Disneyland's Splash Mountain to close in late May to begin the transformation into Tiana's Bayou Adventure

DavidDL7 days ago

So it was obviously crowded, though it wasn't anything we weren't used to (especially after having worked there for over half a decade). Our plan was pretty standard: get there at opening and utilize Lighting Lanes whenever possible. We also paid for the individual line skip for Rise. We took our time with breakfast and had a lighting lane ready to go for Space right afterwards. In terms of return times, the only ones that were unreasonable were Indy and Matterhorn, because they were both also having intermittent issues throughout the day and kept shutting down and coming back up. On any of our return times we didn't wait longer than 20 minutes each, I wanna say. We got lucky with Matterhorn and Indy, too, because we just happened to be in the right place at the right time when they came back up (in Indy's case, we were in line at the Bengal BBQ and saw then open up, then hopped right in line). Getting lucky was a recurring theme (other than Tiana's, of course), lots of stuff just sort of "happened to work out". We got in line for "it's a small world" holiday while waiting for another Lighting Lane to kick in, but it just happened to be while the parade was going by that area so the posted 45 minute wait time ended up being 10 minutes after we walked by all the clueless Guests in line who refused to move forward because they were more interested in filming the parade on their phones than they were in moving forward for the attraction they were queued up for. The Fantasyland stuff and Toontown we knocked out in quick succession using standby late at night (around 11pm), nothing other than Pan was longer than a 5-10 minute wait. Mickey and Minnie's was posted as a 20 but we walked right on (the cartoon they play took longer than the line we waited in). We were in the park from roughly 7:30am to midnight, so we didn't go wanting for much by the end of it all. Aside from Tiana's, it was a good time. I think the longest wait of the day for us was our first ride through Haunted Mansion Holiday (we went twice), because we actually wanted to see the new queue at least once. That wait was maybe around 45 minutes. We also waited maybe around 20 to 30 for the Canoes because they only had 2 out on the river at the time. Other than that, I want to say we waited around 20 minutes or less for pretty much everything else. :D

mickEblu7 days ago

Glad you guys had a good day and got to ride everything… except Tiana. How were the crowds? I guess it couldn’t have been too bad if you got to ride everything but then again maybe you only had Enchanted Tiki Room and Pooh on your list 😉. How were the LL return times?

DavidDL7 days ago

Oh believe me, I didn’t forget your recommendation! We were going with a friend who had never been and shortly after I made that post, they let me know the 14th would no longer work with their schedule. 🤣 We had a good time otherwise, all things considered. We did pretty much everything else in the park, including breakfast at Plaza Inn and dinner at Cafe’ Orleans. You get one chance to make a first impression, though, and this was TBA’s for all three of us. Although I doubt he was too heartbroken about it. When we walked over to the standby entrance to talk to the CMs, he saw the sign and was like, “Wait, who is Tiana?” lol

mickEblu7 days ago

Hey, I thought I told you to go on the 14th?

DavidDL7 days ago

I went to Disneyland on Saturday the 21st and was there from park open to park close. Here is my honest review for Tiana’s, out of 10. 0/10. It never opened. Say whatever you want about the source material, or whatever ride issues Splash had, at least it could actually open for Guests. That they were able to take an attraction that could operate reliably from park open to park close for over 30 years and screw it up so bad that it needs to close early, if it ever opens at all, is just pathetic.

EagleScout61012 days ago

This came up in my reccomends on YouTube after work. It was honestly kind of a hard watch knowing that these beautiful figures were all trashed for things like Mondo and Lari

chadwpalm13 days ago

They sacrificed uptime with fancy shmancy animatronics that can't stay working. WDI might be okay spending tons of money developing state-of-the-art animatronics, but never take into account that the parks themselves don't want to increase their maintenance budgets to accommodate all of the break-downs and maintenance it takes to keep them running. There's a huge disparity between WDI's budget and park operation's budget. The more complex the AA's are (or in some cases the ride system), the more maintenance they are going to need. Disney does not seem to understand that concept.

Adventureland Veranda13 days ago

Well at least it's hidden now by the new HM Home Depot shed with authentic screen printed signs.

SuddenStorm14 days ago

Modern WDI lacks any subtlety.

mickEblu14 days ago

Turn all the lights off AND put it all under plastic plants

SuddenStorm14 days ago

Let's talk about what at travesty it is to do that to Splash's set design. The building itself was a work of art. To try and hide it underneath plastic plants is shameful.

Brer Oswald15 days ago

I guess they meant "insane amount of time to start construction from the period they announced it"? The reason for that is because they announced it prematurely, 2 weeks after they abruptly decided they were going to do it. Typically these attractions have YEARS of development before they get announced. 3 years of active development, from concept to opening is actually extremely short. The construction period was rushed, and it clearly shows in the final product. Most of the sculpted sets from Splash are still there. You just can't seem them because they painted them solid dark colours, covered them will fake plants, and turned off the lights.

D.Silentu15 days ago

I took the 'insane amount...' comment to be a poorly worded reference to the design phase, but taken at face value it is a questionable statement.

PiratesMansion16 days ago

This would be easier to believe if the line about the 'insane amount of time to construct' wasn't in there. Although it was reusing an existing attraction, it's hard to say with a straight face it took an abnormally long time to construct when Tron took six years. And when Splash went down for the conversion, it took what, a year and a half or so before TBA opened? Longer than the MB conversion, but then Splash was a more elaborate ride than TOT.