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WDW Magic Kingdom: General Discussion

Disney have just announced that Tianas Bayou Adventure will be opening at WDW this summer (Disneyland cal later in 2024). Originally slated for a late 2024 debut, this must be one of the first times Disney has been ahead of schedule and opened a ride earlier than original planned.

Pleased it should now be open when I go in August as splash mountain was always one of my fav attractions at Disney World. They also released a clip of one of the excellent new animatronics for the ride, much like the newer rides in Japan and Hong Kong they have gone back to animatronic faces rather than projected faces they where using a few years back.
 
Splash Mountain was my favourite ride at Disney World. On Theme Park Insider it says it'll have more than a dozen new animatronics. Splash Mountain had about that many just on the paddleboat in the final scene. It says 'new' figures, so I wonder whether that means they're re-using some of the old ones, or whether it'll be a lot lighter on animatronics.
 
Yes I read they are reusing some of the old ones and I believe the 12 or so new ones are the new technically advanced animatronics for the main characters in the ride. The final part in area before final lift and the lift is meant to be good from what heard and will use a lot of different colour/size/style bottles handing from the ceiling that all light up. On a recent tour for journalists they wouldn’t take them through this part as wanted to keep it a surprise.
 
The new refurbishment looks pretty decent actually... the full POV was posted yesterday by Disney themselves.

I like how it keeps the iconic southern feel of Splash Mountain, just updated with a total new story, sub theme and characters, while still being firmly rooted in the southern USA. Sorry if I am being ignorant but I've never watched anything with the character that the refurbishment is based off, so this came as a pleasant surprise even though the word bayou in the name is a massive hint to southern USA.

I was apprehensive when I heard about this refurbishment initially a few years back, after seeing this POV, I quite like it actually. It makes me think that perhaps the most iconic and loved aspect of Splash Mountain for me, was the southern setting, which is still present. It is fair to say, that I think I am a fan of this.


From: https://youtu.be/RLmhNWq5kT0?si=o11DsS5iqszn4F1N
 
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I think it looks pretty decent as well @DistortAMG! The animatronics, as per usual with modern Disney, look excellent, it looks vibrant, it looks fun and musical, and it overall looks to maintain the vibe of the original pretty well, in my view!

It's getting absolutely slated in other places on the internet, though...

I will preface my comments by saying that I only rode the original Splash Mountain once, back in 2019, so I don't hold any particular nostalgia towards it. I have also never watched The Princess & The Frog.
 
Just watched the POV.

I am concerned that the new story is very basic. Their's no drama. A long ride like this needs moments of rise and fall in the tension, especially given that it is a log flume and should be building to the big payoff of the drops.

In this new ride the drops kind of feel like they are just there... They don't tie into the story, with the exception of the one drop as you are shrunk down to the size of a frog, that played well. But the main drop is just casually explained away as a quick way to get to the party.
compared to Splash Mountain, in which the main drop was what the story was building up to, your escape from the antagonists by jumping into the briar patch.

I think the absence of Dr Facilier, and "Friends on the other Side" is really noticeable. And they could have so easily included it by adding a plot point that you were intentionally being shrunk to the size of a frog to help Tiana, but in doing so you reopened the bridge to the other side.

Other than that from a technical level the ride looks great! The story just needed more excitement to it.
 
DistortAMG said:
The new refurbishment looks pretty decent actually... the full POV was posted yesterday by Disney themselves.

I like how it keeps the iconic southern feel of Splash Mountain, just updated with a total new story, sub theme and characters, while still being firmly rooted in the southern USA. Sorry if I am being ignorant but I've never watched anything with the character that the refurbishment is based off, so this came as a pleasant surprise even though the word bayou in the name is a massive hint to southern USA.

I was apprehensive when I heard about this refurbishment initially a few years back, after seeing this POV, I quite like it actually. It makes me think that perhaps the most iconic and loved aspect of Splash Mountain for me, was the southern setting, which is still present. It is fair to say, that I think I am a fan of this.


From: https://youtu.be/RLmhNWq5kT0?si=o11DsS5iqszn4F1N
Click to expand...

It looks good, although the screens don't seem to blend in with the rest of the attraction.
 
The ride looks good. Not amazing, just good.

The animatronics look great and highly realistic and lifelike. The music is hit and miss but works best towards the start and end of the ride.

My main disappointments here are the lack of storyline, especially having no Dr Facilier. He could’ve easily appeared around the halfway point, manipulating the journey and even then having the infamous “Are You Ready 🎵“ chorus just before the main drop. That would’ve made for something iconic and memorable IMO.

It is by no means the biggest disappointment I’ve seen Disney do of late, but what we have is just something that’s nice, instead of being incredible. Which I think could’ve been done easily.
 
I was bracing for something terrible but I actually kind of like it. It's very strange that they decided not to just do a "book report" of the movie's storyline, in favor of the current one of helping Tiana gather okra for her food co-op's big party...? And of course as a replacement for one of Disney's most iconic rides they were basically never going to live up to the original for a lot of people.

That said, it seems more like a VIBES-based ride than a fully narrative one, which fits in with the New Orleans musical theme pretty well. The animatronics are great, the music sounds fun, and the finale looks about as wonderful as Splash Mountain's, though I do admit I miss the paddle wheel boat with the singing and dancing animals on it.

It's kind of nice to have a ride where nothing "goes wrong" in the Disney sense of the phrase, it's just a nice cruise through the bayou on the way to a party.
 
Llama said:
That said, it seems more like a VIBES-based ride than a fully narrative one, which fits in with the New Orleans musical theme pretty well. The animatronics are great, the music sounds fun, and the finale looks about as wonderful as Splash Mountain's, though I do admit I miss the paddle wheel boat with the singing and dancing animals on it.
Click to expand...
I never thought Splash Mountain had an obvious plot either, it did of course but was easy to miss and just enjoy the VIBES instead.
 
Yeah, I know the Splash Mountain plot from having been on it probably a hundred times so it's hard to say, but thinking back on it the plot isn't all that obvious, and the parts that were obvious weren't exactly Shakespeare levels of compelling narrative. A clothed rabbit runs away from a fox and a bear. The rabbit gets caught but escapes by tricking the fox into throwing him into a briar patch, and then a bunch of animals celebrate the rabbit's return home with a big party. Basically all of the narrative heavy lifting was done by the two vulture animatronics who sneer at you just before the big lift hill while spooky music plays.

And I would also highly recommend the Star Wars Hotel Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser video posted above. I laughed at the runtime when I first saw it but it's somehow all killer, no filler, especially if you're a theme park nerd. The ways in which Disney fumbled what should have been an infinite money printing machine are truly remarkable.

Also... is there some reason the forum software capitalizes the word v-i-b-e-s? Is this a reference to the wonderful marketing team over at Rulantica?
 
Llama said:
Also... is there some reason the forum software capitalizes the word v-i-b-e-s?
Click to expand...
Its a Thorpe Park reference as far as I know. Although I think Thorpe have stopped capitalising VIBES bar and kitchen and its now just V-i-b-e-s.
 
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Unfortunately we live in an age of people who's memory span is shorter than a tik tok video.

Rides and attractions have to adapt to this in some aspects to remain relative and current. Attention defects are certainly worse in some parts of the world than others.

Maybe this is why we've seen the ride focus on atmosphere over story. Disney being Disney they need to appeal to a large portion of people.
 
The problem was in the 1st place was the movie it was based off. I only ever seen Songs of the south once and that was on video about 30 years ago. I had even been on Splash Mountain before I even had watched the film.
 
The reviews from people who have been on the ride seem to be a bit more positive than the initial hatred of the POV, which seems fair because Disney's official one is somehow much worse at demonstrating the vibe than some of the unofficial ones I've seen. It's an overlay after all, so the ceiling was always going to be lower than a completely new E-ticket, but all in all it seems like they did a good job, even if they made some strange decisions in the process.

The complaints about lack of cohesive narrative I find a bit funny. They're certainly valid, and Splash Mountain did seem to have much more in the way of a narrative than this new version, but there are so many classic Disney rides where the narrative is either nonexistent or convoluted unless you're already familiar with the movie. Decades later and there's still debate as to what exactly the story is for two of the most classic dark rides of all time, Pirates and Haunted Mansion, and you won't hear people mentioning that as a downside in those cases.
 
It's not the narrative at fault for me. Just that a log flume lends itself to a build up of tension, which peaks and is suddenly released with the drop.
The new story doesn't have that. This narrative would be perfectly fine on a classic dark ride. Maybe even a Pirates of the Caribbean style ride (drops but they don't really get you wet).
 
If only they included Dr Facilier in it...

I much prefer Splash Mountains music though, it's unbeatable for me, especially 'How do you do.'

At this rate I would've preferred if they modernised the animatronics in Splash to electric motors or pneumatics instead of a full on retheme.
 
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