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

[DisneyHead123]

I feel this ride is a ride-thru metaphor of the crisis Disney is in. An identity crisis. They have no idea who or what they are anymore and everything about this ride screams that. Duh, Tony Baxter left. It's hard to have a long-lasting relationship with someone with such a prominent and confident identity just to see them crumble over their own embarrassing way to stay relevant.

It's a tough pill to swallow but who are these people anymore?

I guess I see it more as a matter of style vs. substance in the social media age.

I would give them an A+ for style on this ride, although I totally get that it’s a style that doesn’t resonate with everyone. And I think style overall is an area where Disney has done pretty well recently, with Instagram-able food offerings and such. It’s the substance that seems to be the issue - that doesn’t seem to be resonating with people. On this particular ride and also in areas like recent movie offerings, as their box office has been suffering.

 

[Vclguy90]

I guess I see it more as a matter of style vs. substance in the social media age.

I would give them an A+ for style on this ride, although I totally get that it’s a style that doesn’t resonate with everyone. And I think style overall is an area where Disney has done pretty well recently, with Instagram-able food offerings and such. It’s the substance that seems to be the issue - that doesn’t seem to be resonating with people. On this particular ride and also in areas like recent movie offerings, as their box office has been suffering.

It's super sad.

 

[Figments Friend]

Another Tony baxter attraction ruined.

Gee, it’s almost like this is being done on purpose….
Not the first time.



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[photomatt]

Maybe the PR team feels the same way and want higher ups to hear it too...

Comments are enabled so a third party marketing team can summarize the responses and present them to management. That's why the video was posted.

At least one higher-up realizes how much the ride sucks and is trying to do whatever he/she can to try to fix it.

Disney also has people who monitor the forums and present reports to management. Individual posts might not be reported, but the general sentiment is. That's a fact.

 

[ProjectXBlog]

I will never understand the decision by Disney to try to quell uncertainty and negativity by releasing a POV from a high-quality camera that’s fixed to the log in one position. Just give someone a phone!

As far as the ride, I like the lighting and I love the animatronics. I just don’t know about everything else. There is a big difference between watching a ridethrough at home and actually being on the damn thing, where sensory overload can make the experience feel more “full,” but the video really doesn’t give much hope. From what I could see, there was an attempt to replace “business” with “atmosphere,” which is simply misguided for a ride like this. You need to be constantly distracted on a ride like this; giving the audience time to think and ponder works on a simple dark ride, but not an E-ticket thriller like this flume. So much space in these vast warehouse rooms are taken up by a simple aesthetic and not actual character work — and there’s so much opportunity for it!

That’s the biggest loss to me: replacing a show that has lots of fun bits and business featuring critters with another show about critters that have zero “business” outside of plot-dictated musicality, and therefore barely any personality to run with. Speaking of plot, that element really fell flat for me. I’m a big fan of the story element of these shows — not like a Joseph Campbell “Hero’s Journey” snob, but I do see it as a crucial element — and it seems like this show has 3 different stories trying to compete with each other. Jonathan Gold (food reviewer for the LA Times) said that the number one question he asked himself when reviewing a meal was “why?” Why this plate? Why these ingredients? Literally every element of a meal had a “why” element, and only the best chefs could give a fair response to every “why.” There is a lot of “why” here and I struggle to guess what the responses could be from our chefs.

It’s all truly bizarre for a company with this creative pedigree. It’s wrong to put all of this on the names of one or two Imagineers; it’s not like any one or two people can possibly have that much pull in an organization like this. However, there is a troublesome trend here with WDI to make shows like this too broad; there’s a sense that this was designed with the intent to make it easily digestible for all countries and cultures (you never know when Tokyo will give up the ghost), thus stripping it of any identity at all. This isn’t limited to just WDI, but all of Disney nowadays, and that’s just the way things go. It’ll be very funny when TBA gets shuttered in 30 years and an entire generation will lament the loss of their childhoods.

I still plan on riding to make a final judgement, but as someone who was all-in on this, I feel like Disney hand-delivered a reality check.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I guess I see it more as a matter of style vs. substance in the social media age.

I would give them an A+ for style on this ride, although I totally get that it’s a style that doesn’t resonate with everyone. And I think style overall is an area where Disney has done pretty well recently, with Instagram-able food offerings and such. It’s the substance that seems to be the issue - that doesn’t seem to be resonating with people. On this particular ride and also in areas like recent movie offerings, as their box office has been suffering.

Disneys sliding attendance and cash crunch in the parks (more on that coming…) is because they have let their parks fall behind in the primary reasons people go…
To have more things to do than they can fit and go home feeling like they were thanked for the money.

Humanity 101

New cupcakes and liege waffles at stands look great on DFB…but that won’t reverse the problem

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

It’s truly bizarre. It’s wrong to put all of this on the names of one or two Imagineers; it’s not like any one or two people can possibly have that much pull in an organization like this. However, there is a troublesome trend here with WDI to make shows like this too broad; there’s a sense that this was designed with the intent to make it easily digestible for all countries and cultures (you never know when Tokyo will give up the ghost), thus stripping it of any identity at all. This isn’t limited to just WDI, but all of Disney nowadays, and that’s just the way things go. It’ll be very funny when TBA gets shuttered in 30 years and an entire generation will lament the loss of their childhoods.

 

[SuddenStorm]

did they use less experienced imagineers and artists for this? it just seems like such a bungle resource and story wise for something with a lot of promise. PatF is an amazing story with rich characters , scenery and a perfect villain. also what’s with her wearing safari clothes?

Nope, but today's WDI is nothing compared to 30 years ago.

 

[Tha Realest]

WDI absolutely has to be questioned at this point?

What are they actually building that is good? The track record is now looking very bad. Everything is too much…and the results are too short or have awful stories and/or re-ride factors.

The resorts leave a lot to be desired. Contemporary refurb, Riviera, Poly DVC tower, Wilderness Lodge cabins. Only bright spots are GF resort studios and Poly DVCs…maybe? I worry what they’re cooking for GF lobby.

Cruise line? I haven’t gone on the Wish, due to what I’ve heard of people that have.

And the parks. Let’s give them ROTR, Cosmic Rewind and DL MMRR. Heck, even the MF queue. This ride looks terrible. Rat and Tron were copies. Webslingers. Moana walkthrough. Hundreds of millions wasted at Epcot (“World Discovery” and HarmoniUs).

 

[SuddenStorm]

I remember being told multiple times on here that 'No matter what, it's the same long flume so it will be good because the log flume is what matters, not the theme'

I'd think this is exhibit A on how much the theme, music, set design contribute to making the attraction good- the ride system is only one part of a bigger picture.

 

[SuddenStorm]

Comments are enabled so a third party marketing team can summarize the responses and present them to management. That's why the video was posted.

At least one higher-up realizes how much the ride sucks and is trying to do whatever he/she can to try to fix it.

Disney also has people who monitor the forums and present reports to management. Individual posts might not be reported, but the general sentiment is. That's a fact.

If this is the case, how do you think Disney responds?

 

[WondersOfLife]

Trust me my dude, I’m not wondering. I was well aware of what I was signing up for when I created my account 16 years ago. I was just posting MY opinion on the site, which is kind of the idea, no?

Your opinion is fine. Its the ridiculing of other forum members' opinions thats an issue.

 

[DisneyHead123]

Disneys sliding attendance and cash crunch in the parks (more on that coming…) is because they have let their parks fall behind in the primary reasons people go…
To have more things to do than they can fit and go home feeling like they were thanked for the money.

Humanity 101

New cupcakes and liege waffles at stands look great on DFB…but that won’t reverse the problem

I mean balance in all things, right? There’s a place for beautiful cupcakes, but in movies and rides, there has to be a gripping emotional arc as well. (Edit - for most people. Like I said, I actually like the sparkle-happy-sparkle vibe of the new ride, but I seem to be the only one, lol.)

 

[Tha Realest]

The big red flag for me is the sparse information on the actual ride itself. The interior show scenes have always been the real meat and potatoes of the experience that separates it from the vast majority of other log flumes. And we know so absurdly little about this. I don't know if it's because they want to keep it a surprise, or if there are quality concerns causing them to withhold information. Either way, the marketing has been bizarre and terrible, actually turning off a lot more people than had they just kept quiet until opening.

They need to start showing off actual ride content that people actually want to hear about. Stop the endless travel vlogs of the team visiting New Orleans and self aggrandizing over how incredible and talented they are. Or the never ending flood of backstory details that probably (hopefully) won't even be a factor for like 99% of the ride.

Going back though old posts. This was very prescient.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

That friend of yours who claimed this would be great? I'm now even more suspicious of his claims that the Disneyland version will retain all the America Sings animatronics. None of their Magic Kingdom counterparts survived the retheme we got.

I don't think Disneyland will retain all of the old AS animatronics either. Though if what Splash Archive said on Twitter is correct, there should be a few that return. How many that entails, I don't know. I will note that what my friend claimed was also specifically about the Disneyland version, but I'd still very much assume that "all" of the old figures (or even a significant number) is not accurate. DL's Laughing Place was longer and contained more figures than WDW's did though, so it'll be even emptier than WDW's TBA (which is already quite sparse) if they don't keep some of their old characters.

 

[lightningtap347]

I REALLY wanted this to be good. Splash was my favorite ride, and I thought with all the prescient negativity the imagineers would really turn on the jets and knock it out of the park.

Maybe it'll be better in person. I feel like the South Park kids watching Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

 

[roro494]

not to bring up banner-gate for the 900th time but in the finale alone there is a banner outside that says "welcome," then 50 feet behind that is a metal sign that says "welcome," THEN there's another banner in the indoor show scene that says "welcome" again?

 

[Vclguy90]

If this is the case, how do you think Disney responds?

It's Disney. Their only response to things is give them less and charge em more. They could care less. This isn't the old Disney that would listen to the fans to change at our displeasure. This is going to be the ride for the next 20 years. They will probably postpone more upcoming attractions to "make sure it's right, since recent attractions havn't been praised greatly by fans," and claim it's a service to us.

 

[photomatt]

If this is the case, how do you think Disney responds?

Disney management won't respond to opinions alone. They will eventually respond if an investment does not generate the expected revenue or attendance boost. Superstar Limo is an example. The ride received horrible reviews and low attendance so it was shut down in less than a year.

DCA is also an example. The attendance did not meet expectations, so Disney eventually invested billions to make an attempt to fix it. Sure, it's better now than it was, but it's still no parking lot.

ETA: I think Disney is using the opinions they get now to make estimates on attendance and hotel bookings (and similar). They might also use these opinions to increase or decrease the marketing budget, or, to figure out what guests respond to most favorably and market that.

 

[Tha Realest]

Disney management won't respond to opinions alone. They will eventually respond if an investment does not generate the expected revenue or attendance boost. Superstar Limo is an example. The ride received horrible reviews and low attendance so it was shut down in less than a year.

DCA is also an example. The attendance did not meet expectations, so Disney eventually invested billions to make an attempt to fix it. Sure, it's better now than it was, but it's still no parking lot.

TBA has the benefit of being a high Throughput attraction in a park desperate for capacity. It will never be allowed to be unpopular