It’s no secret that the opening of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Magic Kingdom hasn’t gone smoothly. The ride has seen consistent downtime, guest evacuations, and malfunctioning figures and effects ever since it officially opened in June. What’s going on with Disney’s newest attraction?
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is frequently closed to start the day at Magic Kingdom, and often has downtimes that delay the virtual queue boarding process. Then, when the ride has been open, guests are seeing stationary and static animatronics that ruin the story and immersion. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure leans heavily into high-quality animatronics, which is great, but things fall flat in a big way when they’re not working.
The animatronics along the ride are supposed to be “triggered” and recite their dialogue when a boat passes. That’s different than having the animatronics running on a loop, which doesn’t rely on timing and can’t be thrown off by a stacked up line of boats.
But, it seems like the issues range well beyond how the audio is triggered. Animatronics are consistently not working. Other effects, like the twinkling fireflies, also haven’t been reliably working. Other electrical issues have been spotted by guests. Some have pointed to the Florida weather and moisture as the cause of Tiana’s issues, but that seems silly when the previous iteration of the ride, Splash Mountain, had to deal with the same conditions.
It’s rumored that Disney didn’t want to delay the opening of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Magic Kingdom despite ongoing operating issues. Now, they’re trying to fix everything while still trying to remain open to guests as much as possible. That has created some rather poor show experiences for guests. Some reported ride experiences are unacceptable (majority of the animatronics frozen) and Disney may need to consider closing Tiana’s Bayou Adventure to get to the bottom of what’s wrong.
Over at Disneyland, it’s believed they haven’t committed to an opening date for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure because of the issues in Florida. This is an ongoing story that hasn’t quieted the passionate group of fans who wish Splash Mountain never closed. Should Disney close Tiana’s for a period to try and find some more permanent fixes?
