Disneyland's Splash Mountain Closes as Tiana's Bayou Adventure Makes Progress

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Disneyland's Splash Mountain closed for good yesterday evening after sporting waits that hit around 4 hours long, at least according to the park's app.  The ride went out without any sort of big fanfare from the theme park, as the focus is on the future of the attraction, not the past.  That future is Tiana's Bayou Adventure, a total retheme of the ride which is slated to open in both Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom in late 2024.  The ride closed in Florida earlier this year, and Imagineering is already hard at work on the changes.

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Splash Mountain was a beloved attraction that maybe, probably, never should have had the theme it did, and it didn't age well.  But that's not the point of this post, the point is more to look at some new news that Disney has put out about Tiana's Bayou Adventure... and to saw farewell to Splash Mountain.  Many of us have happy memories of the ride for various reasons, whether on a family vacation to Orlando or with friends in California.

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Tiana's Bayou Adventure will see visitors enter the word of The Princess And The Frog, and be led through the ride by Tiana and her friendly alligator pal Louis.  The pair will be planning a special Mardi Gras celebration and we're invited, of course!  Since the plot of the feature movie, Tiana has started her own food company, aptly named Tiana's Foods, and purchased a salt mine and brought it and the surrounding area back to life.  There's a boutique farm and a professional kitchen area, I'm assuming all of which will be seen in the ride.  Overflowing with success, Tiana is now ready to throw that big celebration for us all as we visit her bustling salt mine food company combination.

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This recent video from Disney gives am idea of how the exterior of the attraction will look, which includes a tiara-topped water tower up on the hill.  According to Disney that water tower will be lifted into place on the Florida ride sometime this summer.  The ride is taking on a more New Orleans feel, obviously, but generally we're not going to see anything super dramatic that will change how the ride looks from the midway.

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Lastly, and most recently, Disney has revealed that the ride will also feature Mama Odie during the ride, and the character will be voiced by Jenifer Lewis as she was in the movie.  The above concept art was released depicting guests seeing some magic performed by Mama Odie after meeting her for the first time.  Disney is also stressing that Tiana's Bayou Adventure will feature brand new characters that park fans can fall in love with, "dozens" of new audio-animatronics, new music along with familiar songs from the movie, the scent of baking beignets in the ride's queue and much of the cast of the original movie reprising their character roles for the ride.