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

[networkpro]

I’m genuinely surprised you saw the film frequently when you were young. I was an avid consumer of Disney content as a child and Song was simply not readily available. If you don’t mind me asking, did you view it in Britain? Was it more available there?

That's very interesting indeed. It was readily available in theaters (well it was the new The Oglethorpe Theatre ) during my youth just up the road in Savannah, GA until the late 70's when VCRs became common. Maybe it was a regional thing ?

 

[BrerFoxesBayouAdventure]

You realize the thorns are removed because they have nothing to do with PatF?
The drop is "harder to see" (if indeed it actually is) because likewise it's in a more lush environment than one which was meant to go along with the more western look of Big Thunder and Frontierland.

Tiana at this point should be a part of Adventureland. Also, I feel like the thorny briar patch is considerably more intimidating than landing in a pile of grass but that's my opinion.

 

[999th Happy Haunt]

He's been seen in the render of the finale as well as that other piece of art of him in the small boat with Tiana. So odds are high he'll appear at least twice.

Is this render viewable online? I know it’s been mentioned a lot but I haven’t been able to find it anywhere.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Beignets incoming.

Disney Eats: Foodie Guide to Celebrate Soulfully 2024 - Disney Parks Blog

February is Black History Month and to celebrate, the culinary teams at Disney Parks are bringing on the flavor honoring Black heritage and culture.

disneyparks.disney.go.com

 

[Touchdown]

Little sad they aren’t Mickey Benigets…

 

[Brer Oswald]

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Many more photos from today as the 1-year documentation since Splash closed.

2nd and 3rd photos: the scaffolding that was covering the track going into the finale is gone now, as well as the black rectangle things being uncovered at the splashdown. No idea what those are called. Another good sign they are preparing for testing.

5th and 6th photos: I was finally able to get my camera to focus through the mesh. You can see the flowers in the 6th photo.

8th photo: I just realized today that the first lift hill out of the load station is visible from the new train station entrance, and there's no construction equipment here, on top of the rest of the visible track being cleared now.

Is that a tarp at the lift hill where Brer Frog was? I wonder if anything will be replacing him. I’d hope so.

 

[SuddenStorm]

Until I rode the WDW version of Splash Mountain for the first time five years later, I had no idea that Splash Mountain had any sort of a plot. I really just thought it was a collage of songs and fun characters with a big drop and a riverboat musical finale'. The Disneyland version was a mess storywise, although it had more animatronics and an admittedly more thrilling ride experience sitting down inside an actual log vehicle instead of the bigger, taller boats they used at WDW that put you up higher above the waterline.

I still think this is a perfectly valid approach to themed entertainment. Some of the best rides are just a collage of fun songs, characters, and scenarios- like Pirates and Mansion. They might have some loose overarching 'story' to help guide decision making and help it feel cohesive, but I firmly believe todays WDI fundamentally doesn't understand attraction design. The insistence that every new attraction be a linear story is a detriment.

I loved Baxter's interview with Spirit of the Time- where he went in to how they focused on the emotional state the riders should be in at each point of the ride, and how they built each scene to reinforce that. That was the focus out in Anaheim, not the Br'er Rabbit leaving home then ending up home plot.

 

[JD80]

I loved splash and it was a wonderful dark ride. Top 3 easily.

I never was fully invested in the story other than a rabbit leaving home, getting in to some trouble and getting home after realizing the greater world wasn't what he thought it qould be.

I never really associated the big drop as part of the story other than racing home out of danger.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Is this render viewable online? I know it’s been mentioned a lot but I haven’t been able to find it anywhere.

It was originally obtained by Splash Archive and he shared it with a couple of people in private. Someone he shared it with leaked it in this thread without permission, and it was deleted fairly quickly. Archive asked people who managed to save them not to repost them. I was lucky and saw them before they were taken down.

What was leaked was four screenshot taken from the Disneyland version of the finale with different angles. The environments don't have color or textures yet. just simple blank white geometry. Three of the renders showing closeups of the scenes contain characters. One image has no characters placed at all yet.

There are strands of lightbulbs draped across the flume between the two sides. On the left side of the flume where the Swamp Boys used to be is now some sort of gazebo-looking structure with some thin poles and railings. In the closeup of this structure, Charlotte and Eudora are standing within smiling at guests. Charlotte is wearing the exact same outfit she wore while dancing with Ralphie at the end of the film. Eudora is wearing her usual brownish clothes and is holding a parasol. There's what appears to be a table with a punch bowl in the center of the room behind them. This seems like a fairly large structure, and could easily contain quite a few additional AA figures if they wanted it to. And it does look like a big party scene. Though we'll see.

On the right side where the Riverboat used to be is now a large New Orleans style building facade. There's a bottom level with a porch landing almost right up against the water (where the water wheel was), and an upper level balcony with railing. It's not the same exact design as Tiana's Palace from the movie. There are also two curving staircases on the sides leading up to this balcony, also with their own railings and double landings each. Which is why I'm hoping they use these extra spaces for AA's. The restaurant facade in the film did not contain these extra stairs and landings. In that sense, they took some ideas from the Riverboat. I also noticed that the twisting designs within the metal railings used in both structures form vegetable shapes. In particular, bell peppers.

There are two closeups of the bottom landing. Each shows a set of two AA's. One has Naveen and Ralphie playing their instruments, Ralphie looks like the art they released and Naveen is wearing the same clothes (without the hat) he had at the beginning of the movie. The other set are Tiana and Louis in a t-pose (the default state of 3D models that haven't been posed yet). Tiana is in a long yellow dress with long sleeves that I don't recognize from the film. Louis' joints have gaps in them with rudimentary approximations of AA endoskeleton parts, so the model is probably also being used for building and animating the physical figure. All four of these characters can and probably will end up fitting within this same porch landing.

There are three other characters that aren't in these renders but which I know will appear somewhere in this finale- Naveen's parents and Big Daddy. Hopefully there will be others as well, as Splash had around 26 figures in its finale.

 

[aladdin2007]

It was originally obtained by Splash Archive and he shared it with a couple of people in private. Someone he shared it with leaked it in this thread without permission, and it was deleted fairly quickly. Archive asked people who managed to save them not to repost them. I was lucky and saw them before they were taken down.

What was leaked was four screenshot taken from the Disneyland version of the finale with different angles. The environments don't have color or textures yet. just simple blank white geometry. Three of the renders showing closeups of the scenes contain characters. One image has no characters placed at all yet.

There are strands of lightbulbs draped across the flume between the two sides. On the left side of the flume where the Swamp Boys used to be is now some sort of gazebo-looking structure with some thin poles and railings. In the closeup of this structure, Charlotte and Eudora are standing within smiling at guests. Charlotte is wearing the exact same outfit she wore while dancing with Ralphie at the end of the film. Eudora is wearing her usual brownish clothes and is holding a parasol. There's what appears to be a table with a punch bowl in the center of the room behind them. This seems like a fairly large structure, and could easily contain quite a few additional AA figures if they wanted it to. And it does look like a big party scene. Though we'll see.

On the right side where the Riverboat used to be is now a large New Orleans style building facade. There's a bottom level with a porch landing almost right up against the water (where the water wheel was), and an upper level balcony with railing. It's not the same exact design as Tiana's Palace from the movie. There are also two curving staircases on the sides leading up to this balcony, also with their own railings and double landings each. Which is why I'm hoping they use these extra spaces for AA's. The restaurant facade in the film did not contain these extra stairs and landings. In that sense, they took some ideas from the Riverboat. I also noticed that the twisting designs within the metal railings used in both structures form vegetable shapes. In particular, bell peppers.

There are two closeups of the bottom landing. Each shows a set of two AA's. One has Naveen and Ralphie playing their instruments, Ralphie looks like the art they released and Naveen is wearing the same clothes (without the hat) he had at the beginning of the movie. The other set are Tiana and Louis in a t-pose (the default state of 3D models that haven't been posed yet). Tiana is in a long yellow dress with long sleeves that I don't recognize from the film. Louis' joints have gaps in them with rudimentary approximations of AA endoskeleton parts, so the model is probably also being used for building and animating the physical figure. All four of these characters can and probably will end up fitting within this same porch landing.

There are three other characters that aren't in these renders but which I know will appear somewhere in this finale- Naveen's parents and Big Daddy. Hopefully there will be others as well, as Splash had around 26 figures in its finale.

while that sounds interesting, my concern with the described scene is if it will still be lush like the riverboat scene, meaning all the swampy trees and leaves overhead etc...because last heard one of the rumors was this would be a giant screen backdrop with little else.(think mermaids flat warehouse finale)...maybe that was part of the long ago plan before more budget was added but still,,,just hoping they integrate scenery and were not left with big barren spaces and exposed ceilings because that is a large space to fill. And it better have plenty of critters making a second appearance in some form...They have a lot they are going to be graded on here and held accountable to, its going be interesting to see what gets high praise and what gets complaints.

 

[ChesireCat11]

It was originally obtained by Splash Archive and he shared it with a couple of people in private. Someone he shared it with leaked it in this thread without permission, and it was deleted fairly quickly. Archive asked people who managed to save them not to repost them. I was lucky and saw them before they were taken down.

What was leaked was four screenshot taken from the Disneyland version of the finale with different angles. The environments don't have color or textures yet. just simple blank white geometry. Three of the renders showing closeups of the scenes contain characters. One image has no characters placed at all yet.

There are strands of lightbulbs draped across the flume between the two sides. On the left side of the flume where the Swamp Boys used to be is now some sort of gazebo-looking structure with some thin poles and railings. In the closeup of this structure, Charlotte and Eudora are standing within smiling at guests. Charlotte is wearing the exact same outfit she wore while dancing with Ralphie at the end of the film. Eudora is wearing her usual brownish clothes and is holding a parasol. There's what appears to be a table with a punch bowl in the center of the room behind them. This seems like a fairly large structure, and could easily contain quite a few additional AA figures if they wanted it to. And it does look like a big party scene. Though we'll see.

On the right side where the Riverboat used to be is now a large New Orleans style building facade. There's a bottom level with a porch landing almost right up against the water (where the water wheel was), and an upper level balcony with railing. It's not the same exact design as Tiana's Palace from the movie. There are also two curving staircases on the sides leading up to this balcony, also with their own railings and double landings each. Which is why I'm hoping they use these extra spaces for AA's. The restaurant facade in the film did not contain these extra stairs and landings. In that sense, they took some ideas from the Riverboat. I also noticed that the twisting designs within the metal railings used in both structures form vegetable shapes. In particular, bell peppers.

There are two closeups of the bottom landing. Each shows a set of two AA's. One has Naveen and Ralphie playing their instruments, Ralphie looks like the art they released and Naveen is wearing the same clothes (without the hat) he had at the beginning of the movie. The other set are Tiana and Louis in a t-pose (the default state of 3D models that haven't been posed yet). Tiana is in a long yellow dress with long sleeves that I don't recognize from the film. Louis' joints have gaps in them with rudimentary approximations of AA endoskeleton parts, so the model is probably also being used for building and animating the physical figure. All four of these characters can and probably will end up fitting within this same porch landing.

There are three other characters that aren't in these renders but which I know will appear somewhere in this finale- Naveen's parents and Big Daddy. Hopefully there will be others as well, as Splash had around 26 figures in its finale.

Wow, it sounds promising. I'm sure they will add in mama odie somewhere as well

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I still think this is a perfectly valid approach to themed entertainment. Some of the best rides are just a collage of fun songs, characters, and scenarios- like Pirates and Mansion. They might have some loose overarching 'story' to help guide decision making and help it feel cohesive, but I firmly believe todays WDI fundamentally doesn't understand attraction design. The insistence that every new attraction be a linear story is a detriment.

I loved Baxter's interview with Spirit of the Time- where he went in to how they focused on the emotional state the riders should be in at each point of the ride, and how they built each scene to reinforce that. That was the focus out in Anaheim, not the Br'er Rabbit leaving home then ending up home plot.

The TBA discussion reminds me a lot of the Cosmic rewind discussion prior to its opening…

People don’t think it fits the land, just like Cosmic Rewind, and they don’t like the convoluted backstory intended to make it fit the land, just like they didn’t like the “Starlord visited Epcot as a kid and convinced Zandor to sponsor a Epcot pavilion“ backstory.

Hopefully the interior ride of TBA delivers as much as Cosmic rewind does because we still complain about the big blue box but the rest of the complaints have died down.

I don’t know if WDI’s lost their creativity or they are just being told to incorporate specific IPs into areas they don’t really fit and the imagineers are having to come up with crazier and crazier backstories to shoehorn them in.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

while that sounds interesting, my concern with the described scene is if it will still be lush like the riverboat scene, meaning all the swampy trees and leaves overhead etc...because last heard one of the rumors was this would be a giant screen backdrop with little else.(think mermaids flat warehouse finale)...maybe that was part of the long ago plan before more budget was added but still,,,just hoping they integrate scenery and were not left with big barren spaces and exposed ceilings because that is a large space to fill. And it better have plenty of critters making a second appearance in some form.

The structures in the renders don't LOOK very flat to me. It's a facade built up against a wall of course, but there's a lot of physical detail being put into that facade. It's not just a fully flat wall that they're projecting an image of the restaurant facade onto. It looks like the new buildings are probably just as physically detailed as the riverboat was. I think projections will be used on the walls, or to give the flatter surfaces of the structures some animated elements.

I can't tell much of anything about the ceiling. Though there are some vague pieces of geometry stretched overhead that I strongly suspect are supposed to represent physical tree branches and may contain greenery. There are other shapes on the building that may also represent garlands, ivy or something else greenery related. They also have some very rudimentary billboard-like shapes of swampy grass and water lilies sticking out of the surface of the water.

But these are clearly just basic diagrams that don't contain nearly as much detail as the final product will. Even the primitive virtual ride through of 7DMT shown at D23 back in 2013 was in a much more finalized and detailed state.

Wow, it sounds promising. I'm sure they will add in mama odie somewhere as well

Mama Odie is confirmed to appear at least one at the top of the final lift. I'm not sure if she'll appear elsewhere in the ride, it's possible though. Especially if Alicia Stella's claims are accurate.

 

[Brer Oswald]

It was originally obtained by Splash Archive and he shared it with a couple of people in private. Someone he shared it with leaked it in this thread without permission, and it was deleted fairly quickly. Archive asked people who managed to save them not to repost them. I was lucky and saw them before they were taken down.

What was leaked was four screenshot taken from the Disneyland version of the finale with different angles. The environments don't have color or textures yet. just simple blank white geometry. Three of the renders showing closeups of the scenes contain characters. One image has no characters placed at all yet.

There are strands of lightbulbs draped across the flume between the two sides. On the left side of the flume where the Swamp Boys used to be is now some sort of gazebo-looking structure with some thin poles and railings. In the closeup of this structure, Charlotte and Eudora are standing within smiling at guests. Charlotte is wearing the exact same outfit she wore while dancing with Ralphie at the end of the film. Eudora is wearing her usual brownish clothes and is holding a parasol. There's what appears to be a table with a punch bowl in the center of the room behind them. This seems like a fairly large structure, and could easily contain quite a few additional AA figures if they wanted it to. And it does look like a big party scene. Though we'll see.

On the right side where the Riverboat used to be is now a large New Orleans style building facade. There's a bottom level with a porch landing almost right up against the water (where the water wheel was), and an upper level balcony with railing. It's not the same exact design as Tiana's Palace from the movie. There are also two curving staircases on the sides leading up to this balcony, also with their own railings and double landings each. Which is why I'm hoping they use these extra spaces for AA's. The restaurant facade in the film did not contain these extra stairs and landings. In that sense, they took some ideas from the Riverboat. I also noticed that the twisting designs within the metal railings used in both structures form vegetable shapes. In particular, bell peppers.

There are two closeups of the bottom landing. Each shows a set of two AA's. One has Naveen and Ralphie playing their instruments, Ralphie looks like the art they released and Naveen is wearing the same clothes (without the hat) he had at the beginning of the movie. The other set are Tiana and Louis in a t-pose (the default state of 3D models that haven't been posed yet). Tiana is in a long yellow dress with long sleeves that I don't recognize from the film. Louis' joints have gaps in them with rudimentary approximations of AA endoskeleton parts, so the model is probably also being used for building and animating the physical figure. All four of these characters can and probably will end up fitting within this same porch landing.

There are three other characters that aren't in these renders but which I know will appear somewhere in this finale- Naveen's parents and Big Daddy. Hopefully there will be others as well, as Splash had around 26 figures in its finale.

Looking at the images, I have a hard time seeing how Big Daddy or any other large human could fit in the scene. Rather, I think it will be more likely that the large windows on the restaurant double as animated screens for the extended cast to “walk by”. More probable it would seem would be for some animal critters to be spread throughout the unused areas.

 

[Stitchon]

The TBA discussion reminds me a lot of the Cosmic rewind discussion prior to its opening…

People don’t think it fits the land, just like Cosmic Rewind, and they don’t like the convoluted backstory intended to make it fit the land, just like they didn’t like the “Starlord visited Epcot as a kid and convinced Zandor to sponsor a Epcot pavilion“ backstory.

Hopefully the interior ride of TBA delivers as much as Cosmic rewind does because we still complain about the big blue box but the rest of the complaints have died down.

I don’t know if WDI’s lost their creativity or they are just being told to incorporate specific IPs into areas they don’t really fit and the imagineers are having to come up with crazier and crazier backstories to shoehorn them in.

Many folks, including former Imagineers, have chimed in and said the company is mandating the use of specific IPs in attractions. I do remember Tom Morris pointing out in a podcast that things like Mission Breakout were "top-down" decisions where executives told them to make it happen and WDI was left to figure out how. He also pointed out they spent enough money on it that they could have built a decent new attraction and contributed to capacity in the park, but I digress.

I think this was the same podcast where he mentioned the Shanghai Pirates' price tag, which I believe was $450 million, and stunned Tony Baxter and everyone running the show into silence.

Not to say the execution on behalf of WDI has been perfect, but there are many factors conspiring against them. And occasionally, little projects like the Adventureland Treehouse slip through and show that WDI can still create something great.

 

[UNCgolf]

Hopefully the interior ride of TBA delivers as much as Cosmic rewind does because we still complain about the big blue box but the rest of the complaints have died down.

I hope the TBA interior is much, much better than Cosmic Rewind (preshow aside, although I don't think that's especially great) or this will be wildly disappointing. Cosmic Rewind could be a much better attraction if they'd actually put anything interesting in the interior!

Not saying Cosmic Rewind is bad -- but it's "just" a good coaster with fun music. They failed pretty badly on the theming/story for the on-ride portion.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Looking at the images, I have a hard time seeing how Big Daddy or any other large human could fit in the scene. Rather, I think it will be more likely that the large windows on the restaurant double as animated screens for the extended cast to “walk by”. More probable it would seem would be for some animal critters to be spread throughout the unused areas.

I'm sure all the humans will be AA's, not projections. Even Splash Archive amended his earlier quantity to also include Big Daddy and the King/Queen as AA's when I reminded him of their inclusion in the ride. Though I don't know whether they're placing them in the structure on the left side or on the other side.

Louis is going to be the largest figure in the entire scene. The render shows him on the lower level of the main structure, and there's still plenty of space remaining to his right. If they do intend to place all of the figures where they appear on the various renders, the bottom layer of the structure will have (from left to right) Louis, Ralphie, Tiana and finally Naveen kind of layered partially behind Tiana and to the right of Tiana placed on the first few stairs. This also seems to indicate that they might place figures directly on the stairs. Not just the flat platforms of the porch, landings and balcony.

And I don't know why you think those landings and balcony don't have enough space, they appear to have plenty even for large human figures. Even Big Daddy. They would likely have space issues if it was Louis (what with his weird shape, tail and complex design), but pretty much anything else should fit fine.

 

[splah]

from the dedicated pages: "Join Princess Tiana and jazz-loving alligator Louis on their journey through a shimmering bayou as they prepare for a spirited celebration during Mardi Gras season. Along the way, you'll see familiar faces and make new friends as you're brought into the next chapter of Tiana's inspiring story."

^ ^ that right there is all they ever needed to release to the public.

Then when they installed the water tower, all you needed to say was oh this is tiana's next business, she's making food for everyone that can't get to her restaurant. done. full stop.

WDI, and more so marketing, need to practice restraint. rather than churning out "content" focus on quality of information

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

I hope the TBA interior is much, much better than Cosmic Rewind (preshow aside, although I don't think that's especially great) or this will be wildly disappointing. Cosmic Rewind could be a much better attraction if they'd actually put anything interesting in the interior!

Not saying Cosmic Rewind is bad -- but it's "just" a good coaster with fun music. They failed pretty badly on the theming/story for the on-ride portion.

I don't like Cosmic Rewind. Even the expectations of it being a roller coaster through dark space fell far short of what they advertised when it was first announced. In terms of scenery, a lot of it feels more like an updated Space Mountain than anything. The GOTG IP has some insanely detailed planet environments, but they largely ignored them in favor of black voids with some scattered stars and an occasional projection of ships flying around or the large bad guy.

The concept art showed some more ambitious planet and space designs that never made it in. The small video screens of the Guardians lined up along the first tunnel are also lazy. I at least expected an animatronics group congratulating guests at the end, but nope, just a projection. Apparently AA's were planned at one point but cut. It's truly baffling that they spent $500 million on this thing, because I can't for the life of me figure out where much of it went...

While I have strong doubts that Tiana can match up to what it's replacing, I do at least expect it to be a more similar interior experience to its predecessor than GOTG was compared to what it replaced.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I hope the TBA interior is much, much better than Cosmic Rewind (preshow aside, although I don't think that's especially great) or this will be wildly disappointing. Cosmic Rewind could be a much better attraction if they'd actually put anything interesting in the interior!

Not saying Cosmic Rewind is bad -- but it's "just" a good coaster with fun music. They failed pretty badly on the theming/story for the on-ride portion.

I just meant the actual ride inside the building, not the theming, the ride experience delivers, but I agree the theming itself is lacking.