Credit: DisneyJust before Tiana’s Bayou Adventure opened at the Magic Kingdom, reports surfaced that the ride continued to break down and malfunction during previews. According to one report, the ride has only appropriately operated for three hours in five days of operation.
During the last five days of previews, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure has experienced several significant malfunctions, requiring guests to evacuate the ride.
The issues seemed to be with the ride hardware. Like other recent Disney rides refurbished, Disney spent a lot of money creating animatronics but did not upgrade the ride hardware. As a result, there have been breakdowns and backups at all the drops in the ride.
While the Florida ride suffered through its previews, Disney Imagineers were said to be learning valuable lessons and attempting to make some wholesale changes to the attraction for its Disneyland debut. Part of the changes are due to the smaller footprint in California, but that will help make the storyline more cohesive.
So, when it came time for the previews at Disneyland Park, everything was set to run smoothly, thus far, that has been the case, with previews seemingly running well and very few reports to the contrary.
That is until last week. A report surfaced that the Tiana animatronic was on the final climb before the significant drop had already started to break down.
According to a video published on X, the animatronic ‘s mouth stopped moving, and a cut opened up at the corner of Tiana’s mouth, moving toward her cheek.
Disney Imagineers had been hoping for a flawless preview after the disastrous one at the Magic Kingdom, but the creaking animatronic has put a damper on that.
Tiana’s lip is already cracked on the first lift hill in Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Disneyland pic.twitter.com/XjK9pWCXr2
— Matt Desmond (@DisneyScoopGuy) November 2, 2024
After a few days with the broken animatronic, Disney Imagineers were able to fix Tiana’s head, and it appears to be functioning normally now.
While this was a minor issue, fans were still critical of Disney, with one calling them “cheap” in the comments. Some see this as a systematic issues throughout the company that has cheapened out on some of its newer updates.
However, when Tiana’s Bayou Adventure kept breaking down at Disney World, some Splash Mountain fans called it the “Curse of Br’er Rabbit.” While the beloved character was unable to work his magic at Disney World, apparently, he wasn’t quite as successful at Disneyland.
However, with the ride not opening to the public until November 15, there is still time for the revenge of Splash Mountain.