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

[JohnD]

Sounds like Scott was given a not so small share of the Co-Op Business.

A fair review so I would disagree with your characterization of it. I'd lean slightly more negative than positive but he did hit on many of the aspects a lot of us feel could have been done better - spread out the critters, story doesn't make sense, you're looking ahead rather than around at your surroundings, Disney doesn't know how to release a good video.

 

[Tha Realest]

Quote from The NY Times article -

“We’re always looking at ways to cast a wider net,” Mr. Robledo said.
“With the old property, for a variety of reasons, it wasn’t that relevant anymore.
It had kind of run its course.”

What the fluff…..
This comment above just burns me …


There was nothing that was ‘not revelant’ or showing any signs of having ‘run its course’ with the former Attraction.



( Fire breathing dragon mode, tonight….)

-

they wanted relevance…like the fifth highest grossing animated film of 2009 that killed hand drawn animation at Disney forever.

 

[Homemade Imagineering]

The original Mondo

 

[SilentWindODoom]

Despite all the heated talk in the last two pages that will likely be gone soon, I just want to say how incredibly funny it is that Basil said he was making a co-op joke and how close it sounded to suggesting Scott was on the take was accidental and people still keep responding to it and telling him he was wrong.

 

[Tha Realest]

It is pretty hilarious the people the NYT quotes positively are an influencer that advertises how much she charges for promotional posts and Drew.

 

[EagleScout610]

Remember folks, this is what Disney's fighting EU with

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Remember folks, this is what Disney's fighting EU with

The way Louis' eyes continue to roll around while the rest of him is frozen is hilarious.

You know what this means though. Since so much is broken in the ride, they HAVE to retheme it again. Not my rule, it's just how it is. That was one of the main reasons why its predecessor had to go after all. Too broken to keep it going. Tiana had her time, but now the ride has clearly deteriorated over so many minutes of operation to the point where it can no longer continue to limp on any further. Time to put this ancient and dilapidated attraction out to pasture.

Maybe they'll retheme it to Wish next. I hear everyone loved that movie, and it did so well at the box office too! And after it also has a nice long 2 weeks of operation, it'll be time to send it up the river as well to make way for the retheme to Strange World.

 

[Brer Oswald]

Just because someone likes the ride doesn’t mean they were bribed or paid off.

Scott’s been Disney’s unofficial Twitter account for years now.

 

[Incomudro]

Remember folks, this is what Disney's fighting EU with

Just what I said about these scenes having no composition.
If the AA's aren't moving and talking there is nothing.

 

[Chomama]

Hundreds of pages of commentary aside…I had the opportunity to ride the new version today with my daughter (17) and son (7). Splash was a favorite in our house, but we understood the reasons for the change and take no issue with it. I let the kids go in blind. No preview videos and I didn’t know the ride story - did not read spoilers so I could have an honest reaction. Thoughts so far, take them or leave them, just sharing our experience.
The bad:
1). The ride was down for two hours when we were supposed to ride. The CMs did make sure we could come back later in the day, but that was a lot to down time first thing in the morning for an attraction that is supposed to open to the public soon
2) in the last show scene Tiana was frozen. We were stuck for ten mins and she never moved
3) the music is so loud throughout the ride that none of us know what the backstory actually is. Why are they going into a salt mine to find a band? Could not understand what people are saying?
4) general lack of build up, problem, solution. Wish they had used the shadow man to accomplish that. Can’t figure out why they didjt

Good:
1) the ride is stunning. The new animatronics and flowers/scenery are truly perfection.
2) the queue is a huge improvement
3) it’s fun to have something new to enjoy
4) everyone in our lot really enjoyed Louis animatronic. He’s such an upgrade from
The older animatronics. So so good
5) many were commenting that they didn’t think Disney could still do good animatronics after the Norway face projections. This is a huge improvement and really cool to see

Overall the ratings
7 year old - I mean fine but kind of boring. Still like the drop
17 year old - I love that movie. The ride is so pretty but I am
Not sure what’s going on? There is a lot of downtime between scenes
Me - I am
Happy to ride again. Could have been way worse. Wish it had a better or clearer plot. Fine replacement and you can tell a ton of work went into the actual show. Plot meh. Show incredible

 

[Tha Realest]

Remember folks, this is what Disney's fighting EU with

I also remember one of the reasons for the change was the high maintenance costs for the Splash AAs.

Has ops already blown through its 2024 AA maintenance / repair budget?

 

[_caleb]

Crazy concept - People just want to ride a ride without memorizing a textbook sized backstory

So is it too complicated, or overly-simple? Because I’m hearing both here.

 

[_caleb]

We're at the point where discussion feels impossible, because people who think it's a decent attraction but a downgrade from Splash (or think it's outright terrible, although I don't quite get that opinion) are dismissed and told their opinion is solely due to nostalgia, confirmation bias, etc., and people who think it's as good or better than Splash are dismissed as paid shills.

I think I’m the only one who’s used those words, so maybe you’re referring to me? Man, something I wrote must have really came across badly because I never intended to be dismissive of “people who think it’s a decent attraction but a downgrade from Splash.” I’m merely pointing out how many opinions were formed (and reinforced) by the fixed-POV video.

I apologize.

Any opinion is just dismissed out of hand by people who don't agree with it, regardless of what the opinion actually is.

I’ve been looking forward to TBA, but I’m honestly trying not to formulate an opinion until I get to ride it. My commentary thus far has been more about how people are responding and what they’re responding to.

 

[JoeCamel]

This post at the Dis explains how the setup/storyline for the ride begins in the queue.

Something Scott Gustin mentions in his review:

Everyone knows how this ride should have been marketed except those that did the marketing. This is the world's entertainment company?

 

[_caleb]

A queue can be good setup for a ride's storyline, but it should never be a necessity, especially when the paid line skipping service cuts a good chunk of it out. Oh, and people with mobility issues will never see it. It's competely beyond a set of stairs.

See, I enjoy rides that start the storytelling in the queue. I know line-skipping can threaten that (I’ve only seen the queue for FoP once!), so that affects what they can and maybe should do.

I also think there’s a fine line between a themed queue that merely “sets the stage” for the story (Splash, Everest, etc.) and one that introduces key elements that help make the ride make sense (Indy, FoP, etc.).

 

[HonorableMention]

Some of this video was featured in the broken animatronics vid but it still is a good one to look at:



- This POV showcased the nature sounds during that long stretch to Tiana on the stump well. I really like what they did with that audio, the clearer POVs I hear the more I like the music direction of this attraction, minus disembodied Tiana and Ray voices.

- There’s a long log jam, and it really shows how little these scenes have going on after they’ve been triggered.

I’m not judging the animatronic/sync issues too much yet since this is still a technical rehearsal. It’s not a great look for Disney but it’s understandable from a practical perspective.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

So is it too complicated, or overly-simple? Because I’m hearing both here.

Probably because it IS quite a bit of both.

There's a complicated backstory in the queue. Except that it doesn't really apply to anything in the actual ride whatsoever after the first drop (I disagree with those who say it does). I'm not even criticizing the ride for this as I prefer rides that don't rely on queue details and lore to enjoy them. I don't even have all that much criticism of the queue. It's unimportant and irrelevant to the ride, but has some decent visuals (outside of that ugly barn mural).

The interior story of the ride is somewhat random and all over the place. The queue doesn't really help you keep track of what is going on, but nether does the ride itself. The finale song also feels very disconnected from the rest of the ride as well. As people have mentioned, I get the feeling the "secret ingredient" used to be more prominent throughout the ride and they cut most of that out at some point but left the random song lyrics in at the end.

But at the same time, the dialog used by the character figures as the ride is going is very juvenile and basic. It's all bland Dora the Explorer ish variations of "look at these critters, they can play music" spoken at passing boats over and over again.

In summary, the scene to scene progression of the ride and especially the finale song are weirdly random and disjointed. That is what I think leads to confusion. But at other times, the dialog sounds like it was written exclusively for toddlers. It's a very weird mishmash of conflicting complications and simplifications.

I guess the best way to describe this is that even a preschool level story is going to be confusing to highly literate adults if you rip half of the pages out. Many details would be missing, and disparate bits of the otherwise simple story just randomly and abruptly jump around.

 

[Tha Realest]

Everyone knows how this ride should have been marketed except those that did the marketing. This is the world's entertainment company?

Oh we’re already blaming the “marketing” are we? The attraction’s not even open to the public yet!

 

[Chomama]

So is it too complicated, or overly-simple? Because I’m hearing both here.

Having ridden it - I’m not sure! Only because I couldn’t freaking hear anything over the music and we didn’t spend enough time in the queue to read everything. Could be complicated. Could be simple. We will never know!

 

[Tha Realest]

A queue can be good setup for a ride's storyline, but it should never be a necessity, especially when the paid line skipping service cuts a good chunk of it out. Oh, and people with mobility issues will never see it. It's competely beyond a set of stairs.

So the disabled get a sub-par, incomplete experience?