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

[Disstevefan1]

Am I allowed to like Lari the armadillo?

Disney, I want a Lari the armadillo popcorn bucket please!

 

[Tha Realest]

The entire experience including, but not limited to, the pre-school "story", the incredibly lame "dialogue", the low-rent "musicians" just rocking back and forth, the nonsensical "shrinking and growing" concept, the bizarrely middle-aged Tiana, and the needless queue details/backstory are all a perfect monument to what WDI has become today.

One will only need to ride this embarrassing mess and then Tokyo's Splash to see a perfect illustration of how far WDI has fallen.

Here’s the problem, which you hint at: even fully operational, the attraction is maybe a B-

The problem is that the experience is greatly reduced when individual AAs and show scenes aren’t operating properly, and the ride itself seems generally inaccessible to the public for about 20%-30% of a day’s operating hours.

 

[Epcot81Fan]

Here’s the problem, which you hint at: even fully operational, the attraction is maybe a B-

You are being exceptionally kind

 

[KingMickey13]

Today while I was in line, one of the glass lighting fixtures at the front fell. The attraction was shut down and when we came back all the glass light things had been removed.

 

[GhostHost1000]

Today while I was in line, one of the glass lighting fixtures at the front fell. The attraction was shut down and when we came back all the glass light things had been removed.

Sounds like great planning and construction.

 

[Magicart87]

Today while I was in line, one of the glass lighting fixtures at the front fell. The attraction was shut down and when we came back all the glass light things had been removed.

#Cursed. This is getting serious! You'd think a co-op built on a defunct salt mine would have ward off any evil spirits but it seems Facilier's friends on the other side are having quite the adventure. (hope no one was injured)

Disney, fix your crap!

 

[KingMickey13]

Sounds like great planning and construction.

#Cursed. This is getting serious! You'd think a co-op built on a defunct salt mine would have ward off any evil spirits but it seems Facilier's friends on the other side are having quite the adventure. (hope no one was injured)

Disney, fix yoursh it!

No one was injured. The funny thing was that nothing caused it, the glass just fell. It almost hit one young lady but it missed. They cleaned it up but there were still some little bits of glass when I went about an hour ago.

 

[erasure fan1]

Nah...an encanto spinner behind Tiana and Big Thunder to counter Epic Universe.

No, no, no. They've already countered Epic. Tiana, galaxys edge, toy story land, Moana, tron, guardians! The list goes on. I mean what more can you people want?

 

[Ayla]

Sounds like great planning and construction.

Remember the stuff falling in the Little mermaid queue?

 

[bpiper]

Today while I was in line, one of the glass lighting fixtures at the front fell. The attraction was shut down and when we came back all the glass light things had been removed.

Odd, usually Disney threads a steel wire down do any hanging item. The steel wire is the fallback. In case the primary hanging material, let's go.

 

[KingMickey13]

Odd, usually Disney threads a steel wire down do any hanging item. The steel wire is the fallback. In case the primary hanging material, let's go.

Yeah, it was odd. There were light bulbs under the glass fixture. This is how things look now:

 

[easyrowrdw]

Wasn’t it said that the idea of the retheme was a concept before 2020?

Even if it wasn’t, is four years considered rushed for a replacement?

 

[mickEblu]

I think hyperbole and intemperance have a really negative impact on the whole of this forum. Some posters get into a sort of uncontrolled frenzy that makes it difficult to engage in serious, good-faith discussion. I agree with pretty much all of the criticisms people are expressing about TBA’s weak story and woeful debut, but I find it difficult to relate to the euphoric level of gloating that has taken hold of this thread. People seem almost gleeful, and that makes no sense to me.

Well since you replied to me which of my posts do you find to not be in good faith?

Not sure if you're referring to me. No gloating here. I wanted them to kill it even though I could see the train wreck coming from a mile away.

 

[mickEblu]

This really is maddening.
The project is such a utter clusterfluff.


Mondo deserved BETTER!

Truly one of the only characters on the ride that has that certain Disney je ne sais qoui. Can’t stand the forced Armadillo or the back n forth rocking band members. They would have maybe worked as background characters. Absolutely not good enough as the focal point in the foreground.

 

[seabreezept813]

I think a lot of the narrative surrounding this whole project came from wishful thinking and justification, not reality.

Disney's letting down the people that loved this attraction, and they're letting down the people who didn't want this change. They aren't pleasing anyone with this.

Serious question, how long do we think the lines will be to meet Girl Boss Body Positivity Swamp Tiana? If the ride was great then you could say Ok maybe kids will warm up to this new version of the character. But the ride isn't exactly doing the character any favors.

They won’t know because the girls in love with Tiana are too small or scared to ride. My tall 6 year old won’t go on it. My 3 year old who would, isn’t tall enough.

 

[Mike S]

You’re correct. People are injecting their bias from outside discussions, on different platforms, and using that to inform how they engage with the rest of us here. Seems unfair to this board and community.

Reminder everyone, this isn’t Twitter. We are all real people behind these typed out letters. We were all someone who came to these boards seeking a community of people with a similar interest. We are not your enemy. Engage in good faith and kindness, and when any of us fails that, which I myself have, own up, and try to engage differently next time. We can have differences in opinion on how to run these parks in 2024, but that doesn’t make us enemies. The stakes are not that high.

Most of us who have expressed positivity and optimism about this re-theme on these boards, usually stated we loved Splash, and were sad to see it go, but could understand why a company would decide to do it.

Seems like a pretty reasonable take. Not extreme.

I’ll agree with this and just state that whatever snark I post is like 99% aimed at Disney even if I’m answering someone here. There is absolutely no one in this thread I have animosity towards

At least from my perspective, people just seeming to be here to pick and laugh at everything Disney does is what makes these discussions increasingly tiresome. It gives the impression of a bunch of people mindlessly whooping and hollering in a way that resembles trolling more than discussion.

This thread is one example of endless 'jokes' and little discussion, but the thread about the new central spine at Epcot is another. That has devolved into people posting pictures of planters or flex spaces and writing "absolutely remarkable" to a chorus of laugh emojis.

It also infects discussion of developments at Universal. The same people who relentlessly criticise Disney for IP invasion or leaning toward hotel towers over themed resorts speak in hyperbolic terms about how Epic Universe which is all IP-based lands and has a giant hotel tower as its centrepiece is a game changer that is showing Disney how themed entertainment should be done. It seems more an extension of the laughing and trolling directed at Disney in other threads and a desire to see them get a black eye than a rational discussion of what's actually being built.

I have plenty of issues with how Disney has been running the parks lately. However, a lot of the discussion on here almost tips me back toward being sympathetic to them having to deal with such a large contingent of trolls who will laugh and mock if a new bench in one of the parks doesn't reinvent themed entertainment.

The big difference between Disney and Universal is that Universal was never known for amazing original attractions in their entire history. Disney was known for that and has abandoned it. Can’t get mad at Universal for doing what they’ve always been known for. For me the comparison to Epic Universe is more to do with the actual ambition than the content. What I’d love from Disney is an original attraction with that kind of ambition.

For the hotel I’ll wait and see how it ends up in person from ground level within the park. I’ll be the first to complain about that if I don’t like it just like how I moped about Dragon Challenge before it finally went.

 

[TP2000]

@lentesta If you guys haven’t already. This would be a great topic for you and Jim to discuss on a future DisneyDish ^ Why WDW’s operating hours are less than DL’s. Or when exactly this went into effect if in the past it was different/was the same.

That would be fun! It's a very weird thing, and goes against logic and nearly every rational argument from an industrial engineering and customer service perspective. I imagine @lentesta could do a great job with that topic.

But if he does it, he has to drop my name and/or promise to buy me a churro (or a drink at Trader Sam's when I do my '25 WDW Farewell Visit). I used to be kind of famous, so maybe he'd be kind?

I love how they have to explain the significance of a plastic figure “sight gag” (barely) and don’t tell us anything concrete about the character other than
A) He is an armadillo.
B) He is a jack of all trades. Watch out for Lari!

This is a new form of Imagineering. It's basically Imagineering via UCLA Communications Majors who have no actual creative skills to build a ride, or show scene, or storyline. These are not showmen, they are Communications Majors. But they can take a static set piece and wordsmith a 500 word Parks Blog post about it in only 4 hours and one Starbucks run.

Can you imagine if these types of "Imagineers" (do rather derisive air quotes when you say that) had been alive and on the payroll in 1965? Can you just imagine how they'd try and frame and puff up already brilliant Imagineering like Pirates of the Caribbean or It's A Small World or New Orleans Square or Carousel of Progress?!? Their 25 year old heads would explode trying to hype already excellent projects that spoke for themselves and needed no hype.

In fact, there would be no need for them on the payroll at all, for exactly that reason. The real Imagineers back then already did their work for them by creating brilliant shows and attractions that boldly and proudly spoke for themselves.

Walt would have probably lumped them in with the Sharp Pencil Boys, but more useless, and found a way to quietly fire them.

 

[LittleBuford]

I just deleted my comment, as I said essentially what you posted before reading your post.
Just thinking about the first concept art where Tiana was a Princess, we saw the boat in the tree...
Instead we got a Princess and the Frog IP with no princess, and no villain.

She’s still a princess—the dress everyone wants to see her in all the time is her wedding gown, and she appears in a suitably glitzy number in the finale. She’s certainly not the only royal to dress down when the occasion call for it:

But yes, I agree that the absence of a villain (or at least some sort of dramatic tension) is really unfortunate.

 

[Jedi14]

She’s still a princess—the dress everyone wants to see her in all the time is her wedding gown, and she appears in a suitably glitzy number in the finale. She’s certainly not the only royal to dress down when the occasion call for it:

But yes, I agree that the absence of a villain (or at least some sort of dramatic tension) is really unfortunate.

The blue dress from the movie and in the initial concept art is also a dress she wore to a costume party.

 

[Brer Panther]

So, who's a better Disney armadillo? Lari or the one from Pluto and the Armadillo?

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I vote for the latter. She actually moves.