It’s like somebody in Walt Disney World administration flipped the “no downtime” change on Tiana’s Bayou Journey as soon as September rolled round. Maybe an unpopular opinion, however I believe such a “breakdown button” shouldn’t exist within the first place. However I suppose if it’s going to, at the very least it’s now on the right setting.
Joking apart, the problematic Princess and the Frog flume journey has had a a lot improved September, with far much less every day downtime than it did in its first two-plus months of operation. It’s gotten to the purpose that Tiana’s Bayou Journey is pretty near common by way of attraction closures, and never all that dissimilar from Splash Mountain or different weather-dependent rides.
This can be a important change, and an nearly evening and day distinction to late August. After a number of consecutive abysmal experiences (one among which I’ll recount beneath), I used to be on the brink of write: “Ought to You Skip Tiana’s Bayou Journey?” That’s how pissed off I used to be and the way a lot of my time the reimagined journey wasted. Different matters intervened, and after I checked again, the attraction hadn’t had any main operational woes over the subsequent week. So I gave it one other week…after which one other…and now this submit is the fruits of that, and just about the reverse of what I deliberate on publishing a couple of weeks in the past.
As you may recall, Tiana’s Bayou Journey has had issues since its previews. The overhauled attraction averaged roughly 4.5 hours of every day downtime throughout AP previews. It was the same story all through July and August, with a number of hours of prolonged closures every day being the rule reasonably than the exception.
At occasions, there have been flashes of progress–a couple of consecutive days of dependable operations that made us wonder if Tiana’s Bayou Journey had turned a nook. There have been truly a few occasions I used to be tempted to jot down that article, however I bought distracted by different matters (it occurs so much). And fortunately so, as the actual story from July and August was one among reversion. On the entire, issues bought worse as in comparison with previews, versus higher.
Some proponents of the journey claimed that this at all times occurs with new points of interest. They’re technically proper to an extent, however this was extreme. If it have been a median of underneath 2 hours daily, that might’ve been within the bounds of what’s affordable, and roughly on par with Frozen Ever After the summer season it debuted.
We’ve repeatedly in contrast Tiana’s Bayou Journey to Frozen Ever After as that appears to be the closest analogue. Each are reimaginings that retained their respective journey methods, however messed with the know-how used simply sufficient to end in much less reliability upon reopening. Frozen Ever After was additionally equally rushed to make a summer season opening and by no means ought to’ve opened within the state it did. Delayed openings and frequent breakdowns have been frequent throughout its opening season as crews scrambled to finish in a single day upkeep and repair technical points.
Fortunately, plainly–like Frozen Ever After as soon as its first fall rolled round–Tiana’s Bayou Journey has additionally turned a nook on journey reliability. Its final three weeks have all had solely a restricted variety of prolonged closures. Each day downtime has decreased to fewer than a few hours per day in complete, which incorporates weather-related closures.
The overwhelming majority of dates this month have had underneath half-hour of downtime. Tiana’s Bayou Journey is about on par with Slinky Canine Sprint month-to-date by way of downtime. It’s settled into what we’d name “Check Observe common.”
Particularly, the final two weeks have been the all-time for Tiana’s Bayou Journey, with solely two days having downtime of over 100 minutes and most different days having 0 minutes to round one half-hour. This isn’t simply common–it’s a powerful efficiency by any goal measure. Right here’s hoping it’s the beginning of a brand new development.
Right here’s a have a look at every day downtime for Tiana’s Bayou Journey since opening courtesy of thrill-data:
There’s additionally a helpful wdwmagic thread that tracks every day downtime and reveals related enhancements over the course of September.
Clearly, Tiana’s Bayou Journey will not be good. September as an entire nonetheless reveals barely extra every day downtime than we’d wish to see in a recently-redone attraction that Disney dumped a reported $100+ million into. However uptime is rarely going to be 100% for this or any log flume, so we’re now within the bounds of what’s affordable to anticipate by way of downtime.
As we’ve stated earlier than, Tiana’s Bayou Journey shouldn’t have opened within the state it did. Hindsight is 20/20, however pushing ahead the opening date was a poor choice. The reimagined journey was not show-ready and may’ve been in take a look at and regulate till its operations have been extra secure and constant. Three months later, it appears we’re now at that time.
I’m additionally completely happy to report that, at the very least on my current rides (so fully anecdotal), Tiana’s Bayou Journey has been working easily. It’s one factor to have minimal every day downtime; it’s one other to perform that by eliminating present requirements. Fortunately, that has not been the case from what I’ve skilled. All the pieces is syncing accurately and most AAs are in A-mode. My current experiences have been higher than they have been again in June when it was brand-new.
There have been a ton of rumors as to the causes of issues with Tiana’s Bayou Journey, from points syncing the logs with the present scenes to defective sensors which might be having bother with ‘the weather’ and precise visitor load on the logs. Whatever the motive, it appears that technical difficulties have been largely addressed for Tiana’s Bayou Journey.
I joked above a couple of “breakdown button,” but it surely actually does really feel like an answer was discovered to the underlying points initially of September. Now what we’ve been left with since is extra routine downtime that any attraction might expertise. (Knock on wooden. My worry is that instantly after publishing this, Tiana’s Bayou Journey goes to have a record-setting 516 minutes of single-day downtime and its worst week ever.)
My experiences got here on the finish of August, which was Tiana’s Bayou Journey’s worst week since opening.
I gained’t bore you with all of my frustrations, because it’s in all probability a type of “you needed to be there” form of offers. However it’s cathartic for me, and maybe for anybody who skilled one thing related with Tiana’s Bayou Journey over the summer season. And if these reliability and downtime woes return, it might additionally function a cautionary story.
On one among today, I used to be unable to safe a Lightning Lane Multi Move for Tiana’s Bayou Journey, so I opted to affix the 7 am digital queue. Success! I scored boarding group 14. This was about good for my functions, because it ought to’ve given me the chance to do Early Entry and cord drop, faucet into one LLMP to unlock modifications and a rolling decide, after which return to TBA.
That, in fact, assumed that Tiana’s Bayou Journey would open by round 9:30 am (delayed openings are frequent with TBA). It didn’t. Quick ahead to ~12:10 pm after I’m in Nation Bear Musical Jamboree and I see that the journey is lastly up for the primary time of the day. After the present ends, I rush over to Tiana’s Bayou Journey and my boarding group is named proper as I arrive.
Not an ideal end result for my deliberate day of LLMP testing, however I might work with it. Plus, certainly the journey wouldn’t go down once more so quickly after opening, proper? (If there was one factor I discovered in my months of studious Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance technique again in late 2019 and early 2020, it was that the perfect time to journey was proper after it got here again up from downtime. Again to again breakdowns have been unlikely.)
Improper. After breezing by a principally empty queue, I got here to a screeching halt proper across the nook from the load space. After not transferring for what felt like an eternity (it was solely half-hour–simply goes to point out how off form I’ve gotten now that RotR is extra dependable), it grew to become clear that Tiana’s Bayou Journey was down once more. Shortly thereafter, they dumped the queue and scanned MagicBands on the best way out for “anytime” Lightning Lanes to TBA.
On the plus aspect, I tapped into Tiana’s Bayou Journey earlier than 1 pm, so I used to be eligible to affix the digital queue for TRON Lightcycle Run at 1 pm. On the draw back, I’ve T-Cellular, which suggests no service within the tunnel portion of the queue. So I couldn’t be part of that till the queue was dumped at round 1:10 pm.
It labored out wonderful, because the TRON digital queue was nonetheless open and I scored a post-sunset return time. (Complaints concerning the difficulties of becoming a member of each the TBA and TRON digital queues given the downtime woes of the previous are why I consider Disney’s hand was pressured to drop the VQ from TRON Lightcycle Run.)
Anyway, Tiana’s Bayou Journey was then down for one more 3 hours, though the latter a part of that was presumably as a result of climate. (Fairly the 1-2 punch!) I couldn’t get again over to that aspect of Magic Kingdom when Tiana’s Bayou Journey lastly reopened once more round 4:30 pm, which was for the perfect, as a result of it went down once more lower than half-hour later!
Tiana’s Bayou Journey lastly got here up shortly after 6 pm. Clearly, this wasn’t the primary time it had been open all day, but it surely was the primary time it ran for greater than 45 minutes uninterrupted. My guess can be {that a} grand complete of 15 boarding teams have been processed previous to that, experiencing the attraction with out stoppages. Though the 1 pm digital queue opened, it closed instantly. I wouldn’t be in the slightest degree shocked if solely one other 10-20 boarding teams have been distributed then.
Once I lastly returned to the Lightning Lane round 7 pm, the queue was unsurprisingly large. The entire out of doors overflow was in use and the Lightning Lane was backed as much as the doorway. Unsurprisingly, since Magic Kingdom primarily had ~4 hours to course of a full day’s value of friends.
My complete wait time was 43 minutes, and once more, this was by way of the Lightning Lane. A part of this was as a result of Solid Members weren’t loading the entrance log at dispatch. I’ve seen this regularly with Tiana’s Bayou Journey, and I can solely assume it’s as a result of points with timing that had been contributing to all the breakdowns within the first place. Regardless, decreasing capability will not be precisely optimum on a journey that already has a ton of every day downtime.
For no matter it’s value, that journey was close to flawless. All the pieces was completely in-sync, I might perceive the dialogue and confirm the story, and there was just one damaged Audio Animatronics determine (Mama Odie close to the top–the ultimate two Mama Odie AAs are probably the most problematic, from what I’ve seen). It was one of many higher rides I had on Tiana’s Bayou Journey up till that time, which might be extra of an indictment of how dangerous issues had been versus reward.
Phew. That felt good to get off my chest. I gained’t bore you with additional venting, however that wasn’t the one day this specific week that Tiana’s Bayou Journey was like this. I had two days of wasted LLMP testing as a result of TBA, and it was by far my longest time drain throughout days when strains have been in any other case actually brief.
Tiana’s Bayou Journey didn’t open till the afternoon on 3 completely different days and had 4 days with roughly 6 to 7 hours of downtime. Needless to say it’s Celebration Season, so Magic Kingdom was solely open 9 am till 6 pm on a few these.
Finally, our hope is that the reliability beneficial properties for Tiana’s Bayou Journey are maintained and this turns into the brand new regular. It pains us to have needed to write articles on this subject to start with, because the journey’s rocky rollout has overshadowed the substance of the attraction. (See our Tiana’s Bayou Journey Assessment for extra on the latter.)
If this optimistic development continues and Walt Disney World is assured that the issues have been solved, we’d anticipate Tiana’s Bayou Journey to change to a standby line someday pretty quickly. Previous to the reimagined journey’s opening, Disney introduced {that a} digital queue would solely be used “throughout the attraction’s preliminary opening days,” however that they anticipated to “open a standby line quickly after the attraction’s opening.”
By any affordable interpretation of the time period–besides because the daybreak of recorded time, I suppose–the attraction’s preliminary opening days have handed. The shortage of reliability and downtime is what modified the plan for its digital queue to be so short-lived. All of those frustrations from the primary couple months would’ve been a lot worse with an everyday standby line. However as soon as Tiana’s Bayou Journey is working constantly, there’s actually no motive to proceed with the VQ–particularly because the colder months loom.
We’d additionally anticipate Tiana’s Bayou Journey to fall from he #1 on our listing of the High 10 Most Tough Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World. It has been far and away the hardest Lightning Lane in all of Walt Disney World, even worse than Slinky Canine Sprint or Remy’s Ratatouille Journey. It’ll nonetheless be high 5, indisputably, but it surely’ll be robust to keep up such a big lead on Slinky Canine Sprint with a standby line and full capability.
Already, we’ve began to see this enhance. First with extra prompt return journey reservation refills all through the day (as a method to backfill capability when uptime is nice) and now with elevated LLMP availability past the 3-day window. It’s actually tough to say how a lot of the Lightning Lane dynamic is because of Tiana’s Bayou Journey being new and the way a lot is diminished provide as a result of downtime (it’s undoubtedly a mixture of the 2). Regardless, we anticipate TBA to be extra corresponding to Peter Pan’s Flight by someday in 2025. Nonetheless #1, however not by as extensive of a margin.
Past that, it’ll be fascinating to see what modifications with Magic Kingdom standby technique. With TRON Lightcycle Run dropping its digital queue and Tiana’s Bayou Journey in all probability following go well with sooner reasonably than later, it’s probably that the perfect methods to strategy the park at rope drop, post-fireworks, and through further hours will change pretty considerably by 2025. We’ll maintain you posted on standing updates to TBA, and shall be doing extra area testing as soon as the mud settles on all the modifications.
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Find out about inns on our Walt Disney World Motels Evaluations web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Evaluations. To save cash on tickets or decide which sort to purchase, learn our Suggestions for Saving Cash on Walt Disney World Tickets submit. Our What to Pack for Disney Journeys submit takes a novel have a look at intelligent gadgets to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Journey Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, the perfect place to begin is our Walt Disney World Journey Planning Information for every part you’ll want to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you ever skilled Tiana’s Bayou Journey throughout its abysmal August or sturdy September? What was your expertise with reliability, downtime or delays? What about working or damaged results, empty logs, and so on? Hoping that we’re out of the woods with issues and Tiana’s Bayou Journey will change to standby earlier than the top of the 12 months? Within the meantime, what’s your plan of assault for minimizing points with Tiana’s Bayou Journey–attempting for the digital queue, shopping for Lightning Lane entry, or each? Do you agree or disagree with our evaluation? Any questions we can assist you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even whenever you disagree with us–is each fascinating to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!
