New Video - A Deep Dive into the Making of Tiana's Bayou Adventure with Walt Disney Imagineers

Mar 22, 2024 in "Tiana's Bayou Adventure"

Posted: Friday March 22, 2024 10:39am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

The New Orleans Book Festival hosted Walt Disney Imagineering for a panel discussion on "Bringing Tiana's Bayou Adventure to Life," moderated by Leslie Iwerks.

In this 45-minute video, you can hear from WDI's Charita Carter and Carmen Smith and "honorary Imagineer" Stella Chase.

The New Orleans Book Festival brings the world's leading authors to Tulane University for a multi-day celebration of their works. The Festival features both fiction and non-fiction and convenes readings, panel discussions, symposia and keynote speeches. It provides an opportunity for outlets, authors and readers to interact with each other in one of the most vibrant and culturally diverse cities in the world.

Tiana's Bayou Adventure will open in the summer of 2024, but Disney has yet to announce a precise date.

The earliest and most optimistic estimates place a soft opening around Memorial Day (late May), which may put an official opening sometime in July.

The upcoming D23 Down in New Orleans event on March 23 provides Disney with one of two opportunities to announce an opening date; the other is the Annual Shareholders meeting on April 3.

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lightningtap34722 hours ago

Not worth an hour wait on a normal day, I couldn't imagine waiting an hour during an event where time is that valuable...

tanc1 day ago

It’s conflicting for me, I got group 11 VQ and ended up changing my LL. I really dislike the use of screens, and also the animatronic at the end was broken. The finale is cool but the usage of screens again takes away from it to me. Some of the redo is nice, but using projections for fireflies doesn’t work. While I think using lights for fireflies is fine. I could see why Disneyland is superior because I feel like there’s just not much going on at times. The critters are all well done I guess. I think really it just doesn’t feel like it was made as a New Orleans sort of flume. It’s obvious it’s just a fresh coat of paint on the old building. In a way kind of baffled they didn’t make original buildings for the queue, idk just doesn’t look right to me.

co100643 days ago

At this point I do not believe the yearly maintenance refurb will happen. Credit where credit is due, they have done a great job improving this ride’s reliability. It seems like any downtime at this point is solely due to weather.

HauntedPirate3 days ago

The refurb it needs won't happen. From my 2 rides in September - It's decent, at best. Mish mash of ideas that don't work together. Very thin story. Too many gaps in the main show. It confirms what I said from the beginning - This should be its own ride building and area.

tanc4 days ago

After watching like a hawk I finally got an earlier time. Kind of ridiculous this ride is still VQ or LL at this point. Wonder if it will go under refurb or they will skip it until 2026.

MisterPenguin5 days ago

Neither the Splash Mountain nor the TBA wiki pages mention that. Do you have a link?

JoeCamel5 days ago

Anyone can edit a wiki page.....

Brer Panther5 days ago

I just saw on Wikipedia a claim that somebody proposed retheming Splash Mountain to Robin Hood. Considering that, among other things, the description of this hypothetical attraction got Maid Marian's name wrong, I assume none of that is true.

tanc6 days ago

Got a lightning lane and plan to get a VQ for this ride, will report my thoughts. Hope I get a good boarding group, going during the first christmas party so hope the ride doesn't break down too many times.

Raineman8 days ago

If I was going to place a wager on what attraction would have the most breakdowns leading to an evac over a certain period of time, I would put all of it on TBA, based on the results so far.

EagleScout6108 days ago

I've heard most of the stuff from Splash was tossed due to the fast turn around and that only Disneyland’s Movin' Along Br'er Rabbit was archived. I'd love to be wrong, though.

EricsBiscuit8 days ago

At the very least, I can use seeing SM one last time as an excuse to justify another Tokyo trip to my wife! 😂

andre858 days ago

lol I had the exact same thought.