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

[MerlinTheGoat]

They formally announced "dozens" of animatronics, so we will be getting at least 24....

Splash at WDW and Disneyland had in the ballpark of 55-65 legitimate animatronics respectively (only counting real AA's here, not limited motion props). 24 wouldn't remotely cut it. I don't believe that's anywhere close to the actual amount we're actually getting, but if it is then we'd have a big problem.

The finale alone on Splash had the largest concentration of figures in the ride, about a third of the entire population was present in that one room. It's also the only scene that is really large enough to hold that many in a single space. They'd have to go with far smaller and more limited figures to come close to making up for that amount elsewhere (and Disneyland already uses quite a few small critter figures as well as larger ones). If the claim of them reducing the amount of figures in that scene by 20 is accurate, then it likely bodes poorly for the rest of the scenes as well. You're not going to be able to make up for that loss elsewhere due to the limited space in the other rooms. Nor would I even expect them to have a disproportionately large quantity of figures in the other scenes but so few in the finale.

You can sort of compare this to the ballroom finale from Tokyo's Beauty and the Beast ride. That room seems somewhat similar in size to Splash's finale, and with much larger ride vehicles that fill most of the space. It also contains the largest quantity of figures in the ride. However, there are still only 7 figures in the scene. They're advanced A1000's, but the sparseness negatively impacts the scene (especially compared to the movie scene that has tons of guests present). Despite the overly large vehicles hogging the ballroom.

If the finale is well staged, dynamic, and the AA's are all top of the line, it will still be thrilling to sail through. Quantity does not mean quality.

There's no reason to compromise on either quality or quantity, as per Disney's original standards. You don't need to have 50+ state of the art A1000 figures either. It always used to be a thing where Disney would put a smaller amount of their top of the line figures in a scene to draw the main attention, but also scatter a couple dozen lower end ones around to ensure there's still plenty to look at. It makes scenes feel much more alive and kinetic and avoids the pitfall of emptiness. Good examples being Pirates, Great Movie Ride (RIP) or the Hall of Presidents.

This compared to modern rides such as Navi River or Rise of the Resistance where you might have a dozen or so advanced AA's at most (or a paltry one in Navi's case), but that's all you get and there aren't any other lesser figures to fill things out. Most of the rooms are very empty and lined with projection effects to try and replace the character loss. As I mentioned, Tokyo's Beauty and the Beast ride still suffers from this (though to a slightly lesser degree than usual).

Even a ton of ancient A1-caliber figures scattered amongst the smaller handful of A1000's would be perfectly acceptable. Which is still infinitely better than nothing. I don't know what "model" the America Sings figures had assigned to them, but those are still capable of perfectly decent motion.

Remember also that as a replacement ride and not a new build, Splash Mountain is the standard this ride will be judged by. And it very much had both quality and quantity on its side already. In ample supply.

 

[EPCOTCenterLover]

Splash Mountain is the standard this ride will be judged by. And it very much had both quality and quantity. Ample supplies of both.

Absolutely right- just as DCA's Guardians of the Galaxy will always be compared to Tower of Terror and Pixar Pier to what came before. Human nature.

 

[Brer Oswald]

Splash at WDW and Disneyland had in the ballpark of 55-65 legitimate animatronics respectively (only counting real AA's here, not limited motion props). 24 wouldn't remotely cut it. I don't believe that's anywhere close to the actual amount we're actually getting, but if it is then we'd have a big problem.

The finale alone on Splash had the largest concentration of figures in the ride, about a third of the entire population was present in that one room. It's also the only scene that is really large enough to hold that many in a single space. They'd have to go with far smaller and more limited figures to come close to making up for that amount elsewhere (and Disneyland already uses quite a few small critter figures as well as larger ones). If the claim of them reducing the amount of figures in that scene by 20 is accurate, then it likely bodes poorly for the rest of the scenes as well. You're not going to be able to make up for that loss elsewhere due to the limited space in the other rooms. Nor would I even expect them to have a disproportionately large quantity of figures in the other scenes but so few in the finale.

You can sort of compare this to the ballroom finale from Tokyo's Beauty and the Beast ride. That room seems somewhat similar in size to Splash's finale, and with much larger ride vehicles that fill most of the space. It also contains the largest quantity of figures in the ride. However, there are still only 7 figures in the scene. They're advanced A1000's, but the sparseness negatively impacts the scene (especially compared to the movie scene that has tons of guests present). Despite the overly large vehicles hogging the ballroom.


There's no reason to compromise on either quality or quantity, as per Disney's original standards. You don't need to have 50+ state of the art A1000 figures either. It always used to be a thing where Disney would put a smaller amount of their top of the line figures in a scene to draw the main attention, but also scatter a couple dozen lower end ones around to ensure there's still plenty to look at. It makes scenes feel much more alive and kinetic and avoids the pitfall of emptiness. Good examples being Pirates, Great Movie Ride (RIP) or the Hall of Presidents.

This compared to modern rides such as Navi River or Rise of the Resistance where you might have a dozen or so advanced AA's at most (or a paltry one in Navi's case), but that's all you get and there aren't any other lesser figures to fill things out. Most of the rooms are very empty and lined with projection effects to try and replace the character loss. As I mentioned, Tokyo's Beauty and the Beast ride still suffers from this (though to a slightly lesser degree than usual).

Even a ton of ancient A1-caliber figures scattered amongst the smaller handful of A1000's would be perfectly acceptable. Which is still infinitely better than nothing. I don't know what "model" the America Sings figures had assigned to them, but those are still capable of perfectly decent motion.

Remember also that as a replacement ride and not a new build, Splash Mountain is the standard this ride will be judged by. And it very much had both quality and quantity on its side already. In ample supply.

Not sure what models the America Sings animatronics were, but they were great. I was impressed with their fluidity on my trip last April, and that was them on death row. The Tokyo variants look incredible on video.

I think Disney’s fleet of animatronics from the late 60s to early 80s were great in terms of quantity and quality. Sure, these A-1000s might be capable of more advanced movement, but does that matter when you’re moving past them on a boat/ride vehicle? It’s just poor allocation of money.

 

[MisterPenguin]

I have this long held theory that Disney has an elaborate process for creating IP that will overlay into existing attractions in the parks that they know need updating.

Frozen worked too perfectly in the Norway pavilion to be a coincidence, and I tend to think Tiana's story always had a path to creating a southern story that could direct away from that other movie set in the south.

That strategy only works if the IP they're creating is successful. Tomorrowland and Lone Ranger would have been great for the castle parks if they didn't tank in theaters.

 

[aladdin2007]

It was rumored somewhere in this thread at one point that the finale steamboat room would be screen based. if true. which sounds like vibes of mermaids big backdrop wall finale. They got to do better than that!!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

It was rumored somewhere in this thread at one point that the finale steamboat room would be screen based. if true. which sounds like vibes of mermaids big backdrop wall finale. They got to do better than that!!

I don't know how far back you are referencing but I believe the original plans called for more screens and a "cheap" redo but the budget has seems been greatly increased and now that is not the only expectation

 

[Magicart87]

Do people still think Disney will do right by this attraction?

 

[aladdin2007]

I don't know how far back you are referencing but I believe the original plans called for more screens and a "cheap" redo but the budget has seems been greatly increased and now that is not the only expectation

True, I'm aware of that, but even after that someone had stated that was still going to be the main plan for the steamboat room. Lets hope that changed.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Not sure what models the America Sings animatronics were, but they were great. I was impressed with their fluidity on my trip last April, and that was them on death row. The Tokyo variants look incredible on video.

I think Disney’s fleet of animatronics from the late 60s to early 80s were great in terms of quantity and quality. Sure, these A-1000s might be capable of more advanced movement, but does that matter when you’re moving past them on a boat/ride vehicle? It’s just poor allocation of money.

Apparently the first hydraulic based audio animatronics introduced around the Worlds Fair era were given numbered designations starting with the letter A and would have single digit numbers ranging from at least 1-5 depending on the size and species of figure. This coming from a quote I found from Wayne Jackson (formerly) of MAPO.

“A1, hydraulic humanoid figures, A2 was animals, A3 was Small World, A5 were your dinosaurs..”

The Oldest Audio-Animatronics in Disneyland — The Disney Classics

The invention of audio animatronics was done by Imagineers in the early Disneyland California days. Some of the oldest audio animatronics are still around today, including animals in the Jungle Cruise, birds in the Enchanted Tiki Room, and pirates in the Pirates of the Caribbean. Learn more about wh

www.thedisneyclassics.com

It should also be noted that like the more modern A100 or A1000 figures, older A1-5 figures could be customized to support more or less motion depending on what was required Which is why for instance the auctioneer in Pirates had more moving parts than some of the other minor pirate figures surrounding him (and those figures also had varying degrees of motion compared to one another). Which goes back to my comment that not every figure in a ride has to be a Hondo, Navi Shaman or Belle with a hundred axes of motion. You can have a large population of AA's that still move, just to a somewhat lesser degree than some of the centerpiece figures.

There's another technology that Disney invented in the 1980s called Compliance. It's a mixture of mostly computer controlled software as well as extra hydraulic actuators, the result of which made even simpler AA's noticeably smoother and less shaky than before. I believe this technology can be (and probably has been) retrofitted into older animatronics, not just A100 and beyond.

When they're in proper working order and haven't been neglected, the America Sings figures are still capable of an impressive degree of fluid motion. Tokyo as you said keeps their attractions in pretty much flawless condition, so you can see what those old figures are truly capable of. And i'm guessing the larger of these figures are based on the old A1 tech. I don't know if they were upgraded with compliance, but it's plausible since they seem able to move quite fast without exhibiting much shaking/jerking.

Tokyo Disneyland's Sinbad ride is probably Disney's most impressive quantity-to-quality ratio in terms of animatronics. That attraction has approximately 140 animatronics. And every single one of those figures has a wide range of fluid motion. It's the last attraction of this kind that Disney built, and they went all out on it.

 

[SuddenStorm]

Absolutely right- just as DCA's Guardians of the Galaxy will always be compared to Tower of Terror and Pixar Pier to what came before. Human nature.

And in this case, while considered a Modern Classic DCA's Tower of Terror never hit legendary status like Splash Mountain did.

And though improved in 2012, Paradise Pier is hardly a masterclass in themed design- so while Pixar Pier is a step down, it's not like we lost New Orleans Square for it.

Both versions of Splash are considered to be among the best theme park rides ever built. Modern WDI is going to have to somehow make this the best retheme ever to live up to what was lost.

 

[SuddenStorm]

Do people still think Disney will do right by this attraction?

Did anyone ever really think this? I can understand some optimism- but I think most of the reception that hasn't been negative is simply 'I like Tiana, therefore more Tiana = good'. I imagine very few people believe that this new ride will be a better use of space than Splash Mountain was, or a net positive for Disneyland or Magic Kingdom.

 

[SuddenStorm]

That strategy only works if the IP they're creating is successful. Tomorrowland ... would have been great for the castle parks if they didn't tank in theaters.

I'm shocked a film based on Tomorrowland would be a good fit for a castle style park.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

I don't know how far back you are referencing but I believe the original plans called for more screens and a "cheap" redo but the budget has seems been greatly increased and now that is not the only expectation

The extent of what I know about the original concept that was planned is that it was extremely low budget (low for Disney standards that is), like in the $30-$40 million range. I believe this version was the "Lost Trumpet" story Jim Hill discussed on his podcast. It would have followed the template of a lot of other modern rides that gutted an existing one, scrapping all of the old animatronics with maybe a small handful of new ones in their place. Like a dozen or so face projected ones like Frozen if you're lucky (maybe even less given that the budget was even lower than Frozen's). A lot of empty black corridors in the dark with a few projections on flat walls.

I am at least confident that the final product will be infinitely better than that. But that standard is literally bottom of the barrel and couldn't get any worse (outside of demolishing the ride and building a bayou spinner or something). The problem is that the standard is STILL Splash Mountain, an attraction that easily stands among Disney's absolute best ever. For this ride to avoid failure, it has to at bare minimum match the quality of Splash Mountain. And despite hearing positive things about the ride and having a source I consider extremely solid, I still struggle to give Disney the benefit of the doubt that they can produce something anywhere close to Splash. They have given us no reason to believe that they're either capable or willing to do so, and it will be the shock of the century if they pull it off.

 

[cupofchai]

The placemaking and sets within the ride are going to be top notch. What I'm most curious about is the soundtrack. It can be the determining factor between the ride being great but just missing something, or an instant classic. I think.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

The extent of what I know about the original concept that was planned is that it was extremely low budget (low for Disney standards that is), like in the $30-$40 million range. I believe this version was the "Lost Trumpet" story Jim Hill discussed on his podcast. It would have followed the template of a lot of other modern rides that gutted an existing one, scrapping all of the old animatronics with maybe a small handful of new ones in their place. Like a dozen or so face projected ones like Frozen if you're lucky (maybe even less given that the budget was even lower than Frozen's). A lot of empty black corridors in the dark with a few projections on flat walls.

I am at least confident that the final product will be infinitely better than that. But that standard is literally bottom of the barrel and couldn't get any worse (outside of demolishing the ride and building a bayou spinner or something). The problem is that the standard is STILL Splash Mountain, an attraction that easily stands among Disney's absolute best ever. For this ride to avoid failure, it has to at bare minimum match the quality of Splash Mountain. And despite hearing positive things about the ride and having a source I consider extremely solid, I still struggle to give Disney the benefit of the doubt that they can produce something anywhere close to Splash. They have given us no reason to believe that they're either capable or willing to do so, and it will be the shock of the century if they pull it off.

I certainly can understand not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

I am optimistic though as I do think they realize they have to get it right/do a high quality job (as evidenced by the increased budget) and the ride system itself isn't changing and the music from PatF is excellent. Plus, the scenes/animatronics in Splash were in really rough shape - last time I rode it is really detracted from the experience.

So should be the same ride structure with greatly improved animatronics with some great music. Doesn't mean it will be a joke run as if they miss on the story told during the actual ride but the potential is there

As long as people go in with an open mind I think it will be quite enjoyable - but we shall see

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

I certainly can understand not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

I am optimistic though as I do think they realize they have to get it right/do a high quality job (as evidenced by the increased budget) and the ride system itself isn't changing and the music from PatF is excellent. Plus, the scenes/animatronics in Splash were in really rough shape - last time I rode it is really detracted from the experience.

The old AA's aren't going to be reused without being extensively refurbished beforehand. This isn't the first time they've been in terrible condition and requiring restoration. They were in even worse shape in 2011-2012, and it took less than 3 months to get them all looking and moving like they were brand new again. Probably far less than that in fact as most of that time went to major cosmetic and ride system repairs to the mountain structure. The AA's probably didn't take long at all to clean up. And for a few years after, they actually did some degree of routine work on the ride and kept the figures functionally reasonably well. Eventually though, they gave up and left the ride to rot, a problem that isn't exclusive to Splash either as other rides on property have had a lot of neglect too. Even their recent ones.

There's no reason why they couldn't restore the figures once again. They'd also probably be more reliable than the newer more complex ones. The thing Disney is allergic to these days is the sort of daily/nightly work they were once famous for that prevents attractions from getting to a poor state in the first place (before a lengthy major refurb is needed for more serious problems).

Tokyo has duplicates of these same AA's, and their Splash opened at the same time as WDW's. It's in perpetually like-new condition however because OLC have zero tolerance for the sort of lackadaisical penny pinching buffoonery that the Disney company pulls on a day to day basis. They maintain their property to a high standard that hasn't existed in America for numerous decades now (probably not since the 70s).

Even if they didn't reuse anything from Splash, that won't prevent rapid deterioration from occurring. The Tiana retheme is in danger of quickly falling into the same state of disrepair as Splash if Disney allows it to. It all depends on how much they care about maintaining it. If they carry over the same exact maintenance policies that Splash and a lot of others have been saddled with for the past 5 years, it's going to be in rough shape all over again within a year or so.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

It seems like some posts have been deleted - namely ones that detail new rumors about the Finale.

Assuming those posts were deleted for *other* reasons, could somebody fill us in on what's rumored?

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

It seems like some posts have been deleted - namely ones that detail new rumors about the Finale.

Assuming those posts were deleted for *other* reasons, could somebody fill us in on what's rumored?

Someone linked a couple of tweets from a twitter account claiming that the riverboat in the finale is being demolished and replaced with a facade of Tiana's Palace. And that there would only be 6 animatronics there (new ones of the A1000 variety) replacing the original 26 found in Splash.

I don't know why this post was deleted. Banned source or something? I'm not familiar with the account at all. I won't link to the tweet (which is still up) but the name is splasharchive if i'm still allowed to say that.

 

[𝕴𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖊𝖗97]

Someone linked a couple of tweets from a twitter account claiming that the riverboat in the finale is being demolished and that there would only be 6 animatronics there (new ones of the A1000 variety) replacing the original 26 found in Splash.

I don't know why this post was deleted. Banned source or something? I'm not familiar with the account at all. I won't link to the tweet (which is still up) but the name is splasharchive if i'm still allowed to say that.

@splasharchive also retweeted a post claiming that the cupofchai poster is telling the truth about four-dozen animatronics. So I think whoever runs this account is putting out mixed messages. I don't really know what to believe at this point. I've been following them for a while and have never seen them post scoops of anything. It's usually just old videos and pictures of construction. So this is strange. AND I have no idea why the posts would be deleted from here.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

@splasharchive also retweeted a post claiming that the cupofchai poster is telling the truth about four-dozen animatronics. So I think whoever runs this account is putting out mixed messages. I don't really know what to believe at this point. I've been following them for a while and have never seen them post scoops of anything. It's usually just old videos and pictures of construction. So this is strange. AND I have no idea why the posts would be deleted from here.

I don't have any information about what they're doing to the scenery aside from the art they've released, so I can't comment either way on the riverboat's fate. All I can say is that it seems like a really pointless, wasteful and just outright baffling decision to get rid of it. There's literally no good reason, it fits a Tiana ride even better than a Song of the South ride (riverboats are actually prominently featured multiple times in PATF, whereas there aren't actually any in the original SOTS).

The claims about the animatronics from the finale also seem a bit dubious to me. Not based on anything I was told either, but just the sparse bit of media Disney has put out about the ride thus far. If the ride was likely going to be generally sparse of AA's, then I would be more inclined to believe the claim that the finale would receive such a drastic reduction. The thing is that there's some decently strong indication that the ride will still have plenty of AA's in the other scenes.

The most recent piece of art they released late last year for WDW's variant showed the first interior scene right after Slippin Falls. This scene has 8 animatronics in Splash. The art for Tiana shows 11 figures by comparison, an increase over Splash if accurate.

In another somewhat older piece of art for the Disneyland variant, there's what appears to be at least 5 figures that are likely to be AA's in the foreground, and 7 silhouettes of other animals in the background. Keep in mind that unlike WDW, Disneyland's version does not have walls separating the scenes. You can see a lot of the scenes and AA's through other scenes as you're floating along the flume. So personally, i'm inclined to believe that those background silhouettes are supposed to be animatronics, not just flat images painted or projected onto the walls. You can also spot the old hanging Splash possums overhead as well. The only thing is I'm not sure WHERE in the ride this art is supposed to be (if it's even supposed to be somewhere specific), possibly the scene where Brer Bear is trapped in a rope.

If any of this art is remotely accurate to the quantity of the animatronics, then it wouldn't make any sense for the finale to only have 6. Even if the riverboat is removed, it'll still be the largest room in the ride and will no doubt be festive in nature. It makes no logical sense why it would have such a piddling amount of figures if the rest of the scenes have so many.