Tiana’s Bayou Adventure has finally replaced Splash Mountain at Disney World. The Disney Parks YouTube account is celebrating the completion of this unprecedented transformation with a nearly 10-minute, 4K ride-through.
Our first impression? Holy moly, they actually pulled this off!
The ride’s designers had to walk a tightrope while reimagining — in terms of scale and popularity — one of the biggest rides at Disney’s theme parks. They would need to maintain (or improve upon) Splash Mountain’s abundance of animatronic characters, representing the classic approach to Disney’s most iconic rides. But they’d also have to incorporate modern technology (ultra high-resolution screens, custom 3D animation) for Bayou Adventure to fit alongside the parks’ other new “E-ticket attractions,” like Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and Mickey’s Runaway Railroad.
In a decision that will please the most nostalgic among us, the design team favored the old-school approach, stuffing the ride with an astonishing number of animatronic characters. They used screens to supplement the experience, like the powdered sugar on a delicious beignet.
Image: Disney
As with Splash Mountain, the ride has a relaxed start. On a log flume, the guests take a leisurely tour of Tiana’s garden and the nearby bayou, before collecting animal instrumentalists to play a tune at the Disney Princess’s restaurant. First, the riders meet a zydeco band featuring possums, beavers, bears, and wolves. Then, the voodoo priestess Mama Odie shrinks the riders to the size of a frog so they can tour a mini-version of the bayou and befriend some musically gifted bugs and amphibian friends.
The ride culminates, as promised by its premise, with a performance by Tiana at her restaurant, accompanied by her animal orchestra. By our count, this humongous space features no fewer than 15 animatronics, a recreation of Tiana’s restaurant, and a wealth of high-res screens featuring additional characters from the film, reimagined from 2D into 3D.
Image: Walt Disney Animation Studios
Splash Mountain, based on the 1946 film Song of the South, opened in 1992, despite Disney having never released the film in the United States on home video due to its racist portrayal of life on a plantation in the Southern United States. In 2023, Scout Tafoya wrote about Disney’s long history of attempting to alter or erase the history of Song of the South, treating the film like a cultural artifact that has become toxic with changing sensibilities. “But even in its day,” Tafoya writes, “Song of the South was derided as racist pandering, and it faced a nationwide attempt at a boycott.
In 2020, Disney Parks announced Splash Mountain would be replaced by a ride inspired by 2009’s Princess and the Frog.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure opens at Walt Disney World on June 28 and later this year at Disneyland. Polygon will be touring the ride ahead of its opening, so visit later this month for first-hand impressions and interviews!