Some additional information shared at a press presentation yesterday -
"Two Imagineers shared a few details about the Tiana project ahead of Friday’s Splash Mountain announcement. Charita Carter, executive creative producer, reiterated that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will be set in Louisiana in 1927. Carter said the characters’ costuming, hair and ambiance will reflect that era.
“She’s fantastical but she comes from a very real place. It’s a real location, a real culture,” Carter said. Members of her creative team traveled to New Orleans for inspiration.
The setting for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will be one year after the conclusion of the animated film. Tiana will be portrayed as a successful entrepreneur with strong connections to her family and community, said Rod Robledo, executive creative director.
“She’s actually started an employee-owned company called Tiana’s Foods,” he said. The company logo has been seen on a water tower in a rendering of the future attraction.
That part of the attraction’s story also helps explain the lack of mountain that has been seen in Frontierland since the early 1990s. Louisiana, in real life, is mostly flat.
“What Tiana has done is purchased this old, abandoned salt dome mine, and that was turned into this operation called Tiana’s Foods,” Robledo said. Disney creative types saw such domes during a Louisiana visit.
“We thought to ourselves, ‘Hey, that’s the perfect way in for us to sort of explain why there’s this elevation there,’” Robledo said."
The countdown has started for the final splashdown of Splash Mountain at Magic Kingdom. The last day Walt Disney World visitors can experience the log ride in its current form will be Jan. 22. The …
www.orlandosentinel.com