Splash Mountain is hopping out of the briar patch and into the bayou. Four years after Disney Parks first announced the Princess and the Frog-themed revamp of the classic log flume dark ride, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure gives Princess Tiana the royal treatment with a long-awaited attraction of her own. The newly reimagined ride — which opens at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom theme park on June 28th, before the Disneyland version splashes down later in 2024 — is a gumbo with the key ingredients of any time-honored Disney theme park experience: storytelling, spectacle, theming, thrills, music, and beloved characters.
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ComicBook dropped into the Orlando-based resort for a preview of Disney World’s new Tiana ride and to dig a little deeper into the story behind the splashy, stunning overhaul. For this sneak peek, cher, we’re gonna take you all the way down the bayou with a full Tiana’s Bayou Adventure ride-through video (above) and a firsthand account of the enhancements — including the cutting-edge audio-animatronics, the jazzy New Orleans-style music, and the all-new storyline that serves as a Princess and the Frog sequel ahead of the upcoming Tiana Disney+ series — throughout the updated ride with all its joie de vivre.
The Story of Tiana’s Foods
“You know the thing about good food? It brings folks together from all walks of life. It warms them right up and it puts little smiles on their faces.”
Disney describes Tiana’s Bayou Adventure as an “exhilarating musical adventure” set against the backdrop of New Orleans and the Louisiana bayou, with the next chapter of Tiana’s story picking up one year after the end of the 2009 Disney Animation film The Princess and the Frog.
“A lot has changed since then,” explained Ted Robledo, portfolio executive creative director, Walt Disney Imagineering. “One of the most exciting parts of the attraction is seeing where Princess Tiana’s life has taken her after that movie.”
Hopping aboard a hollowed-out floating log, guests embark on a thrilling journey with Tiana (Disney Legend Anika Noni Rose, reprising her role from the movie) and jazz-loving gator Louis (Michael-Leon Wooley) as they traverse whimsical winding waterways to find critter musicians who can jam out and entertain at Tiana’s southern soiree. With help from 200-year-old bayou Fairy Godmother Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis) and her “seeing eye snake,” Juju, the musical adventure crescendos with a 50-foot drop that leads riders to the grandest celebration this side of the Mississippi during Mardi Gras season — a bayou bash where everyone is welcome.
The story-based (and beignet-scented!) queue tells the backstory: Tiana, the tenacious working waitress who achieved her dream of opening her own jazz-filled restaurant, is the proud owner of Tiana’s Palace in New Orleans. The princess of Maldonia and a hard-working restaurateur, Tiana continued to grow her business with Tiana’s Foods, an employee-owned cooperative established in 1927. After turning an old sugar mill into Tiana’s Palace, she purchased an aging salt mine, combined her talents with those of the local community, and built a beloved brand.
With her mother Eudora, former frog prince Naveen (Bruno Campos), Louis, and fellow owners of the cooperative, Tiana revived the old salt mine and the surrounding land, growing a wide array of vegetables, herbs and spices for her recipes. Besides Tiana’s famous beignets (fluffy confections you can actually eat at Golden Oak Outpost in Frontierland at Magic Kingdom park) and a line of original hot sauces (bottles of roasted pepper-flavored Mama Odie’s Hot Sauce will be available to buy at the Emporium and the new Critter Co-Op store), Tiana’s Foods serves up the best of the Big Easy: Cajun and Creole cuisine, and delicious dishes like jambalaya, étouffée, muffulettas, and, of course, Tiana’s nice and spicy gumbo. (If you’ve got an envie for Cajun food, the new Hot Honey Chicken and Shrimp Gumbo, both served with Cajun-spiced sweet potato fries, are on the menu at Golden Oak Outpost June 28th – September 6th.)
“Tiana would not be possible if not for Leah Chase,” Disney Imagineering’s Carmen Smith, senior vice president – product/content & inclusive strategies, said of the real-life “Queen of Creole Cuisine” who inspired Tiana’s creation in The Princess and the Frog. “She was a dreamer and a doer, a working mom who followed her dream to run a restaurant. She and her husband, Dooky, ran Dooky Chase’s in New Orleans. But it wasn’t just a restaurant. It was a gathering place that inspired so many. When Disney Animation visited New Orleans and sat down with Chef Chase, they knew this American original was the perfect inspiration for Disney’s first African-American princess.”
They Got Music, It’s Always Playin’
“When you hear that music playin’, hear what I’m saying, it make you feel alright.”
A love letter to the musical city that inspired the attraction, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure features new music from award-winning artists PJ Morton (who wrote, arranged, composed, and performed the original song “Special Spice”) and Terence Blanchard (who contributed to The Princess and the Frog‘s music, playing Louis’ trumpet parts on the movie’s Oscar and Grammy-nominated soundtrack). New Orleans natives Morton and Blanchard bring an authentic sound to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, which is infused with classic songs from the Crescent City throughout its meticulously detailed and decorated queue.
Where Splash Mountain had its southern-flavored sounds and songs pulled from 1946’s Song of the South, including “How Do You Do?” and “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” Tiana’s soundtrack is an easy-flowing medley of new renditions of fan-favorite Princess and the Frog songs “Down in New Orleans,” “Almost There,” “Gonna Take You There,” and “Dig a Little Deeper.”
The Bayou Community Band: New Critter Characters
“You ready for a little bayou zydeco?”
The Magic Kingdom version of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure may be located in Frontierland, but this here is critter country. (The Disneyland version is located in actual Critter Country, bordering the more thematically-appropriate New Orleans Square.) As we help Tiana and Louis try to find a band in the bayou, we come across 19 new animals in Tiana’s Bayou Adventure: musician critters playing a musical gumbo of Zydeco (a blend of rhythm and blues), Rara (a procession of diverse sounds, including drums, maracas, and bamboo trumpets) and Afro-Cuban music (known for jazzy sounds and complex rhythms) authentic to the region of New Orleans.
Among this cavalcade of new audio-animatronic animal figures — all of them playing instruments made from natural materials found in the bayou or human-made found objects, like a license plate frottoir or a worn-out squeezebox — are Byhalia the Beaver, Gritty the Rabbit, Beau the Opossum, Rufus the Turtle, Apollo the Raccoon, Timoléon the Otter, Louisiana Black Bear trio Claude, Bernadette, and Sebastián, Phina the Gray Fox, and bayou bobcats Octavia and Pawpaw. The four-frog band Las Ranitas Verdes (“The Green Little Frogs”) — bandleader and pianist Felipe; flower blossom trumpeter Mayra; and conga drummers Mondo and Isabel the Green Tree Frog — is the most hoppin’ band in the bayou. (Other froggy friends can be seen throughout the ribbit-roaring ride, and in a nostalgic nod to Splash Mountain, an Easter egg in the queue pays tribute to the James Avery-voiced Br’er Frog.)
Not only do these new Princess and the Frog-inspired animal characters feel like classic Disney, they would have fit right in with the since-retired collection of original critters that populated Splash Mountain (alongside the characters based on the animated segments of Song of the South).
“After we board our boats and they pass through this beautiful, lush lagoon filled with trees, plants, and flowers of the bayou, of course, we’re going to join Tiana and the jazz-loving alligator and trumpet player Louis on an adventure down the river searching for that essential missing ingredient: musicians,” Robledo said of the ride’s all-new, original story. “Along the way, we’re going to meet bands of critters sharing all of the diverse and rich sounds of New Orleans, playing their own renditions of these Tiana songs. And with the help of Mama Odie’s special magic, we’re going to dig a little deeper in the bayou and find all the musicians we’re looking for as she shrinks us down to the size of a frog for a perspective of the bayou that you could not ever get unless it was with Mama Odie.”
“And so,” Robledo continues, “as the journey and the talent search concludes” — with a 50-foot, splash-making drop into Tiana’s bayou bash — “it’s Mama Odie again who brings us back to our big, beautiful selves, and gets us to that joyful Mardi Gras celebration at the magnificent home of Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen.”
How to Ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
Here’s what to know about Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Disney World:
Is Tiana’s Bayou Adventure a water ride?
Like Splash Mountain before it, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is a water-based ride. In between your leisurely log ride through the bayou are sudden drops and stops – and you may get wet. (Riders sitting in the front or on the right side of the two-seater log are more likely to be soaked than splashed!)
Will Tiana’s Bayou Adventure still have the drop?
The theme of Splash Mountain may have been flung into the briar patch, but Tiana’s Bayou Adventure still has the drop – in fact, there are multiple drops down smaller waterfalls before the big one. You just have to take the plunge.
How big is the drop on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure?
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure has a 50-foot plunge – a scream-worthy five stories drop into the Mardi Gras party at Fleur du Bayou (“Flower of the Bayou.”)
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Height Requirements
Guests must be at least 40 inches tall to ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Opening Date
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure opens June 28th at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom theme park; the Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Disneyland counterpart opens later this year.
How to Ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
Disney notes that a virtual queue will be in place when Tiana’s Bayou Adventure opens June 28th at Disney World. To ride the new attraction, you’ll have to use the (free) My Disney Experience app to request to join the virtual queue at select distribution times (typically 7 a.m. and 1 p.m.). (TRON Lightcycle/Run at Magic Kingdom and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind at EPCOT are other Disney World rides that replaced a traditional standby queue with a virtual line.) You can bypass the virtual queue and hop on the ride quicker if you purchase Lightning Lane (the replacement for fast pass), which is offered as an à la carte option through the Disney Parks app’s Disney Genie+ service.
