Continuing on with my recent trip to Walt Disney World... I'm just going to put this out there, Tiana's Bayou Adventure was a hugely missed opportunity.

The re-theming of Splash Moutain was a long time coming. There was only so long that Disney could pretend that a ride based on Song of the South didn't have ties to a film filled with racist stereotypes. That they decided to use The Princess and The Frog to do this was pretty exciting. It's a great movie that's filled with awesome things to build a ride around, not the least of which was the city of New Orleans (my favorite American city). Plus the main characters are frogs! You can do some cool stuff with frogs! Plus there were other sweet characters like Louis and Ray and Mama Odie and the incredible Dr. Facilier to put in it! After the announcement, I remember thinking "Holy cow... the Disney imagineers must be going nuts designing everything!"

But Disney inexplicably threw out all of the things I was dying to see.

And I am still trying to understand why.

Instead of telling the story of The Princess and The Frog, the attraction is a sequel to the movie and continues the story. And since Dr. Facilier died in the movie, they didn't put him in the attraction. And that is categorically stupid as fuck. He is a fantastic villain that made the movie so cool. He's got magical abilities that would be visually stunning to experience. But even worse? Tiana and Naveen turned back into humans at the end of the movie, so they don't get to be frogs in the ride.

What the fuck?!?

But anyway...

The exterior of the attraction is mostly nice. I don't think it's as cool as the orange rocky mountain that tied into Frontierland and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad so well, but the greenery is pleasant, and I think that it would be particularly pretty at night (which I didn't get to experience... see yesterday's entry on why). But otherwise? Not what I was hoping to see.

In the concept art that Disney gave us, there was a big tree with a crashed boat in it that made the mountain look incredible...

The story of the ride (if you can call it that) is that Tiana is enlisting Louis's help to find musicians for a big New Orleans party that she's throwing. This is okay, in concept, but not great, in practice.

The ride queue is good. You're walking through Tiana's store, and they packed it to the gills with nifty stuff to look at. If there's a single part of the ride that's improved, this would be it.

Then the story falls apart as you board your log vehicle because you're in the bayou. So... was Tiana's store in the bayou too? I thought her restaurant was in New Orleans, so shouldn't that be where her store is? Who knows? It's sloppy shit like this that is very telling. Splash Mounain had a highly cohesive story that made sense. The new ride really doesn't.

Putting that aside, you leave the bayou and climb up to the main ride building where Tiana explains her plight to find musicians (which, in itself is crazy... YOU LIVE IN NEW ORLEANS, HOME OF SOME OF THE MOST AMAZING MUSICIANS ON THE PLANET, BUT YOU'RE GOING INTO THE SWAMP?!?). This section of the ride is really clunky because the amazing Tiana animatronic is completely frozen until your log approaches it. Very creepy. How hard would it have been to have her make movements in-between logs?

Even though you just climbed up a mountain, you're suddenly back in the bayou where Louis joins you to look for musicians. Just like Tiana, the animatronic for Louis is incredible. The other animal characters are well done as well. But here's the thing... because it's just Tiana and Louis in this story, there are long stretches of nothing in the ride because you can't be seeing two Tianas and two Louises at the same time. There has to be big breaks to keep the illusion working. And this right here is where the idea of a sequel should have been jettisoned. Because if they had followed the movie, you could have had moments with Ray and moments with Dr. Facilier filling in that space. But instead? Swamp. Wheee.

Eventually you get to Mama Odie, who shrinks you down to the size of a frog, though I don't quite understand why. But what's worse? YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENED WHEN IT HAPPENS! I didn't understand because while, yes, the props are bigger in scale, that happens all the time in Disney rides to draw your attention to them! The second time I rode it, I heard Mama Odie say something about shrinking you down... but it's still ridiculously and needlessly confusing. You then float through the bayou at a small size for no reason until Mama Odie decides to embiggen you again.

The original Splash Mountain had a lot of fun things going on throughout, but the entire point of the ride... that massive drop... was treated with a sense of danger and foreboding. Splash Mountain didn't set out to scare you, but it did want to play a psychological game as you were climbing up to that drop. There was a frightened Br'er Rabbit and vultures lamenting your fate and harrowing music. And now that's just... gone. All the tension has vanished. And the ride suffers because of it. Mama Odie makes you big again (if you manage to understand that's what's happening), you plunge down the mountain, and there's nothing more to it. What a shame.

But anyway...

You end up back in the bayou yet again as you roll up on Tiana's big party (back in New Orleans?). Whereas Splash Mountain overwhelmed you with tons of moving parts that weren't terribly detailed as you reach the Zipadee Doo Dah riverboat, Tiana's Bayou Adventure does the same with quality animatronics that are incredibly well-done. It's quite a sight to see, and a marked improvement over the original attraction.

The end.

And that's it. That's what it took Disney four years to figure out. It may sound like I'm disappointed with the attraction. That's not really true. It's an enjoyable distraction from life that's fairly well done. What I'm disappointed in is what a huge missed opportunity this was. I expected so much more, and was ultimately let down. Tiana's Bayou Adventure isn't bad... it's just not great.

So let's recap, shall we?

The Bad...

• Story. As I hope I made clear, the story doesn't make sense. Partly because they were re-theming an old ride that had a specific story, but mostly because they made this a sequel to the movie, which was just dumb.
• Video Screens. There's some pretty important parts of the ride where they cheaped out and used big screens instead of animatronics. It's bad. Especially the big screen where Tiana and Louis are looking in at you when you're tiny, because it's so glaringly obvious. No attempt at all was made to integrate the screen into the "world" you're inhabiting. There's a migration of fireflies where they at least tried, and it makes all the difference. As background elements, screens are okay. But as a major section of the ride? No.
• Blank Space. With only two characters carrying the story (three if you toss in Mama Odie, which I do not because her segment is nonsensical and irrelevant), there has to be long stretches of nothing. That's a huge problem. The ride feels empty in spots, even though it really isn't, because you can't see the same character in two places at once.
• Stalls. Having your animatronics freeze up and wait for you to arrive looks incredibly tacky and bad. Maybe they move too little to notice, but Tiana and Mama Odie both have weird pauses where they should be moving more.
• Lip Sync Weirdness Tiana and Louis have really good mouth movements, but the final Mama Odie animatronic must have been broken, because the sync looked terrible.

The Good...

• Animatronics. These are next level animatronics at every turn outside of the Mama Odie problem. Tiana and Louis are stunning. Even minor animatronics are beautifully done. The costumes and theming are all beautiful.
• Ceilings. Some actual effort was made to conceal the ceilings so you're not looking up at big stretches of paint. But heeeeere's the thing... if ever there was a place that I would advocate for the use of video screens, it would be on the ceiling! That's a way to make the height of the space appear far more vast. Show the stars twinkling in the sky. SHOW RAY NOW THAT HE'S A STAR! This is a no brainer, and yet it was completely overlooked. But still... at least some effort was made.
• Queue. As I mentioned, they did a very good job trying to make standing in line be a bit more interesting than it used to be. Always appreciated.

And now? Time for some beignets.