News Tiana's Bayou Adventure - latest details and construction progress

[Bocabear]

It's more like Tiana's Food CoOp employees cafeteria than actually the Tiana's palace from the movie... I give it a big "meh" ... I like that there is a restaurant featuring the food, but naming it after the big dream restaurant in the movie feels off.... Tiana's Place...Tiana's Cafe... Tiana's Foods Employee Cafeteria might have been better choices, and save the "Tiana's Palace" name for when they pull out the stops and do it right.

 

[Eric Graham]

It's more like Tiana's Food CoOp employees cafeteria than actually the Tiana's palace from the movie... I give it a big "meh" ... I like that there is a restaurant featuring the food, but naming it after the big dream restaurant in the movie feels off.... Tiana's Place...Tiana's Cafe... Tiana's Foods Employee Cafeteria might have been better choices, and save the "Tiana's Palace" name for when they pull out the stops and do it right.

Did you look at the pictures...they don't look like Tiana's Empoyee Cafeteria...Looks pretty nice to me.

 

[Bocabear]

Did you look at the pictures...they don't look like Tiana's Empoyee Cafeteria...Looks pretty nice to me.

Well when you pick up a tray and slide it along the rails to get food, I would call that a cafeteria....cuz that is pretty much what it is. When you name it "Tiana's Palace" and it does not resemble the "Tiana's Palace" from the namesake film and instead has Cafeteria service, I think the criticism is valid. I did not say it looks terrible...

 

[Disstevefan1]

I like this counter service method. Slide along and pick what you want and total it up at register. Universal Orlando did this in some places, I hope they still do.

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

But for the only representation of Tiana's Palace to be a converted counter-service restaurant seems wrong. Watching the film makes me want to go to that place. If Tiana were a real person (which is what we're pretending in this theme park), I feel like this isn't what she would be going for (unless the experience of opening a restaurant that didn't fulfill her dream is what convinced her to go into the food supply business).

I know they don't really have the space, so I guess it's better than nothing. But WDW does have the space, and it's almost certain we're just going to get a Pecos Bill conversion.

 

[Incomudro]

It's more like Tiana's Food CoOp employees cafeteria than actually the Tiana's palace from the movie... I give it a big "meh" ... I like that there is a restaurant featuring the food, but naming it after the big dream restaurant in the movie feels off.... Tiana's Place...Tiana's Cafe... Tiana's Foods Employee Cafeteria might have been better choices, and save the "Tiana's Palace" name for when they pull out the stops and do it right.

I'm reminded of how Pizza Planet in Hollywood Studios didn't look remotely like it's namesake in Toy Story.
Imagine if it did?
If it had the robot guards at the doorway as you entered?
The claw machine etc.?

 

[celluloid]

I'm not referring to construction images. I meant additional art, renders and animatronics. They showed off a CGI ridethrough of 7DMT nearly three years prior to its opening. Tokyo's Beauty and the Beast ride also had a ton of details revealed two years prior to opening as well, including clips of its CG layout and multiple animatronic figures and props. Tiana has one of these CG ridethroughs as well (albeit the figures would likely be 2D stand ins for what will eventually be AA's), and a substantial number of the animatronic figures are already built and ready to be installed (several since last year). Set pieces too.

They have yet to show anything like this for Tiana, despite the fact that the ride will be open later next year. Continuing to show the same shot of the exterior with slightly different artistic variations over and over and over and over again isn't doing this attraction any favors. It's fueling the hatred against it. Most people detest what they're doing to the exterior. Even the people who are otherwise hopeful about the rest of the attraction. The last time there was any somewhat positive interest whatsoever about the ride was when they showed off the concept art of the animatronic critter band late last year. And it was a very Splash-like show scene.

This ride has nothing on that level of hype to brag about for their budget, and they won't overpromise on this retheme anymore.

This was the cheap investment to change all around. It stays that way even in promotion as much as possible at this point.

Look to November and January for anything else you are describing.

 

[celluloid]

I'm reminded of how Pizza Planet in Hollywood Studios didn't look remotely like it's namesake in Toy Story.
Imagine if it did?
If it had the robot guards at the doorway as you entered?
The claw machine etc.?

A modern problem with theme parks, particularly Disney. Associative theming in some theme design books.

Sometimes, it is themed to the property the same way The Cheesecake Factory is themed to cheesecake. After so long of not creating or budgeting creation of original depth and storytelling, we more often lose the effort to have something have any depth, even when the property name is on it.

This should give everyone an idea of how fleshed out Tiana's Bayou Adventure will be compared ot what it should be.

 

[WorldExplorer]

I'm reminded of how Pizza Planet in Hollywood Studios didn't look remotely like it's namesake in Toy Story.
Imagine if it did?
If it had the robot guards at the doorway as you entered?
The claw machine etc.?

I don't remember if this was the film commentary or somewhere else, but Lasseter said the goal with Pizza Planet was "make a place so awesome they would HAVE to build it!".

It didn't quite work out how he wanted.

 

[celluloid]

I don't remember if this was the film commentary or somewhere else, but Lasseter said the goal with Pizza Planet was "make a place so awesome they would HAVE to build it!".

It didn't quite work out how he wanted.

It would have been a great option to revamp top floor for Disney Quest.

Sometimes a parody is just a parody I suppose. But it was so cheap to call that small space in DHS Pizza Planet.

And the fact that Toy Story Land is based partly off a Pizza Planet playset...yet it still did not happen, is wild.

 

[WorldExplorer]

It would have been a great option to revamp top floor for Disney Quest.

Sometimes a parody is just a parody I suppose. But it was so cheap to call that small space in DHS Pizza Planet.

And the fact that Toy Story Land is based partly off a Pizza Planet playset...yet it still did not happen, is wild.

Especially since A. Toy Story Land desperately needs the AC, and B. Hollywood Studios would benefit from another indoor quick service that stays open to park close.

 

[celluloid]

Especially since A. Toy Story Land desperately needs the AC, and B. Hollywood Studios would benefit from another indoor quick service that stays open to park close.

Instead it was cheaper to create a restaurant where the guests are the entertainment by playing freeze and they can repeat the same tired artwork we see on the walls of Toy Story Mania in all its queue configurations.

They should have went with a situation like Little Mermaid's pavilion at Tokyo Disney Sea. Loved that place. Indoor playground for the kids to explore and play on for the arcade section. Like being in an arcade playset, with games and playgrounds, and a restaurant and meet and greet space all indoors, safe from the elements and operating in said elements.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

This ride has nothing on that level of hype to brag about for their budget, and they won't overpromise on this retheme anymore.

This was the cheap investment to change all around. It stays that way even in promotion as much as possible at this point.

Look to November and January for anything else you are describing.

The $40 million budget initially claimed by WDW Pro (I heard even less than that) isn't remotely accurate anymore. As seen in a permit filed a few months ago, that exact amount of money has been allotted for just demolition work alone.

Frozen at Epcot by comparison cost around $70 million. Tiana is a lot more ambitious than that. Doing a comparable from-scratch build would obviously be a lot more expensive (and we're certainly not dealing with some obscene amount like Cosmic Rewind's $500 mil). I also don't know exact amount they settled on. But it's said to be a VERY pricey attraction for retheme standards (that keep the original ride system and track layout intact).

They aren't treating this like a cheap overlay, they're actually aiming to create something impressive and in the style of a classic E Ticket. It's still going to have a lot of AA's, a solid handful of which are state of the art. I expect it'll have more than anything they've built since Sinbad (or since Splash itself stateside). I also expect the scenery to be rather lush and detailed. The issue is that it will be unavoidably compared to what came before, which is entirely reasonable when you're replacing a beloved classic.

I still don't think this will be able to match Splash (despite that reportedly being something that people working on this ride genuinely want to do). And that's really the crux of the situation. But I do think it'll turn out much better than most if not all of the other rethemes/guts they've done. Just based on the scarce amount of details and art we have so far, it looks like a caliber far above what they normally do. This to me looks far and away better than Mickey for instance (which I don't enjoy and don't get the praise for at all, especially compared to GMR but even on its own merits). I've seen people say this is going down as one of, if not THE worst things they've ever done. Like Journey into Imagination v2/3. And based on what they've shown so far of the interior, assuming it turns out remotely similar to the art, I strongly believe this won't be remotely accurate.

 

[Eric Graham]

Well when you pick up a tray and slide it along the rails to get food, I would call that a cafeteria....cuz that is pretty much what it is. When you name it "Tiana's Palace" and it does not resemble the "Tiana's Palace" from the namesake film and instead has Cafeteria service, I think the criticism is valid. I did not say it looks terrible...

Might as well just to go to a Perkins if it's going to be like that . . . and save a bunch of money.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

But for the only representation of Tiana's Palace to be a converted counter-service restaurant seems wrong. Watching the film makes me want to go to that place. If Tiana were a real person (which is what we're pretending in this theme park), I feel like this isn't what she would be going for (unless the experience of opening a restaurant that didn't fulfill her dream is what convinced her to go into the food supply business).

I know they don't really have the space, so I guess it's better than nothing. But WDW does have the space, and it's almost certain we're just going to get a Pecos Bill conversion.

I agree - maybe call this Tiana's Food Hall or something but save calling it the name from the movie for something that looks like actually going to the place from the movie

though I am sure people would complain about that too

 

[Eric Graham]

I agree - maybe call this Tiana's Food Hall or something but save calling it the name from the movie for something that looks like actually going to the place from the movie

though I am sure people would complain about that too

I was hoping for something nicer. We shall see how it turns out...

 

[Bocabear]

let me first say I think it looks cute and nice...but........If they are going to be pushing the "Tiana Foods Factory CoOp" storyline it would actually make sense to theme it to the employee cafeteria and break room... It could have lots of whimsical details that would suit the storyline, rather than call it Tiana's Palace which is a location from the film that we already know, that this clearly does not match...

 

[cranbiz]

Huge miss on Tiana's Place.

I don't get the vibe one should get from it. It's a really nice looking Golden Corral.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I'm kind of on the side of those who find Tiana's Palace a bit of a miss.

It's obvious why they put it there and it is how it is because it is a retrofit of an existing restaurant. Anyone thinking they were going to step into the Tiana's Palace of the movie, though, would be pretty disappointed when they saw the reality. If the whole point of IP integration is to allow people to step into the world of the movies, I wish they had of either built something that looks more like the restaurant from the film or put a different spin on this restaurant. This looks a little bit like what would have happened if Chef Skinner from Ratatouille took over the restaurant and started franchising it after Tiana passed away.

 

[UNCgolf]

It's obvious why they put it there and it is how it is as a retrofit of an existing restaurant.

I think they did they best they could with the space available, but it just wasn't a good idea from the outset.