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

[Dan Deesnee]

Yeah -- the WDW POV video only has 373k views. That's obviously not nothing, but it's a tiny percentage of the Magic Kingdom's yearly attendance.

While I personally think Tiana is very much a disappointment (especially when judged against Splash), this is really not a thing amongst the general public/average Disney guest, at least not yet.

But you're not really thinking about it the way Disney would. That is potentially 2 to 300,000 parents that are watching this ride video and we're planning on potentially going to MK sometime in the next year. Partially, no doubt, because of this new ride.

They then watch it, are underwhelmed, read the comments, and decide to save their money and go elsewhere.

That's ~200,000 families so, roughly 800k-1 million people.

Then assume that they will mention this to friends and family, doubtless some of which will had heard about the new ride and may have been thinking of going down themselves.

The number is still low when looking at an entire year's worth of attendance and assuming massive potential errors with the numbers above - since it's a small data set. But I would absolutely not write off the power of bad word of mouth and negative press, combined with millions of people being disenfranchised with Disney in general over the past few years. THEN add in the juggernaut that will be Epic Universe, opening next summer, andDisney could be in serious trouble here.

 

[doctornick]

I don’t think how they spent the budget was the (main) issue. I can see where the money went—the attraction doesn’t look cheap to me, the screens notwithstanding. The biggest problem is the dull storyline, and that wouldn’t have taken a big budget to get right.

Exactly. That's the troubling thing - it's not that the Imagineers didn't have enough funds - not to mention a great baseline ride system and space - to make an exception ride. It's that they seemingly weren't capable of making something anywhere near as entertaining and engaging as Splash. Yes, it's a high bar to clear, but I think it unfortunately does speak more to the talent of the current crop of engineers than the resources they were given to work with.

I tend to believe a large issue with that is that they would benefit from having people come from a movie/theater/animation background who work more with telling stories and visual media. There is a reason why Walt's animator team was so outstanding in pivoting to rides.

 

[Goofnut1980]

I feel it looks well done. Can't comment much on the story aspect until I ride it for myself. The silly concerns I have is this.

Disney is terrible at maintaining things. Which means, how long until a simple projector around water all the time, stops working then the screens go dark. Also, simple things like the vegetables swinging on the upper part that overlooks the bridge, how long until those stop swinging. They can put out a great product but forget some of their Keys... like, Show!

 

[wdw71fan]

1. This ride 'refresh' was never going to be as 'good' as Splash Mountain. Thankfully this isn't as bad a Frozen.



3. Splash was allowed to exceed budget in some areas. I won't elaborate, but many at WDI declined the opportunity to work on the project because of the polarizing nature of the work.

4. Baxter was being Baxter, which is both good and bad. But I digress.

 

[trainplane3]

From everything we can see this project has been fully financed. In the past there has been valid criticism that certain projects have been underfunded, but not the case here.

You know with how bad Imagination and SSE are, if this is what a fully funded attraction looks like then I don't want them touching them. The fact this and GotG have pretty crap stories as well makes me concerned about future "new" attractions. AA's look fantastic at the very least.

 

[TheCoasterNerd]

But you're not really thinking about it the way Disney would. That is potentially 2 to 300,000 parents that are watching this ride video and we're planning on potentially going to MK sometime in the next year. Partially, no doubt, because of this new ride.

They then watch it, are underwhelmed, read the comments, and decide to save their money and go elsewhere.

That's ~200,000 families so, roughly 800k-1 million people.

Then assume that they will mention this to friends and family, doubtless some of which will had heard about the new ride and may have been thinking of going down themselves.

The number is still low when looking at an entire year's worth of attendance and assuming massive potential errors with the numbers above - since it's a small data set. But I would absolutely not write off the power of bad word of mouth and negative press, combined with millions of people being disenfranchised with Disney in general over the past few years. THEN add in the juggernaut that will be Epic Universe, opening next summer, andDisney could be in serious trouble here.

General Public aren't going to cancel their trip to the world's most famous four theme parks (with 51 other iconic rides to do, and countless world-class entertainment offerings) because one ride is a little underwhelming to a few thousand superfans.

 

[PK2]

The thought occurred to me today that a lot of the leadership on this previously did Runaway Railway, which is very funny because the plot beats of that would almost perfectly fit the overall track of this ride. So it's not like they aren't capable of writing something that fits that, they just... Actively chose to make the plot incongruous with the ride experience.

 

[monothingie]

The AA team, as usual, did exceptional work. WDI still excels here. But, the best figures are so expensive that we can’t actually get rides with dozens of actual AAs any more.

And no one seems to have noticed that part of what many loved about Splash was how cute the secondary characters were, especially their voices. They made Splash really charming.

I wish they had recorded some vocals for the new characters.

All these teams need direction and vision. They made the technical parts work nicely but it seem like there was no one shaping the overall direction of the project.

 

[Goofnut1980]

You know with how bad Imagination and SSE are, if this is what a fully funded attraction looks like then I don't want them touching them. The fact this and GotG have pretty crap stories as well makes me concerned about future "new" attractions. AA's look fantastic at the very least.

Anymore its turning into rollercoaster land but because it rains, they put them inside a box and its earth shattering.
I was just talking to some friends.. Can we get that classic Disney dark ride back. Look at the wait for something like Haunted Mansion. It can be just as long as some of the new stuff. Not everything needs to be a thrill ride. The ways of being a family-friendly park are slowly diminishing. Not too many new rides are made for all age groups, and I don't even have kids. To see the detail in older attractions is amazing. New stuff is a rollercoaster in a big box with some projectors on some flat surfaces. And that still takes 3 years to build.. LOL

 

[lightningtap347]

After 700+ pages, we're arguing about whether or not Splash was popular? Really?

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

Ok…but mission breakout doesn’t appear to be regarded in consensus as a huge success. It’s still pretty divisive.

With who this is my question. I am a WDW guest mainly. I only visited DLR for the first time this year. For the several years leading up to my trip, I’ve seen nothing but positive things in Disney spaces and other non-Disney specific faces about it. The consensus I’ve seen is that it’s an improvement on the ride system of ToT and makes it more exciting with a more intense and fun drop sequence, even if the IP isn’t everyone’s favorite. The only contentious point I’ve seen after it opened and people experienced it was its outside appearance.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

As it sounds right now? Absolutely not. High on hubris.

Not sure if you know this or not, but has there been any sort of recognition, concern or any sort of acknowledgement towards the negative reaction this ride has gotten from people in power?

 

[Trauma]

If I get $1 for every time the shield uses the words “general public” in this thread, my next trip will be free!!

 

[Incomudro]

I feel it looks well done. Can't comment much on the story aspect until I ride it for myself. The silly concerns I have is this.

Disney is terrible at maintaining things. Which means, how long until a simple projector around water all the time, stops working then the screens go dark. Also, simple things like the vegetables swinging on the upper part that overlooks the bridge, how long until those stop swinging. They can put out a great product but forget some of their Keys... like, Show!

When things go down on this ride, it'll suffer more than Splash did.
Far more.
As I've said a number of times, the Splash scenes even work when static.
There's a story, and action worked out in each frame if you will.
Every frame on Tiana's is either a single AA waiting to tell us what's going on, or a cluster of AA's as a band.
If they're not moving, there is nothing else going on.
It's readily apparent in the scene by scene comparisons that are prevalent on youtube.

 

[Trauma]

Not sure if you know this or not, but has there been any sort of recognition, concern or any sort of acknowledgement towards the negative reaction this ride has gotten from people in power?

You kidding?

They have their own little echo chamber.

Next step is to blame the fans.

 

[CampbellzSoup]

I’m also not sure why people have such generalities when talking about the average guest. If the average guest was worried about it being a simple flume ride there are plenty of other parks for them to spend their money on.

This is Disney World. They come here for a reason.

 

[Dan Deesnee]

General Public aren't going to cancel their trip to the world's most famous four theme parks (with 51 other iconic rides to do, and countless world-class entertainment offerings) because one ride is a little underwhelming to a few thousand superfans.

A couple of points:

1. I never said they would cancel their trips, because I never said that they were already booked and going. The point I was making is that if they were thinking of going this might have them thinking twice, especially with Epic Universe next year. - "...planning on potentially going..."

2. If we were to utilize your logic, that people will not skip going to Disney simply because the new ride is mediocre. That would mean that people would also not go to Disney if the ride was good. This then begs a question, why would Disney ever create anything new?

Millions, possibly by now tens of millions, of families went to Disney with the main goal / purpose of riding Frozen Ever After...

 

[Brer Panther]

so much Louis, the blandest part of the film. In a charming, original movie, the one bit that felt like he was a stock character designed by committee to move merch... so it makes sense he has a starring role here.

I actually like Louis. Too bad he's given absolutely nothing to do in this ride.

This ride feels like they wanted to prove people wrong by saying "we'll use a ton of the greatest AAs and we'll show them!!!'

Considering that most of the animatronics aside from Tiana, Louis, and Mama Odie have about as much movement as that one turtle in the Little Mermaid ride, I wouldn't be surprised if they used up most of the animatronics budget pretty quickly.

Ah, I see. So the goalpost now shifts to "we can't trust Tony."

But we totally can trust the Disney executives claiming that the retheme was totally in the works for a year before people started demanding it, right?

I think visually (inside & out) the attraction is an upgrade to Splash.

The ugly CGI animation on the screens alone make this a visual downgrade from Splash Mountain.

Do you think they had a great idea and somehow threw it out for this?

Well, originally the plot was going to be about Louis trying to find his trumpet. So...

Iger has only been back for a year and a half.

Let's see... he left at the beginning of 2020, then came back until December 2021... then he came back at some point in 2022 after Chapek demonstrated what a lousy CEO he was. Most things we blame Chapek for are actually on him.

One would think that the flock of fishing “How Do You Do” storks would have meshed well into “Going Down the Bayou”, or have the Swamp Boys jamming on their log….anything to prevent the long stretches of foliage-gazing between the major set pieces.

There's no reason they couldn't have at least kept the Swamp Boys. They're GATORS. They'd work fine in a bayou. But nope, Disney is too cheap and/or lazy to maintain its animatronics, so just throw 'em in the scrap heap with the Universe of Energy dinosaurs.

Dr Facilier was pitched as the antagonist originally

Where did you get this information from?

 

[davis_unoxx]

I asked a social media AI bot on the reception of TBA, and they gave me a sponsored response from Disney lol

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

Splash is one of the greatest rides ever built by WDI…top 5 at a minimum.

This seems to be the main sticking point for a lot of people: not everyone agrees with this, and we’re happy to see it transform into something we’re more interested in. That’s why I think the fighting is so pointless. Everyone has preferences, and there’s little sense in debating those preferences since no one is going to move. No one is going to be convinced to like something they just don’t. So perhaps we ought to just be discussing the ride rather than debate on the “moral decay” of the company as if this one ride that the general public is going to like just fine even if Disney fans hate it is going to be what breaks the Mouse’s back.