Experience Tiana's Bayou Adventure: A Disney Fan's Objective Guide

I got to ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, the newest ride at the Magic Kingdom that opened on June 28th, 2024. If you don’t want it spoiled, don’t read this after the fourth paragraph.

This ride uses the virtual queue system and when my boarding group got called, which had downtime, so I wasn’t called until around 5 in the afternoon. This ride replaced the Disney classic, Splash Mountain, and the Disney community has been giving mixed reviews. They are sometimes not very receptive to change. I tried my best not to watch any of the videos on it so I could go in first and make my own opinion. I am glad I did, now I feel like I should ride it a few more times but at the moment, I think it is a winner. 

Like all rides, some things could have been done a bit better. A storyline with stakes is missing that Splash Mountain did have. They could have filled in some dead space, but most attractions have dead space and are still considered great, such as Peter Pan. Also, the thin storyline is tied up with a Disney Plus series about to come out doesn’t make me feel great but attractions are just big advertisements for their properties. 

I say it is just a fun attraction. I liked Splash Mountain and I know it stinks it is gone and I wish I could have both but let’s try to look at this ride as objectively as possible. It is fun. The multiple-drop layout of Splash Mountain is still intact which makes for a tremendous flume ride already even without theming. Speaking on the theming it is good and very transformative. Let’s go through this attraction. 

Starting with the queue. Once you get by the mass confusion based on the virtual queue you get to get hit with more theming like some small gardens and a car with Tiana’s theming on it. Once inside it takes it up a notch as you walk past posters of different parts of backstory, and you enter an office of some sort with an old school typewriter on a desk and on a table behind a newspaper speaking on Tiana holding a Mardi Gras party for all of New Orleans. These little details in queues were added when Universal made Harry Potter World and I’m glad it stuck. It is done well when I wish I could wait a little bit longer in a room to read what it has to offer. 

You snake back outside and up the stairs into a small hallway scattered with details. You move so fast through this room that I could only see the letters Tiana’s dad wrote her in frames hanging on the wall. A ribbon of a cook-off Tiana won, and other pictures elsewhere. You then enter the kitchen with beignets cooked and waiting on you on the table. After that, you enter the salt mine which is the setting where the entire attraction takes place. You get to see the flakes of salt shimmering on the cave walls and it is so fun to walk through. Also, there is a window that says TNT storage and the only thing stored in there are chili peppers and other ingredients. They made small details fun, and this part is what screamed Splash Mountain to me. 

After the salt mine, you go to the load station where they put you in quick. Like very quick they are very efficient and mostly because the lap bar check is after the load area. You finally get into the water, and you float down the side, looking at the people of the Magic Kingdom and a good view of the big drop as well. Two frogs sit on a log watching you. After this section, you get your first look at Tiana’s animatronic, and it is a figure that you just have to see because it is incredible how lifelike it is. The movements are so fluid. You go through another garden with a static figure of Louis looking around. It is the only static figure of Louis. 

You go over the top of the water you just floated and you get some great views of the Magic Kingdom and the water tower with Tiana’s Tiara. I enjoy this slow portion boat ride with unique views. 

After a drop, you finally enter the inside portion of the attraction where the first room has the most empty space out of all of them. It is the first time you get to see the fireflies blinking above you and you get to see Louis animatronic which isn’t as fluid as Tiana’s but still pretty nice. 

The second room has the first group of animals that really gave me the Splash Mountain feelings and you get to see the Tiana animatronic again which just is incredibly impressive. 

The next room is basically all dead space until the next where you get to see Tiana and Louis side by side with other critters to see the difference in how advanced they are. More animatronic critters are seen with less movement, but they fill the room much better. After a couple more Tiana and Louis sightings including one of his rear, we see Mama Odie who turns you into a frog as you drop again which surprises you because it’s not just a drop but a rise and then a drop almost like a roller coaster feeling instead of a flume ride. 

This starts my favorite part, everything is big, the frogs are big and there’s a unique use of a screen with Tiana and Louis looking in at you as they are playing music and float by some more seeing a screen with the bigger fireflies now including one of the characters from the movie. It’s a really fun time which leads into the final climb for your drop. This is where I miss the stakes of Splash Mountain. The climb is once again feeling empty and it could have been used much better but you pass your first Mama Odie animatronic instead of screens and you see an amazing view of the magic kingdom before you plummet. The plummet will always be iconic.

You pass the armadillo character with eyes that follow you and enter the finale room. This was such an iconic scene of Splash Mountain, but it is an amazing showcase of animatronics that Disney can do now. It is amazing to see all of them together. A fun smaller detail is when you pass the stage with the most animatronics you see small animatronic frogs playing in the band. The same frogs that were large before the drop. It's a cute detail that I overlooked my first ride-through.

Once you pass another frog and another animatronic of Mama Odie you are all done in an over 10-minute ride. Which is an amazing value, unlike others.. Peter Pan. 

It is missing the stakes as its predecessor, but the ride path is still a long, winding, sometimes thrilling journey surrounded by dancing animatronics with solid music and theming. It is fun and immediately enters the must-do category for me.

Could It have been done better? Maybe. A retelling of the story would have the stakes that this ride was missing. However, it is NOT a bad attraction. It is once again a very fun attraction that I can’t wait to ride again. Leave Splash Mountain in the past and give this a chance.