Disney announces opening for Tiana's Bayou Adventure at Walt Disney World and a first look at new animatronics

Feb 13, 2024 in "Tiana's Bayou Adventure"

Tiana's Bayou Adventure - Tiana Animatronic
Posted: Tuesday February 13, 2024 8:40am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Disney announced today that Tiana's Bayou Adventure will open to guests at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom in the summer of 2024 and at Disneyland later in 2024.

Splash Mountain had its last day of operation on January 22, 2023, and a summer opening of Tiana's Bayou Adventure represents an impressive timeline for the reimagining effort, months ahead of the original "late 2024" announcement.

The earliest and most optimistic estimates place opening around Memorial Day (late May) at Magic Kingdom, but Disney has yet to make any announcement beyond "Summer 2024."

There will also likely be various rounds of previews for Cast Members, Annual Passholders, Disney Vacation Club Members, Club 33, and it remains to be seen how the soft openings will fit into the timeline.

Disney also today shared a first look at the Tiana audio-animatronic that will be part of the attraction and also confirmed that there will be dozens of entirely new Audio-Animatronics figures. Along with Princess Tiana, Louis and Mama Odie, we will also see Eudora, Charlotte, Prince Ralphie, Prince Naveen, and others.

Watch the video below to see the new Tiana Audio-Animatronic in action.

The "coming soon" posters surrounding Tiana's Bayou Adventure at Magic Kingdom have also now been updated to include the new Summer 2024 opening.

With Princess Tiana at the helm, this new attraction “digs a little deeper” into her story after the events of the Walt Disney Animation Studios film “The Princess and the Frog.” It is Mardi Gras season at Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, and the bayou will light up for a journey full of music, Mama Odie’s magic, and a whole boatful – log-ful? – of new friends, in preparation for a celebration where everyone’s welcome.

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    SamusAranX4 days ago

    ….by the Imagineers? lol

    ᗩLᘿᑕ ֊ᗩζᗩᗰ4 days ago

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

    SamusAranX4 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 Tigger4 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 Oswald4 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 Oswald4 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.

    SamusAranX4 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.

    TrainsOfDisney5 days ago

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

    RosR95 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

    TrainsOfDisney5 days ago

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

    TrainsOfDisney5 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.

    HauntedPirate5 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 Tigger5 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.

    DarkMetroid5675 days ago

    pulling an “um ackshually 🤓” to a guy and his own website is wild

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