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

[MK-fan]

I mean, the music throughout has this problem. I hear Mama Odie singing Dig a Little Deeper on the lift hill despite her also having dialogue at the same time. I hear Tiana singing Almost There right after we see her.

Previously the music would play the instrumental version first to introduce it then build into a full musical number with characters actually singing the songs "in person." The outside set up How Do You Do which then paid off after the first splash which was a fantastic reveal. For DL, Laughin Place was set up with the buzzing area and then after the 2nd dip the song exploded into singing. Laughin Place then moved to minor chords and became Burrow's Lament, which started as music underscore, built to a lament being sung, which then built into full choral music making the lift feel epic. After the drop we get the instrumental of Zip to let us reset and introduce the finale song before diving into the final scene to see it explode around us.

Now, they just have music from the movie playing under difference sequences.

Not to mention they’re playing Ray’s song and he’s dead (sorry for the spoilers but it’s been 15 years!!!!)

 

[Sir_Cliff]

Not merely superfluous, but inappropriate. It feels somehow insulting to invoke the cause of labour welfare for an attraction focused on musical animals.

The more I think about it, the more strange it is that they are really setting up this ride to be about food but, once you drift by that first outdoor garden section, it has nothing to do with food. All the signage for the queue, the water tower, the delivery truck, etc., etc. all suggest you're about to take a ride set in a food co-op. Then, you get on the ride and it's about gathering animals in the bayou to play in the band at a party in New Orleans!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I mean, it does show that even 'casual fans' don't like this. There's been a sentiment on here that critics of this will never be placated, but the 'casual park goer' will love it (as if people aren't able to be critics without spending time on a parks forum).

120,000 views and counting, and a 50/50 like ratio is hardly a home run.

"Far from a home run" I think is fair ... I mean, I really like I but also don't think it is perfect/a home run

But some of the negative takes go too far - just hard to look at something without nostalgic glasses for what came before (which also wasn't perfect)

 

[SuddenStorm]

"Far from a home run" I think is fair ... I mean, I really like I but also don't think it is perfect/a home run

But some of the negative takes go too far - just hard to look at something without nostalgic glasses for what came before (which also wasn't perfect)

I think it's really important to highlight that Splash Mountain was the highest rated ride at the resort on guest surveys.

I'm sure we could go through and dissect Splash and find things to make it better - especially since it's 30 years old - but something about it clicked with guests and it was beloved.

Disney closing their highest rated ride for a retheme is unprecedented, and is in large part why this retheme has been under so much scrutiny.

This ride needed to be a home run.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

The more I think about it, the more strange it is that they are really setting up this ride to be about food but, once you drift by that first outdoor garden section, it has nothing to do with food. All the signage for the queue, the water tower, the delivery truck, etc., etc. all suggest you're about to take a ride set in a food co-op. Then, you get on the ride and it's about gathering animals in the bayou to play in the band at a party in New Orleans!

It's just background on how Tiana has expanded her empire after the movie and they are having a celebration and looking for band members for said celebration

Not saying it is perfect but I don't see a major issue - they just spent too long covering the "background" on the lead up to the ride when not a major part of the actual ride experience

 

[Virtual Toad]

I agree with you normally, but honestly at this point this is a huge release of frustration.

It isn't aimed at everyone criticizing the attraction because not everyone has been this way and there are things worth criticizing.

But ever since this got underway, there have been a segment of people on this forum, on Twitter, on Reddit, and beyond who seemingly made it their life's mission to make this whole process as absolutely miserable for everyone as humanly possible. They were unhappy so they worked long and hard to make sure everyone else was unhappy too.

Every step of the way, it was picking apart one thing or another to the point that it was inevitable that they were going to hate the final product, even if it was the greatest attraction Disney had ever done. Every time someone said they liked something, they were forced to justify it because some found it so unimaginable that someone could like it that they simply couldn't just let people be happy and had to demand the reasons why they could possibly enjoy what they were seeing.

It has never been popular to be excited for this ride, just as it won't be popular in Disney fan spaces for anyone to enjoy it. It's all been one giant echo chamber of hating it while everyone who doesn't had to sit there and defend it. And that's just so....insane for a theme park ride. It's a ride. A ride. And it's been treated like some gigantic sin that represents the moral decay of everything to do with the parks.

To everyone who's not felt super excited along the way but tried their best to engage in good faith with it and found themselves still disappointed in it, that is so, so, so valid. I've felt the same way in regards to some attractions. This frustration is not at all aimed at them.

It's at the people who've spent the last year being completely, unashamedly negative about every little thing and can't even spare one even semi-positive remark because apparently that'd just be too much. I hope when some time has passed from opening, those people can look back on their behavior through all this and realize just how ridiculous it all has been and hopefully never devote that much time and energy to being this way over a theme park ride again.

Sorry for the essay, sorry if this is aggressive, I don't mean for it to be. This is just the culmination of so much annoyance and frustration that has absolutely ruined this whole process, my first time really getting to follow a ride's development from beginning to end, something that ought to've been joyous and exciting for a Disney nerd to get to do. Thank God I'm still looking forward to riding the ride, but lord I'm almost to the point of joining these people in wishing it didn't exist if only it means all this insane immature noise stops.

What is with the uptick in bashing people for the way they express negative opinions?

 

[Homemade Imagineering]

Where are the spoonbills or other critters?? Filling out scenes with more minor animated critters would have done wonders, makes me wonder if this was a plan of theirs and was completely cut

 

[TalkToEthan]

This ride needed to be a home run.

And ended up reaching first base on an error

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I think it's really important to highlight that Splash Mountain was the highest rated ride at the resort on guest surveys.

I'm sure we could go through and dissect Splash and find things to make it better - especially since it's 30 years old - but something about it clicked with guests and it was beloved.

Disney closing their highest rated ride for a retheme is unprecedented, and is in large part why this retheme has been under so much scrutiny.

This ride needed to be a home run.

Whether we like or not Disney had their reasons for closing it - *something* was going to be done. I think this is far from the worst that could have happened and the ride system is still in place, which I think was the most brilliant part of the ride

Guess just trying to focus on the positive aspects - of which I think there are a number of

 

[Animaniac93-98]

The more I think about it, the more strange it is that they are really setting up this ride to be about food but, once you drift by that first outdoor garden section, it has nothing to do with food. All the signage for the queue, the water tower, the delivery truck, etc., etc. all suggest you're about to take a ride set in a food co-op. Then, you get on the ride and it's about gathering animals in the bayou to play in the band at a party in New Orleans!

I didn't catch anything in the video, but do they acknowledge the Salt Dome conceit either?

Seems a lot of stuff talked about the ride previously, ultimately meant very little.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Can someone explain this “shrinking part” for me. So the story is to find musicians for the party and they find all these critters to be part of the band and Tiana wants you to find more so she has Mama Odie shrink you to go into some log thing and find two frogs (all I saw) and then apparently that was enough so she makes you big again and has you go down a waterfall to get their quicker. Am I missing anything?

I think that is the gist of it (obviously frogs being a big part of the movie) - I do think, at least based on the video, this segment could have been better/more impact ful

 

[Incomudro]

I think it's really important to highlight that Splash Mountain was the highest rated ride at the resort on guest surveys.

I'm sure we could go through and dissect Splash and find things to make it better - especially since it's 30 years old - but something about it clicked with guests and it was beloved.

Disney closing their highest rated ride for a retheme is unprecedented, and is in large part why this retheme has been under so much scrutiny.

This ride needed to be a home run.

Imagine today's tech, lighting etc., augmenting an updated Splash?

 

[Ice Gator]

Where are the spoonbills or other critters?? Filling out scenes with more minor animated critters would have done wonders, makes me wonder if this was a plan of theirs and was completely cut

Oh yeah? Those birds that sing alongside Mama Odi in the movie are entirely absent unless I missed them.

 

[TheRealSkull]

Imagine today's tech, lighting etc., augmenting an updated Splash?

Imagine the 5th gate is an entire park is dedicated to retired attractions. Then your dream could come true.

 

[SuddenStorm]

Imagine today's tech, lighting etc., augmenting an updated Splash?

I had that hope for years, and it would have been amazing. Especially with tasteful projection mapping added to the Splash sets.

 

[mf1972]

i wasn’t going to watch the video, but after seeing the article here on mixed reviews, i decided to watch it. i like the animatronics & visually, its not bad looking. otherwise, thats it. huge miss by not having facilier anywhere in the ride, which is a shame.
it’s no splash mountain, but i’ll still give it a try & judge for myself. otherwise it comes off as navi river journey with songs.

 

[The Leader of the Club]

I didn't catch anything in the video, but do they acknowledge the Salt Dome conceit either?

Seems a lot of stuff talked about the ride previously, ultimately meant very little.

Looking solely at the attraction, almost nothing they revealed mattered at all.
The Salt Dome, the employee-owned Co-op, the backstories for the critters, the New Orleans culture, etc. were all nonexistent in the actual attraction.

If Disney spent half as much time thinking about the story of the actual attraction instead of its backstory, we would have been much better off.

 

[davis_unoxx]

“Everybody’s got a laughing place”

 

[JohnD]

I just finished the video. Alas, I can’t deny that I’m disappointed. Unlike some here, I don’t think the ride looks empty—I find the interiors sufficiently lush and interesting—but the lack of any narrative tension or excitement is very much to the detriment of the experience. I also really dislike the screens.

I don’t think it’s a bad attraction in itself, and I’m reasonably confident it will be more enjoyable in person, but the final product isn’t strong enough to stop me from missing Splash.

After watching, I find the interiors as sufficiently lush and interesting as NRJ. Lots of empty space until AAs (NRJ - 1 AA) show up.

 

[brb1006]

Just seen a couple online reactions from Japanese Disney fans reacting to the POV footage for this ride. Let's just say they weren't impressed at all.