Tiana's Bayou Adventure: Disneyland Watch & Discussion

[mickEblu]

I think there would have been backlash from people no matter what they did, simply because they replaced Splash, the frequently-noted favorite attraction of several people on every side of this board, many other boards, and many people who casually visited the parks.

I really don't think it's a reach to make such a statement. If they redid Haunted Mansion tomorrow and replaced it with, I don't know, a take on the Family Madrigal house from Encanto utilizing the exact same infrastructure, there's basically nothing they could do for it to live up to HM for me, because Haunted Mansion is my favorite ride. If I can straight up admit to such hypothetical scenarios, than I'm unsure why many people are unable to do so with this *actual* scenario.

Perhaps a book report version would have been better received, but I still don't see a world where a book report TBA is received super well either because of what it replaced. I know I didn't imagine that period where book report attractions were widely derided and seen as lazy. If you personally thought differently, perhaps you were an exception to that, but it was a very real sentiment in the community for a long time.

Now maybe this ride really is garbage or close to it, as seems to be the consensus, but let's be honest, this (not meaning this forum or this website in this instance, but arguably the entire Disney theme park fan community, NOR do I mean this in anything other than a strictly objective and neutral fashion) is a very biased group of people that have certain things they like or don't like, and certain things that are/were sacred cows, both in terms of big things and small. Is there really a chance that most people were truly going to come in to this particular ride neutral? The Splashers were always going to be (at the very least) resentful because it replaced an iconic attraction; likewise, there were others excited about the prospect of a PATF ride that they were going to love this no matter what. From where I'm sitting, this is all very clear and self-evident. If people disagree with me, oh well.

Disagree with the main sentiment here. Yes, TBA on its best day was probably not going to surpass Splash Mountain objectively or because of the nostalgia/ history factor but that doesn’t mean people are not massively disappointed that TBA isn’t the best version of itself that it could be. It’s so far from that. And I think you are being a little disingenuous when you say you don’t see a scenario where TBA would have been much better received. Have you even seen the ride through?

The book report thing was a sentiment in the community but I believe it was mostly a semantics thing. Most of the Fantasyland dark rides are just better executed book report rides and nobody seems to have a problem with them. Mermaid just happened to be poorly executed, lackluster and boring. People ran with the term after Baxter mentioned it in an interview using Mermaid as an example but I believe what he said was largely misinterpreted.

This isn’t June 2020 anymore. People have had time to process what’s happening and say goodbye to Splash. As for myself I wish it never happened but if you take a look at the majority of my comments in regards to this topic the last couple years you’d see that it was mostly frustration due to the creative direction they were going with TBA.

 

[Consumer]

The Little Mermaid is a passive experience. You, as the rider, simply watch these events unfold for Ariel. Snow White's Scary Adventure, on the other hand, is an active experience, where you take on the role of Snow White and these events happen to you. Splash Mountain did this, as well, most notably with riders being thrown into the briar patch, just like Br'er Rabbit was.

I'm not sure a Princess and the Frog retelling would have worked as a retheme to Splash Mountain (I don't think it would have), but I know for certain what they went with instead absolutely did not.

 

[mickEblu]

The Little Mermaid is a passive experience. You, as the rider, simply watch these events unfold for Ariel. Snow White's Scary Adventure, on the other hand, is an active experience, where you take on the role of Snow White and these events happen to you. Splash Mountain did this, as well, most notably with riders being thrown into the briar patch, just like Br'er Rabbit was.

I'm not sure a Princess and the Frog retelling would have worked as a retheme to Splash Mountain (I don't think it would have), but I know for certain what they went with instead absolutely did not.

Exactly and you literally go around every scene and never through any kind of like you are watching a movie or play on a moving vehicle.

I’m 100% sure a book report would have been better than the version of TBA they delivered.

 

[Consumer]

Exactly and you literally go around every scene and never through anyway kind of like you are watching a movie or play on a moving vehicle.

A great observation, and one I had never made. I had to watch a ride through of it as I think I've only been on the ride once and even then I'm not sure. The one moment that stood out to me was when the two eels are speaking to the guests. It's active and has an ominous feel to it. It's very similar to the vultures on Splash.

 

[PiratesMansion]

Disagree with the main sentiment here. Yes, TBA on its best day was probably not going to surpass Splash Mountain objectively or because of the nostalgia/ history factor but that doesn’t mean people are not massively disappointed that TBA isn’t the best version of itself that it could be. It’s so far from that. And I think you are being a little disingenuous when you say you don’t see a scenario where TBA would have been much better received. Have you even seen the ride through?

I have not seen a ride through; per my usual way (and in my head at least, frequently-stated-on-here), I'm going into the ridethrough as blind as I can be, hence no POVs. I've seen very little of it beyond the mountain as seen from the park midways, though again I stand by my assertion that much less can be gleaned from YouTube than can from the actual attraction. Based on that criteria, the only person whose opinion I put any real weight behind at this point is Rich T, given that he is the only person posting on this side of the board who, as far as I know, has actually ridden the thing.

But you're telling me that with how much whinging there was over the past four years over everything involving this project there was an objective possibility that some people who spent four years agonizing over this and in some instances were posting in forums for parks they hadn't even been to before, so consumed were they by this topic, were ever going to warm to TBA and treat it objectively? I'm not sure I agree. I mean, maybe a lot of other people have forgotten the last four years and how much teeth-gnashing there was over every aspect of this project since it was announced, but I have not.

As I said, maybe I'll ride it and think it's trash. I'm not closed off to that being a possibility. Just think it's a bit absurd to say that there weren't people out here who were never going to give this thing a chance when to me that was clear as day from minute one. Doesn't mean everyone fits that criteria, but it strains credulity to say that no one was/is in that boat.

 

[mickEblu]

I have not seen a ride through; per my usual way (and in my head at least, frequently-stated-on-here), I'm going into the ridethrough as blind as I can be, hence no POVs. I've seen very little of it beyond the mountain as seen from the park midways, though again I stand by my assertion that much less can be gleaned from YouTube than can from the actual attraction. Based on that criteria, the only person whose opinion I put any real weight behind at this point is Rich T, given that he is the only person posting on this side of the board who, as far as I know, has actually ridden the thing.

But you're telling me that with how much whinging there was over the past four years over everything involving this project there was an objective possibility that some people who spent four years agonizing over this and in some instances were posting in forums for parks they hadn't even been to before, so consumed were they by this topic, were ever going to warm to TBA and treat it objectively? I'm not sure I agree. I mean, maybe a lot of other people have forgotten the last four years and how much teeth-gnashing there was over every aspect of this project since it was announced, but I have not.

As I said, maybe I'll ride it and think it's trash. I'm not closed off to that being a possibility. Just think it's a bit absurd to say that there weren't people out here who were never going to give this thing a chance when to me that was clear as day from minute one.

K let’s chat after you’ve seen the ride through. Not sure how you can make the claim that there most likely is no scenario that another version of the ride wouldn’t be much better received without even having seen the ride through.

 

[PiratesMansion]

K let’s chat after you’ve seen the ride through. Not sure how you can make the claim that there most likely is no scenario that another version of the ride wouldn’t be much better received without even seeing the ride through.

Not sure how you can make the claim that you know exactly what the ride is like without actually experiencing it in person, a video being an impression of someone else's experience and all.

I know most people now have convinced themselves that they know exactly what something is like without actually experiencing it on their own and that watching a video of someone else's experience is just as good. I still don't buy that.

 

[mickEblu]

Not sure how you can make the claim that you know exactly what the ride is like without actually experiencing it in person, a video being an impression of someone else's experience and all.

I know most people now have convinced themselves that they know exactly what something is like without actually experiencing it on their own and that watching a video of someone else's experience is just as good. I still don't buy that.

Lol because I’ve seen the show scenes/ story and heard the dialogue etc? The comment you made without having seen a ride through is so much more of a stretch.

 

[PiratesMansion]

Lol because I’ve seen the show scenes/ story and heard the dialogue etc? The comment you made without having seen a ride through is so much more of a stretch.

Perhaps I'm just much less confident that anyone can form a definitive opinion of anything from someone else's video than you.

 

[mickEblu]

Perhaps I'm just much less confident that anyone can form a definitive opinion of anything from someone else's video than you.

So considering I’ve ridden the original version of this attraction many times (making it that much easier to fill in the blanks), I know myself and what works for me, this attraction isn’t media based and the crappy story, dialogue and lack of climax won’t change just because I’m there how off do you think my opinion can possibly be? Enough to go from a C- to an A? Or perhaps something more like a C- to a C+? I’d say the latter is much more likely scenario and mostly due to obvious factors that don’t come through on screen like smelling/ feeling the water, the physical thrills etc.

Or perhaps maybe I’ve already baked all of that into my assessment?

 

[SuddenStorm]

WDI has to save Disneyland's version of Tiana, whatever the cost. Potrock should be blowing up D'Amaro's phone about this.

The last four years was them telling us "Look, Splash is a beloved attraction. But we got this. We will do better."

We got a strange marketing campaign, puff pieces about the authenticity of this new attraction. But if we said it looked bad, we were told to trust in WDI- wait until the ride is open.

And then we all got to see how awful this new iteration of the attraction is out east. It's abysmal, it's offensively bad. WDI is dead, the Emperor had no clothes.

Go back to the drawing board. Give them another 20mil to re-stage the attraction, record new dialogue and music, and do what you can to make sure Anaheim's doesn't suck.

And for crying out loud, stop building clones at the same time. I thought they'd learn that lesson when Galaxy's Edge opened to a collective whimper. Open one, give it a few years, hear the reception, learn the tweaks it needs mechanically, then build the one at the other park.

 

[EagleScout610]

This sums up the entire thing. DL's version is likely doomed too

 

[Rich T]

I think there would have been backlash from people no matter what they did, simply because they replaced Splash, the frequently-noted favorite attraction of several people on every side of this board, many other boards, and many people who casually visited the parks.

I really don't think it's a reach to make such a statement. If they redid Haunted Mansion tomorrow and replaced it with, I don't know, a take on the Family Madrigal house from Encanto utilizing the exact same infrastructure, there's basically nothing they could do for it to live up to HM for me, because Haunted Mansion is my favorite ride. If I can straight up admit to such hypothetical scenarios, than I'm unsure why many people are unable to do so with this *actual* scenario.

Perhaps a book report version would have been better received, but I still don't see a world where a book report TBA is received super well either because of what it replaced. I know I didn't imagine that period where book report attractions were widely derided and seen as lazy. If you personally thought differently, perhaps you were an exception to that, but it was a very real sentiment in the community for a long time.

Now maybe this ride really is garbage or close to it, as seems to be the consensus, but let's be honest, this (not meaning this forum or this website in this instance, but arguably the entire Disney theme park fan community, NOR do I mean this in anything other than a strictly objective and neutral fashion) is a very biased group of people that have certain things they like or don't like, and certain things that are/were sacred cows, both in terms of big things and small. Is there really a chance that most people were truly going to come in to this particular ride neutral? The Splashers were always going to be (at the very least) resentful because it replaced an iconic attraction; likewise, there were others excited about the prospect of a PATF ride that they were going to love this no matter what. From where I'm sitting, this is all very clear and self-evident. If people disagree with me, oh well.

It’s not garbage and it’s not great; that’s my take after riding it. A Book Report (or a tweak to add *any* kind of excitement to the existing find-the-animals plot) would be a huge improvement over what they did.

And what they did, objectively, is replace a scenario that dropped hints you were heading for danger, then gradually built up the tension all the way to the top of the big drop, with a scenario that is cheerful-and-calm from beginning to end and, narrative-wise, ignores the big drop completely as a story element.

It’s still fun. The exterior is beautiful, and that finale scene is spectacular. But, for me, the ride’s new storyline feels flat, repetitive, and dull.

But at least my plans to buy the merchandise completely vanished after riding. Big plus for my wallet! Knott’s Berry Farm retains my vote for Best Log Ride on the planet.

 

[Consumer]

This sums up the entire thing. DL's version is likely doomed too

Iger didn't design the ride. Why is he getting the blame? Full accountability is on the Imagineers of today.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Iger didn't design the ride. Why is he getting the blame? Full accountability is on the Imagineers of today.

I say blame Iger.
Who knows what designs Imagineers came up with and were shot down by whatever committee.
If Iger cared, he could have pushed to get anything done, like Walt would have done.

 

[EagleScout610]

Iger didn't design the ride. Why is he getting the blame? Full accountability is on the Imagineers of today.

Iger-neers are what my friends and I call today's imagineers.

 

[TheRealSkull]

No what they need to do is go back to the drawing board and take as much time as they need to fix what they can with this attraction. Disneyland will be fine. It’s packed with attractions.

Yeah, but I doubt they will. Disneyland's Splash Mountain building isn't as affected by mold and bad moisture like WDW's. That's what's likely causing the animatronic malfunctions. Also, for the holidays it's not so much Tiana's I'm worried about opening in time, it's Critter Country and the pathway to Galaxy's Edge. Hope it's a quick refurb. All of this really needs to be open by October.

 

[Rich T]

A much better poster in my opinion. The shading really helps with matching it to the other ride posters.
But after staring at it for a bit, the art reminds my of those Little Golden Books that you would read to a little kid. Very fitting for the storyline too.

It definitely gives a fairly accurate depiction of what to expect from the ride: Tiana, Louis and the spotlight bewilderingly placed on a whole bunch of unknown animals with dippy smiles frozen on their faces forever. Timoleon is the welcome exception: saved from sappiness by the brows and ‘stache.

Also, it’s good that the drop is a major focal point on this poster. Great comment about it all looking like a Little Golden Book cover. Can the actual LG Book about Tiana’s Critter Quest be far behind?

 

[EagleScout610]

It definitely gives a fairly accurate depiction of what to expect from the ride: Tiana, Louis and the spotlight bewilderingly placed on a whole bunch of unknown animals with dippy smiles frozen on their faces forever. Rufus is the welcome exception: saved from sappiness by the brows and ‘stache.

This is Timoleon erasure and I won't have it

 

[Rich T]

This is Timoleon erasure and I won't have it

View attachment 796467

Thank you! Fixed it. I need to get my critter names straight! But seriously, Timoleon looks like a Rufus. Rufus is not a Turtle-y name!