New Video - A Deep Dive into the Making of Tiana's Bayou Adventure with Walt Disney Imagineers

Posted: Friday March 22, 2024 10:39am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

The New Orleans Book Festival hosted Walt Disney Imagineering for a panel discussion on "Bringing Tiana's Bayou Adventure to Life," moderated by Leslie Iwerks.

In this 45-minute video, you can hear from WDI's Charita Carter and Carmen Smith and "honorary Imagineer" Stella Chase.

The New Orleans Book Festival brings the world's leading authors to Tulane University for a multi-day celebration of their works. The Festival features both fiction and non-fiction and convenes readings, panel discussions, symposia and keynote speeches. It provides an opportunity for outlets, authors and readers to interact with each other in one of the most vibrant and culturally diverse cities in the world.

Tiana's Bayou Adventure will open in the summer of 2024, but Disney has yet to announce a precise date.

The earliest and most optimistic estimates place a soft opening around Memorial Day (late May), which may put an official opening sometime in July.

The upcoming D23 Down in New Orleans event on March 23 provides Disney with one of two opportunities to announce an opening date; the other is the Annual Shareholders meeting on April 3.

Tiana's Bayou Adventure testing - March 4, 2024

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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.

TrainsOfDisney4 days ago

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

RosR94 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

TrainsOfDisney4 days ago

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

TrainsOfDisney4 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.

HauntedPirate4 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.