite) and hated this overhaul as much as anyone reasonably can. They've been through all of the same criticism and concerns as myself and everyone else here. It cannot be overstated how much venom they were spewing at this overhaul up until very recently. And indeed, earlier variations of the ride were looking to be disastrous (anemic budget, mass removal of AA's, screens and empty blank sets, bad story etc). So their sudden shift in opinion to "the new finalized concept actually looks really promising and could be as good as Splash" got my attention.
If you're someone who is only interested in the Song of the South IP and characters and can't accept anything else, then I couldn't say whether you would like this ride. But if you're someone in the "bargaining" stage of grief at this point and are just hoping for a quality ride that can stand up against Splash Mountain on its own merits (which to me would mean a good old days AA-rich classic Disney ride), a "wait and see" approach can't hurt. There will be ample opportunity to absolutely tear into the ride if it does turn out awful. I'll also be rejoining everyone if these claims end up being false, and shoot the messenger if they were lying (though again i've little reason to assume they are).
