Latest look at Tiana's Bayou Adventure construction in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom

Tha Realest18 days ago

Okay. I experienced TBA in person last night (DL version). You can search my posting history here to see I was not a fan of this project, from conception to execution. That said, I give this a 9.5 / 10 upon experiencing it in person. I have some slight knocks which I’ll detail in a moment, and a slight caveat to say that I do thing it was conceived and intended for the DL setting vs WDW. Placement: 10/10. It felt it belonged organically. We did not arrive in that area of the park until after dusk, and it looked beautiful. Experience: 10/10. I was utterly charmed by the general experience of it. Story: 8 / 10. That said, the presentation of the story you were “in” felt very forced notwithstanding the fact you were spoon fed it throughout. AAs: 9.5 / 10. Most everything was functioning properly. Tiana sitting on (Louis? A log? We went by very quickly) wasn’t moving, but that was the only problem. Also very noticeable was the felt material that constitutes Louis - as we passed him, my son said, “Is he a stuffed animal?” As he said it my mind went to Lotso Huggin Bear vs Louis (especially when you see him in more reptilian form earlier in the ride). Finale: 9 / 10. There is a tough incongruency throughout the ride between the video animations and the AAs. The AAs by themselves are great and nice realizations in three dimensional space of the characters. Their movements are fluid and look great. But when placed adjacent to much more vivid and fluid animations, it makes the (admittedly impressive) AAs look more stilted and mechanical than they otherwise would appear. Conclusion: 9.5 / 10 (don’t try to add up the subcategories - I’m not sure how I weight them respectively). Overall, very impressed in a way that overcame my priors. I can see how the DL version comes off better than the WDW version as you’re whisked through there so quickly there is not a lot of time to process the shortcomings in real time. Did not get a sense of boredom riding it. A very pleasant experience which I will gladly do again.

SamusAranX29 days ago

….by the Imagineers? lol

ᗩLᘿᑕ ֊ᗩζᗩᗰ29 days ago

That would have required an inordinate amount of thought and imagination.

SamusAranX29 days ago

I always said that they should have done a Tiana’s Western Expedition fusion sort of ride. You can still have the missing ingredient theme, she’s hunting out west with her New Orleans pals, only to find a familiar face from the past has also followed them….

Tony the Tigger29 days ago

We’ll have to wait for him to explain how it works. Seemed pretty busy today. I’m sure there is a reasonable reply on the way.

Brer Oswald29 days ago

Does he have someone conducting exit polls in the gift shop? Funny, nobody asked me of what I thought the 3 times I went on the ride.

Brer Oswald29 days ago

It was always going to be a weird fit. You’re taking a rustic cavernous structure themed around small woodland critters and shoving humans in their place. Granted, they could have done a better job with it than they did. What we got was basically the worst case scenario. I doubt they’ll fix it so long as it’s “serving its purpose” as a flume ride.

SamusAranX29 days ago

Disney isn’t retooling it unless the next CEO decides to pull a drastic (positive) culture shift of even higher, well placed investment. Think ala Igers original mandate to correct their “brand withdrawals”. Which he did with DCA. Then they promptly decided to completely overhaul their overhaul.

TrainsOfDisney29 days ago

Agreed. Not sure why we have to settle for “bushes” at Tiana, “snowflakes” at Frozen, and plastic “fish” at mermaid.

RosR929 days ago

I feel like they don’t even have to do that much if they really wanted to do the bare minimum, like even just add a few basic sets so we’re not floating by nothing for 90% of the ride. Like I can’t imagine making and placing a couple little critter houses is that hard or expensive

TrainsOfDisney29 days ago

If they ever rework Tiana it still has lots of potential- it’s not terrible.

TrainsOfDisney29 days ago

any guest rating is tricky - if I leave a Broadway show and someone asks me for a poll right after I would certainly rank it very high even if it was just average. (An average broadway show is still excellent). But will I revisit the same broadway show multiple times on future visits? That’s another question.

HauntedPirate29 days ago

4.5 from guests, based on what Len stated previously (and the same ratings they got for Splash) vs. 4.3 on the site is something being "easily skewed"?

Tony the Tigger29 days ago

I’m totally guessing, but he’s probably talking about polls taken in the park, those on his site are reviews by people who choose to leave a review, easily skewed. I could certainly be wrong.