Tiana's Bayou Adventure reaches new milestone as Disney Imagineers begin test rides

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

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Tiana's Bayou Adventure coming summer 2024 mural

Posted: Friday March 22, 2024 4:50pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Tiana's Bayou Adventure took a big step towards its summer opening today as Walt Disney Imagineers took the first rides on the new Magic Kingdom attraction.

DisneyDrewDude captured one of the first logs taking the 50ft plunge.

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.

Tiana's Bayou Adventure coming summer 2024 mural

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EagleScout6104 hours ago

I completely forgot they're planning on closing Big Thunder. That'll be disasterous for Frontierland if Bayou can't operate for a full day and BTMRR is down.

monothingie6 hours ago

BTM is planned to be closing for an extended refurbishment imminently. TBA as a new ride was unlikely to close this winter. Without TBA you have an entire land without a major attraction and a severe hit to capacity. They've painted themselves into a corner in terms of what they can do.

Mike S9 hours ago

Finally rode it myself. What a downgrade. Splash Mountain was a ride I could go on again and again every trip. This? Once is enough if I’m even feeling like it. Can’t wait to go to Tokyo one day just to see it again.

EagleScout6109 hours ago

The way I see it, they have two options - A. Shut down TBA less than a month after opening it to fix the bugs B. Wait until winter (when they would usually refurbish Splash) to take it down and fix it then. The issue becomes, do they admit their new ride can't function properly when the old one worked (admittedly less so at the end), or let it close multiple times a day for a good chunk of its debut season?

EricsBiscuit11 hours ago

IIRC it took them a while to fix FEA too. Within a couple months they’ll fine tune it.

monothingie13 hours ago

The problem with TBA is that they are unable or unwilling to fix it at this point. Unable because the problem can not be resolved without extended downtime. Unwilling because shutting it down for a month or more would be a tremendous embarrassment. Ironically I think more guests would be less critical of an unplanned refurbishment to get it working properly, than to have it breakdown for half the day on a constant basis. But I guess that would bruise some pretty inflated egos at the company.

EricsBiscuit21 hours ago

FEA is a very apt comparison. Both rides are enjoyable but had rough openings and are objectively not as good as what they replaced.

co1006421 hours ago

This attraction’s opening reminds me of FEA in so many ways. I wasn’t following the opening of FEA very closely, but I remember there being substantial downtime and ride evacs early on. I don’t know what changed to get the ride more reliable, but hopefully they can fix it soon! It’s very disappointing when you plan to experience a new attraction on a (very expensive) vacation but don’t get that opportunity.

MisterPenguin22 hours ago

BrerFoxesBayouAdventure22 hours ago

One can only hope DL's version isn't as pitiful in terms of operation.

lightningtap34723 hours ago

This is egregiously bad too as today's a day where we didn't have any rain. Today was the day NOT to have this happen.

monothingie23 hours ago

7 hours of total downtime today. Just the latest continuing example of a day in which the ride was down just as much as it was up. They can’t fix this thing and they can’t shut it down for an extended refurbishment so soon, so they’re just going to let it limp along and get progressively worse and downplay any vocal complaints about these problems. This was so predictable. Shame on the shills who gaslighted anyone critical of this mess. Congratulations Disney you built a mediocre attraction\