Walt Disney Co. has announced a timeline for the re-theming of Splash Mountain and a new name for the ride set to become based on “The Princess and the Frog.”
The attraction’s name will be Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, and it will open at Magic Kingdom and Disneyland theme parks in late 2024, the company announced during the Essence Festival in New Orleans on Friday.
“We are telling a New Orleans story as a part of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure,” Charita Carter, executive producer of relevancy activations at Walt Disney Imagineering, said in a video released by Disney. It showed Imagineers’ visit to Louisiana to take in some of the culture of the region.
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The new version of the ride, announced in 2020, will pick up where the 2009 film left off and feature Tiana, Naveen, Louis the alligator and other characters. It will have music inspired by songs from the film and revolve around a Mardi Gras celebration, Disney says.
Disney did not say when the current Frontierland ride, which features characters seen in the 1946 film “Song of the South,” will shut down for the transformation. Splash Mountain opened in Disneyland in 1989 and then at Walt Disney World in 1992.
Also at Essence Festival, Disney shared the look that Tiana will have in the attraction. She will be dressed in pants, jacket over yellow blouse, scarf around neck and boots. The look is 1920s, the era the film and attraction are set in.
“Tiana was equally at home in the bayou as she was at a banquet,” said Ida Muldrow, a costume designer with Disney Live Entertainment. “We wanted her look to reflect that, and be a compliment to the story’s setting.”
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