Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is now in Cast Member previews, and we were lucky enough to be invited to one of the previews recently to check out Magic Kingdom’s newest ride before it opens to the public on June 28th. In this article, we’re going to try and give you as fulsome of a look at the attraction as possible, via dozens of still photos from the preview. We won’t have a video of the ride until later due to the nature of the limited Cast Member preview only allowing on ride per group. For a video of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, check out the official POV from Disney World.
Over the next few weeks, select groups will be able to preview the attraction, with Cast Members and their friends/family getting a first look. Preferred media outlets will get a preview next week, with Annual Passholders and more Cast Member previews scheduled for the second half of June. Then, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will open to all guests on June 28th via a limited-time Virtual Queue before returning to a traditional standby shortly thereafter.
The goal of this article is to provide photos of the queue and ride. We’ll refrain from offering our opinion of the ride in this specific article, but we will have a first impressions review in the coming days. We’ll also have a comparison of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure to Splash Mountain, given that we have a voluminous archive from before Splash Mountain closed. For a look back at Splash Mountain, check out our farewell article with more than 150 photos taken over the closing days of the attraction.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Queue Photos
Just like Splash Mountain before it, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure contains an outdoor portion of the queue and an indoor portion of the queue. Given that the ride will be utilizing Virtual Queue to start, we expect access to the queue to be controlled in a way that allows for a manageable standby wait. That means that the queue shouldn’t stretch too long into the walkways of Frontierland, so we’ll start our photo tour at the main entrance where the wait time will be posted.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will be accessible via standby (gated by Virtual Queue, at first) and Lightning Lane via the Disney Genie+ skip-the-line offering. The tappoints are located under the Frontierland Railroad Station, relocated slightly from the days of Splash Mountain to allow for more shade and protection from the elements for Cast Members and infrastructure alike.
Standard attraction warning signs can also be found here (as well as other portions of the queue), along with some themed signage.
Guests walk out the other side of the Frontierland Station “tunnel” to the outdoor portion of the queue. Lightning Lane will skip the majority of the outdoor portion of the queue before entering the barn main office building. We’ll get there too, eventually.
A concerning amount of Lightning Lane queue exists for the ride. Be prepared to wait.
The main barn has been repainted an unmistakable shade of yellow. Two murals have also been commissioned to adorn the yellow panels. Signage lets you know that you’ve arrived at the main entrance to Tiana’s Foods. Of course, we’ve still got plenty of exterior queue to wind through, so lets not get ahead of ourselves.
A rebuilt staircase offers an emergency exit for guests in the interior portion of the queue.
Water rides, by their nature, are more seasonal rides – finding an increase in popularity during the hot summer months. It’s for that reason that we’re very happy to see that Disney World kept the large trees in the outdoor portion of the queue. Yes, this portion of the queue is basically just what it was when the attraction was Splash Mountain, but if little to no change was the trade off for keeping these massive trees in place, I’ll take it.
As we wind through the outdoor portion of the queue, we aren’t going to see much that’s new. Redesigned birdhouses and new/improved lighting and speakers are a nice touch. A faux radio show plays throughout your wait, which is equally enjoyable for active and passive listeners. There is a children’s garden and we have a look at Tiana’s Bayou General store from the outside.
As we get closer to the Tiana’s Foods main entrance office, we can see a Tiana’s Foods delivery truck with prime parking.
The queue flow remains the same as Splash Mountain, even with some significant changes indoors. That means that you’ll enter the barn from ground level, before coming out a back hallway and then heading up a set of stairs. We’ll have more about accessibility when the time comes to make a decision in line.
Back to the delivery truck and first floor of the barn, which is the Tiana’s Foods office.
One step inside the Tiana’s Foods barn and you’re immediately hit with more details than you can possibly absorb in a single visit. Due to the nature of our preview (please fill in all available space and keep up with the party ahead of you!), we were unable to spend as much time in the queue as we’d like, but we should have more preview opportunities in the coming weeks after preferred media gets a shot at riding. For now, here’s a look at the office before we make our way up to the second floor of the building!
Ok, as we make our way out of the barn office, we are met with the stairs to the second floor of the building. It’s at this point that guests with mobility issues can use the accessible entrance to the attraction. You will miss some really great details, but if you cannot use the staircase, there is no other option. A Cast Member is stationed at this fork in the road to assist.
Continuing up the stairs, we can see another warning sign. By the time we get to the loading area, there should be absolutely zero confusion as to the style of the ride, and the fact that you may will get wet.
A faux employee break room door is found at the top of the stairs before we get to what appears to be a memory-filled test kitchen. Note that while Lightning Lane will be able to see most of the upcoming scenes, it will be through some of the tinted windows similar to what’s seen on the double doors ahead. Standby gets priority viewing of the upcoming test kitchen area. I probably should’ve mentioned this earlier, but all of our photos are from the regular standby queue.
The walls are filled with memories, and we wish we could really have spent more time documenting every amazing detail. Hopefully, we’ll get a chance once the Annual Passholder previews start on June 13th.
After exiting the test kitchen, Lightning Lane merges with standby much earlier than Splash Mountain. We reported on this change back in April, and we can confirm that merge happens as you exit the barn and enter the salt mines, not down near the load area as was the case for Splash Mountain.
We’ve spoken about a few changes from Splash Mountain, but we’ll have a detailed scene-by-scene comparison in a later article. One such change is that this hallway no longer serves as an overlook for the load area beyond what you might be able to see through colored glass panes.
As we approach the load area (and some difficult daytime photography conditions), we can see that the general layout hasn’t changed much. Some new paint on the buildings is secondary to new cranes for the Tiana’s Foods venture. Presumably, the logs are a form of transportation for the crates when not used by guests.
Ok, we’re more than 100 photos into this article, how about we hop on a log and head into the bayou?!
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Ride Photos
We’ll try our best not to compare the scenes to Splash Mountain too much in this article for the sake of conciseness (if you can even call this article concise anyway), and we’ll try to stick to simple scene descriptions for the ride. Again, a scene-by-scene comparison is coming (at some point).
We’ve already seen the load/unload area, so let’s start this log floating down the river and make our turn toward lift hill number one. We can see some Tiana’s Foods crates stacked up along the side of the river, and there’s actually a Cast Member positioned in the distance ahead. This is a new Cast Member position, and its where you’ll get your lap bar checked before heading out on your bayou adventure.
A short lift hill nicely reveals and frames the Tiana’s Foods water tower. As we drop into the bayou to a bigger-than-expected wave, we can hear “Down in New Orleans” playing.
We’ve watched the bayou take shape over many months, so it was nice to finally float through the bald cypress trees and hear two frogs croaking in between screaming guests taking a 52.5-foot plunge to your right.
A continuous turn to the right straightens out as a mill house comes into view past the bald cypress trees. The ingredients for gumbo are painted on a wooden fence to your left, appearing to float along next to you as guests continue to plunge down the iconic drop to your right. A quick glance over to the right shows a lush scene where the logs disappear into the unknown. We get another quick glance at the Tiana’s Foods water tower before our attention is, once again, drawn to the mill house.
There were hints in the queue, but a purple banner makes it inescapably clear – Tiana and Naveen are throwing a celebration and we’re invited!
A climb up a second lift hill through the mill house puts the first Audio-Animatronic of the ride to our left. After a quick compliment from Tiana (“look at all these beautiful faces”), she encourages us to continue on with our adventure and find Louis, who is already in search for musicians.
Another short drop sends a wave of water under the Tiana’s Foods sign in front of us. If it wasn’t for the large Tiana’s Foods sign that we pass under, a makeshift sign labeled “Shortcut to the Bayou” would almost make us feel like we’re headed in the wrong direction, but we press on.
As we approach a corner and the first of a number of gardens, we hear the familiar tune of “Almost There”, sung by Tiana. Up ahead, we can see something in the garden, and as plants begin to shake back and forth, it becomes clear that Louis is up ahead!
His large footprints can be seen on the left side of the boat, presumably as he exited the very river we’re riding along. His footprints are wet thanks to the wave that we sent after a short drop out of the mill house.
As far as we can tell, Louis doesn’t actually move here, but we can hear him calling out for musicians as he sticks his head under a wheelbarrow.
Around the corner, a playful arrangement of various fruits and veggies resembles Louis the Alligator next to a garden of Louisiana Gator Peppers. Honestly, this may be the best part of the ride. Oh wait, this isn’t a review, back to the play-by-play.
We continue to float by various gardens.
The Tiana’s Foods water tower comes into view again, but this time at eye level. Unavoidably, the rest of Frontierland comes into view before you hear Mama Odie’s voice, and you’re brought back to New Orleans.
What appears to be Mama Odie’s residence (perhaps a rental or summer home?) is on our right before the biggest drop yet starts to come into view. Mama Odie’s voice can be heard telling us that we don’t have far to go to find musicians! From the front of the log, you can start to measure out the length of the fall, but the back of the log makes things a bit more suspenseful. This isn’t the big drop yet!
With another drop, we seemingly ride a wave into the bayou, where the bright Florida sun is replaced by some of the most dimly lit show scenes at Walt Disney World. Again, this isn’t meant to be a review, but the dark show scenes are more reminiscent of DINOSAUR or Haunted Mansion than they are of Na’vi River Journey – very much to the detriment of the ride. As we turn the corner below, we lose the ambient light from our entry, and it gets dark.
The first song that we hear as we enter the bayou is, fittingly, “Gonna Take You There” from the Princess and the Frog movie. A lively zydeco band is somewhere in the distance, but first, we spot Louis the Alligator up ahead.
Louis lets us know that despite his best efforts back in the Okra garden, it was, in fact, Tiana who found the critter zydeco band, and we spot Tiana up ahead. She gives a stamp of approval and the first critter band is invited to play at Tiana and Naveen’s party.
Here’s a closer look at the critter band, which includes:
- Timoléon the Otter (back left)
- Apollo the Raccoon (back right)
- Byhalia the Beaver (front left)
- Beau the Opossum (front middle)
- Rufus the Turtle (front right)
To learn more about the critters and their personalities, check out our article below!
Turning a dark corner, we can see a screen ahead with fireflies bouncing along to the beat of the music playfully.
Turning another corner, we can see Tiana and Louis on the right side of the boat with Octavia and Pawpaw, both bobcats. They’re each playing a bayou vaksin, which is popular in Rara music.
A little further along on the left side of our log, we can see three bears and a fox. From left to right, we have Phina the Gray Fox, Bernadette the Louisiana Black Bear, Sebastián the Louisiana Black Bear, and Claude the Louisiana Black Bear.
Fireflies continue to dance on the left side of the boat and in the trees above us, guiding us past a shack and toward Tiana in the distance. There are some pretty nice firefly effects in the trees here that are far too subtle for us to capture properly in this under-illuminated section of the ride. We’re already doing a considerable amount of editing to create photos that are somewhat viewable.
Tiana recruits all of the critters so far, but says that we need to continue to “search high and low” to find more musicians. Louis, stuck in a log, asks “how low can I go?!” and Mama Odie appears for the first time to try and answer his question.
Her multi-colored bottles are hanging from the trees as she stirs a potion of unknown effect. As we start to tip forward for another drop, Mama Odie chuckles and says “unusual places hide unusual things”. A sort of camel-hump track takes us past a striking lighting effect that appears to indicate that Mama Odie’s potion worked…but what did it do?
All of a sudden, mushrooms reach up to the ceiling and the normal-sized bottles that we saw hanging next to Mama Odie are now bigger than we are! It looks like we’ve been shrunken down to the size of a frog!
Sure enough, Mondo the frog can be spotted nearby as he plays the conga drums, and an upbeat rendition of “Dig a Little Deeper” plays. Up ahead, we can see signage for the “Lemoine Club”, which promises to be an exclusive bayou nightclub, where the local fireflies love to dance the night away to a musical recipe of hot rhythms and spicy melodies.
We drop into the Lemoine Club and find a few frogs playing their own versions of makeshift musical instruments while Tiana and Louis are now shown on a screen as larger-than-life versions of themselves (at least, from the perspective of a frog).
Up ahead, fireflies continue to guide our way downstream as Mama Odie cooks up a plan to make us big again. A climb up the iconic final lift hill features new mist and lighting effects that are meant to mirror the effect that we encountered when we shrunk. Of course, if you are riding during the day, light bleed from the salt dome opening ahead neuters the effect.
At the top of the lift hill, Mama Odie says “let’s get you to the party” and the full 52.5-foot drop comes into view, along with much of Frontierland, Cinderella Castle, and beyond. The drop is every bit as intense as it was before the reimagining – none of the track layout changed.
An intense drop under the same bayou that we were leisurely floating by about 10 minutes ago plunges us into even more mist before we are soaked in the splashdown tunnel.
As we assess just how wet we’ll be for the next hour, a leisurely U-turn past a crowd watching from the Frontierland boardwalk sends us back in the direction of the show building for the indoor finale scene.
Before we get to the finale scene, we can see a slightly reduced waterfall to our right, and, unfortunately, the removal of a welcome banner. We’re not sure if it’ll return, but here’s a look at it as spotted when the construction walls came down, followed by our on-ride photos.
The finale scene is where the attraction comes alive – featuring more than a dozen Audio-Animatronics. Before we turn the corner into the finale scene, a sign informs us that we’re visiting Fleur du Bayou, the home of Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen.
On our left are Charlotte La Bouff and Eudora. To the right, Lari is in physical form, while other party guests are seen in screen form within a window. The eye is drawn to Tiana and Naveen’s mansion home, where all of the critters we saw throughout the ride are playing an original song for the attraction – Special Spice. Also in physical form are Louis the Alligator, Tiana, Prince Ralphie, and Prince Naveen.
After we pass by Fleur du Bayou, we see who we assume to be Gloria and Delores (from the bayou pool log) sitting on a Tiana’s Foods crate with Tiana’s Palace and surrounding buildings painted onto the wall.
The final Audio-Animatronic that we encounter is Mama Odie, next to a plate of beignets. Juju the snake is supposed to be in this scene too, but that effect wasn’t working.
We see another frog and band posters along a wooden plank wall before returning to the load/unload platform.
Here are a few photos from after you exit the ride and make your way toward the Tiana’s Bayou General gift shop. The shop was closed during our preview, but we could peek inside through the semi-opaque windows. On-ride photos are also available to review.
We’ll have more coverage of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in the coming days!
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!
Princess and the frog is probably one of the worst movies disney has made. This new ride’s concept is awful. I just keep saying why? Who wants to look at fake food etc. That’s why we have the Land at Epcot. I can honestly say I will never waste my time on this ride. Give me splash mountain back.