This week saw the beginning of press and Cast Member previews for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, a new Princess and the Frog themed attraction that will open at Walt Disney World at the end of this month, as well as at Disneyland later in the year.
The ride is a retheming of the pre-existing Splash Mountain, a genuinely very good ride with unfortunate source material that became a piece of sacred, untouchable history the instant disingenuous conservatives realized that making such claims would help them undermine the success of a project that centers on black women.
Because of the thorny, politically-charged discourse surrounding the new ride,1 it’s hard to determine which negative comments are genuine and which are dog whistles, but from what I gather without looking too closely (I’ll have a chance to ride it myself in February, which isn’t that far away), reactions have been mixed at best. The two most common criticisms seem to be that the story of the ride features no conflict, and that the ride features a lot of dead space.
Now, Splash Mountain wasn’t exactly War and Peace, but there were multiple distinct scenes scattered throughout in which our hero, Br’er Rabbit, outsmarts the dim-witted duo of Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear, who are hoping to eat him. That much always came across pretty clearly, even if I did encounter numerous people throughout my life who never put together that the climactic plunge into the Briar Patch was something Br’er Rabbit orchestrated on purpose, rather than a jarring smash cut to an unexplained happy ending. As far as the dead space… I don’t know. I never thought of Splash Mountain as being jam-packed with animatronics, especially at the beginning. But it is a pretty long and slow-moving ride most of the time, so to have to travel through a whole room with nothing at all to look at (if that’s the case; again, I haven’t watched any ride-throughs myself) would admittedly be pretty rough. What a lot of people don’t know is that the Walt Disney World version of Splash Mountain is longer than its Disneyland counterpart, so perhaps if Tiana’s Bayou Adventure was calibrated for its West-coast home in New Orleans Square, I could see a scenario where the Florida set pieces end up being stretched thin.
What I do know is that the animatronics that are there look fantastic. When I got my first look at Louis’ jolly bouncing belly, and the fluidity with which he moves, I couldn’t help breaking into a big goofy grin.
I do have to wonder why they gave him visible fur, though. That’s… odd.
Feel free to use this space to discuss all things theme- or amusement park!
Optional Discussion Question(s): Have you seen the ride-through videos? If so, what do you think of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure? Will you miss Splash Mountain?
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