Disney’s Brand New Ride is Better at Disneyland Than Disney World For a Reason, Imagineers Confirm

Tiana's Bayou Adventure is the newest ride at Disneyland! The ride opened at Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in June, and now that the Disneyland version is up and running, we have been comparing the two versions.

We had the opportunity to experience Tiana's Bayou Adventure in Magic Kingdom and now the Disneyland version. We'll share our take on this version of the ride, as well as commentary from the ride's Imagineers that points towards why Disneyland is the better version of the ride.

Keep reading for the reasons why Disneyland got the better version of Tiana's Bayou Adventure!

Differences Between Tiana's Bayou Adventure at Disneyland and Disney World

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While Tiana's Bayou Adventure is the same story for both its Disneyland and Magic Kingdom versions, there are some differences in the ride across the two coasts. One of the most major differences is the land they are situated in—the ride is in Frontierland at Magic Kingdom, while it's in the newly renamed Bayou Country (formerly Critter Country) at Disneyland.

Disneyland also underwent a more dramatic retheming in the surrounding area, which entailed adding two new Princess and the Frog shops and a renaming of the land the ride was in. The presence of The Princess and the Frog at Disneyland has been expanded in recent years with the addition of Tiana's Palace and Eudora's Chic Boutique in New Orleans Square, and the story now extends to Bayou Country. At Walt Disney World, the ride is not in any specifically themed area and there are no additional offerings using the movie theme.

One major difference between the two versions of the ride, and one that we have noted in comparing our ride experiences with the two, is that the pacing of the ride is quite different between Magic Kingdom and Disneyland. This is due to the fact that the track layout is different at Magic Kingdom because they had more space to work with, so there are some gaps in the ride that are not present in the Disneyland version. As a matter of fact, the pacing felt quite fast at Disneyland, and it's really a ride you'll want to experience several times in order to soak it all in.

Speaking of soaking it all in, the Disneyland version also gets you dramatically more wet from the various splashes throughout the ride than the Magic Kingdom version does. The Disneyland ride has a ride vehicle which sits guests one in front of the other while Disney World's version is a bigger ride car with guests sitting side by side. This may also be way the ride scenes there are so much bigger and appear more sparse.

Why Disneyland Has the Better Version of Tiana's Bayou Adventure

When celebrating the opening of this new Disneyland ride, we had the opportunity to hear from the creatives who brought Tiana's Bayou Adventure to life, and a major talking point was the differences between the two versions of the attractions on each coast.

Ted Robledo, Portfolio Executive Creative Director for Walt Disney Imagineering, commented how there were “opportunities that we the Imagineering team took to celebrate [the two rides] a little bit differently, and maybe turn up some of those magical moments and display them or manifest them in unique ways between each park.”

We were already operating under the assumption that Disneyland was the park they were designing the ride for specifically, as Imagineering is based in Southern California. The theme park closures in 2020 caused less travel and played a big role in how they approached Imagineering the attraction at Disneyland.

Robledo spoke to this a little bit, saying, “It was unfortunate for all of us that Disneyland was closed at the time, but it presented a unique opportunity for us, the Imagineering team, because we had full access to the attraction here while the park was closed. What that meant was, a lot of Tiana's Bayou Adventure and the story, and the story beats, the chapters, those opportunities and those sights, and all of those decisions were primarily made based on the Disneyland attraction.”

He went on to say, “We had to deal with the unique real estate that we had here, you know, you've probably been on the ride and that challenge there with the finale, which was a show boat at one time and now it's this amazing party scene with her house, a lot of those decisions, where critters went and where characters went, where Tiana is, we had to make those decisions here using Disneyland and it actually ended up being an amazing opportunity for us to be able to climb up and down that mountain unfettered(…).”

Robledo commented that there was “a little more real estate to work with at Magic Kingdom, for their Tiana's Bayou Adventure, and here, you know, things happen a little quicker. But there's definitely things that I appreciate about both. And it's nice to have those differences. It's nice to not just have a duplicate(…)”

Despite the differences in the layout of the attraction, the way they approached the story was the same for both versions of the ride. Charita Carter, the Executive Creative Producer of Tiana's Bayou Adventure, talked about this a little bit. She said, “As a creative team, as a design team, we knew that we were doing both locations. So we had both of them in mind. As Ted mentioned when he talked, we had initial access to the Disneyland version of it, right? And so we were able to ride the ride and have team meetings right here in the park, you know, we had the whole park to ourselves. So that was a unique experience, but we kept both of them in mind.

Carter went on to say, “We really studied the differences in the attractions, they were a couple of years apart, right, and when you think about Disneyland, oftentimes […] at Disneyland we have such a sense of intimacy with our attractions, and at Walt Disney World, when, you know, that park was built, they had land in Florida, right? So they took advantage of it. So there's some differences in the way that the tracks are laid out, and all of that(…)” From a storytelling standpoint, however, Carter emphasized how it was important that it worked for both versions. “So we never separated it in our minds, we were always looking together, to make decisions that would work for both locations.”

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It was clear after experiencing both versions of the ride that the experience had been optimized for Disneyland. In the Walt Disney World version of the ride there are gaps between the different Audio-Animatronic vignettes and some slightly weird positioning of figures where you are approaching a figure for a long time directly ahead of you which kind of breaks the show.

At Disneyland, that all starts to make more sense as you can tell that the scenes fit more like puzzle pieces into the existing areas of the attraction. In some ways, you actually go by the figures too quickly and aren't able to take in all of the different critters playing in the band. It definitely feels more like the almost overwhelming amount of activity that took place in Splash Mountain with all of those figures.

An element of the ride that is unique to Disneyland is the view you get from the mountain. At Disneyland, this view is extra special because you see the restaurant Tiana's Palace in the distance! Robledo spoke to this: “When you're on the ride, and you're approaching that beautiful water tower, in the distance, past the beautiful Haunted Mansion, you can actually see Tiana's Palace, and we didn't expect that because it didn't exist when we were designing Tiana's Bayou Adventure, so that's a really special reminder, and milestone that sort of ties something from The Princess and the Frog to Tiana's Bayou Adventure.”

There is another difference Robledo noted in the moment we enter the bayou. “Here at Disneyland when you first enter into the bayou, unlike at Magic Kingdom, it's a bit more of a drawn-out process, so we took advantage of that, and we have this beautiful moment as we enter into the bayou, it's a little dark, but just like you see around here, suddenly as we enter the music starts to swell, the fireflies light up the bayou for us, and it's this amazing, dramatic and unique moment here at Disneyland.”

I personally loved the little details in between the main show scenes that made the atmosphere sparkle. The pacing of the ride felt fast, but there was enough time to marvel at the beautiful, immersive design.

In addition to the ride experience itself, Robledo talked about how there are some elements in the ride's queue that are unique at Disneyland: “So, I mentioned some of those unique ways that we did things here at Disneyland vs. Magic Kingdom, and again, even though the stories are exactly the same, we took some opportunities here that we didn't have there, for example, and [Carmen Smith] mentioned some of the amazing artists, partners that worked with us. Malaika Favorite from Louisiana, she produced these amazing murals both here and in Florida, but actually, one of the key differences, the murals that you see on the side of the Tiana's Foods building, those are actual paintings done by Malaika with her own hand, we shipped over the wood panels that are there to her studio in Louisiana, just outside of Baton Rouge, and she painted those, hand-painted those, so what you see here at Disneyland is actually artwork by her own hand, that's incredibly special.”

It is really cool to know that the artwork at Disneyland is by Malaika's own hand! These vibrant murals are a really beautiful part of the ride's queue highlighting various scenes focusing on music, cooking, and community.

Robledo described another unique element of Disneyland's Tiana's Bayou Adventure queue: “(…)here at Disneyland is a beautiful pergola out there in the queue, and that actually is inspired by Art Nouveau design, and if you've ever been to Paris, and if you've ever taken the Metro, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But that Art Nouveau feel, look and feel, is perfect with the bayou and nature and all of those amazing themes that we first got introduced to with the Princess and the Frog, so that's special to here at Disneyland”.

“And one other thing in the queue that I find really really special is we have a dedicated line for our guests with disabilities, but we took extra care, and our amazing Imagineers went the extra mile and are telling a lot of the same stories, so a lot of the beautiful props, a lot of the beautiful photos, and letters to Tiana, etc. they're all presented in that specific line for our guests with disabilities just as they are for everybody else that experiences the ride and walks the other parts of the queue.”

Disneyland's version of the ride is clearly the better of the two new versions. The music remains my absolute favorite part of the ride. We are excited about the new ride but still wonder if it would have connected better with guests if it had followed the story from the original movie and/or featured conflict to build tension ahead of the major drop.

Tiana's Bayou Adventure is now open to all! During the ride's initial opening days, a standby queue will not be offered—you can read how to access Tiana's Bayou Adventure here. Note especially during these late fall and upcoming winter months to be sure you wear wear a poncho if you want to mitigate how wet you'll get on the ride! We experienced the ride a couple of times and ended up pretty lucky that we did not get very wet at all, but we have heard other reports of people getting soaked.

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