Is Tiana’s Bayou Adventure a big success at Disneyland Park and Magic Kingdom? Josh D’Amaro, Chairman of Disney Experiences, spoke about Splash Mountain’s transformation into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in a larger interview about Disneyland’s 70th anniversary.
In the interview with Variety, D’Amaro spoke about what has changed in those 70 years, and how guests are clamoring for immersive lands they can live in with their favorite characters. He also touched on how Disney theme parks are connecting with the studio side of the company more than ever before. Such is the case with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
We knew that our guests wanted to see more of Tiana. We knew that Splash Mountain was a popular attraction, and we thought that the merger of those two things coming together would create an unbelievable experience, an incredible story and attract new generations of fans to our theme parks.
Josh D’Amaro via Variety
D’Amaro added that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure has become one of the most popular rides in both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. No specifics or metrics were mentioned alongside his comments. Disney fans have debated whether the change has been a success ever since Tiana’s opened, but unfortunately it’s almost impossible to quantify without access to Disney’s data.
It’s worth highlighting that D’Amaro also touched on how rides tell stories differently now compared to years ago. And, in many cases, they now tell brand new stories guests haven’t experienced.
If you go back many years, we were taking the story that you saw on the screen and we were replaying it in physical form inside of our theme parks and experiences — and we were doing that incredibly well. But what we realized is that our fans had this insatiable appetite for our stories and continuing those stories. So we’ll work very early on with script writers and our studio partners to talk about telling the story behind the scenes, the story that guests might be guessing about.
Josh D’Amaro via Variety
This is an interesting debate to have. Do guests want to experience what they already know from the movies? Or, do they want to go on a new adventure with familiar characters? Disney fans themselves may not even know. We’ve seen rides blasted for being book reports (retelling an existing story) and others ridiculed for not placing guests into the stories they know (Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge). Ultimately, you’re not going to win with everyone. That’s a rant and discussion for another time.
Personally, we think Tiana’s Bayou Adventure isn’t as bad as some people claim and also not as good as it deserved to be. We were a bit underwhelmed when we’ve ridden Tiana’s. Many of the animatronics weren’t working, and the story is a mess and hard to follow unless you go in knowing what’s happening. But, the ride is still enjoyable and has the same profile that made Splash Mountain fun. We don’t go out of our way to ride Tiana’s and we didn’t go out of our way to ride Splash Mountain.
To wrap all this up, we think it’s interesting the D’Amaro says that Disney is trying to align all of its departments more now than ever before. The Disney Experiences side and studio side are working together from day one. That means we’ll likely continue to see stories and ride experiences evolve in the theme parks.
