Tiana's Bayou Adventure: Disneyland Watch & Discussion

chadwpalm

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
First time riding right? Let us know what you think.
In short, I hold to what I and everyone else has said about story and a downgraded Laughing Place, but I will say it is much better in person than on video. Cameras just can't capture the lighting, ambiance, and scale.

All of the animatronics worked (except Mama Odie's arms at the top of lift hill), so that was good.

It just felt good to be on the flume again and just like Splash this will be in my warm+ day ride rotation. Only making the winter exception to check it out. About 70-75% of people are wearing ponchos, myself included. Also brought a change of shoes and socks. Glad I did.
 

Professortango1

Well-Known Member
Bayou County is packed. Soooooooo many people being turned away because they don't know it's VQ and LL only.
Its almost as if VQ's are confusing.

"Can I ride the ride that is open?"

"You need to get in the virtual queue."

"Oh, that's okay, I'll just join that physical queue."

"Oh, that physical queue is for the virtual queue."

"Wait? So, I need to wait in that physical queue to get a virtual queue?

"No, that would be silly. You need to get a virtual queue to wait in the physical queue."

"Where do I do that? Is there a kiosk?"

"Nope. Just your phone."

"Do I need to text a number to join the queue?"

"Nope. Just download an app. Create a profile. Then join the queue. At certain allowed times."

"And if I only have a flip phone and can't use apps...."

"Oh, well then you don't really exist to us. Thank you for buying a $200 ticket, but we cannot help you actually do things inside the park."
 

chadwpalm

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
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TikiMike1955

New Member
Rode it yesterday. Was upset about the redo of a classic attract and especially the supposed reasoning for it, but decided to reserve some judgement. I hated it. Absolutely lazy and horrible replacement of an E-ticket that had plenty of life left. Current Imagineering/Disney clearly has no respect for the shoulders of the giants they’re standing on (Marc Davis/Tony Baxter), or why their parks became so popular in the first place. TBA would have maybe worked as a replacement for Winnie the Pooh.
 
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Nirya

Well-Known Member
I was able to get in on Sunday. First off, the Virtual Queue system is a plague. I was able to get in on the 4 PM grouping, but the 7 am and 12 PM groups got taken within 2 seconds. I’m pretty sure the 4 PM also was gone quickly but I just mashed through and got one.

I’m going to give my personal thoughts but I do think it is important that I write down my girlfriend’s thoughts, because she did not grow up with Disneyland like I did (she’s from Minnesota) and does not have any attachment to Splash from before. She really enjoyed the ride, though not so much all the water (riding at 7:00 PM will do that), and her biggest complaint was that she felt the logs moved too fast so she couldn’t absorb the scenes, which she liked. This also got her criticism because she didn’t not realize there was story because we zipped by any dialogue so she didn’t hear any of it. I’ll be interested to see how she reacts to future ride-throughs (in the Spring probably).

As for myself, my ultimate verdict is: this was fine. It wasn’t better than Splash, but it was definitely better than the videos made me think it would be. For clear wind, I think the queue was very well-done, and made it pretty obvious that a lot of the discussion (both positively and negatively) towards various story elements was hyperbolic. Like the salt mine stuff, clearly it was just a way to explain the caves leading into the loading station, and in action it was perfectly acceptable and good, but before the ride opened it was an opportunity for a ton of people to launch some opinions, and in hindsight so much of it was unjustified. Similarly, the overhyped blogs also screams that Disney has way too many people who want credit for these projects and are trying to justify their paychecks.

Ride itself, the scenery was gorgeous, especially that initial section floating around the final drop. I was also impressed with the AAs and the fact that they were working (obviously I’ve seen too many horror videos of nonfunctional animatronics). They’re clearly running at lower capacity to iron out the kinks which is a worrying trend, but at least it was functional.

For the ride story, yes, I absolutely agree that this ride lacks any conflict which is the main problem. This ride absolutely suffers from a lack of Facilier (my girlfriend, who I made watch PatF the night prior, commented the same thing), and honestly the ride itself seems custom-made to be changed in the future to improve on that. Hell, make the change for next Halloween and then just…don’t change it back after.

I’m also really annoyed they did not try to fix how wet you get on the ride. We got put in the front of the log and, as a test, I went poncho-less (girlfriend got a poncho from the “take a poncho leave a poncho” situation that was created by the exit). I got drenched by the Laughin Place drop per usual, but also got more wet than usual from the Slippin Falls drop, and the final drop was equally wetter. It felt like there was more water than usual in the flume, but regardless of what is happening, it was unreal, and Disney should look at the amount of ponchos that were out and about as a sign of failure on that front.

Like I said, I ultimately felt the ride was perfectly fine, not at the level of what was there prior but better than I expected given all the noise surrounding it. I don’t think this ride will ever get a fair shake just due to everything surrounding it, and I do wonder if an upgraded version in a few years would get more people here on board.
 

chadwpalm

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
I know not everyone purchases Lightning Lane, but if you do, that's the preferred method over VQ. They don't sell out until about 11am and you have more control over what time you go. Today I held out until it hit 2pm when it's the hottest.
 

Newtwo

Well-Known Member
Rode it yesterday. Was upset about the redo of a classic attract and especially the supposed reasoning for it, but decided to reserve some judgement. I hated it. Absolutely lazy and horrible replacement of an E-ticket that had plenty of life left. Current Imagineering/Disney clearly has no respect for the shoulders of the giants they’re standing on (Marc Davis/Tony Baxter), or why their parks became so popular in the first place. TBA would have maybe worked as a replacement for Winnie the Pooh.
My thoughts exactly. Imagine closing Splash for 1.5 years and birthing this turd.
 

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