Here are my thoughts and details on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. I’ve read several negative things. People were critical that there’s no Dr. Facilier and Naveen isn’t featured. The ride is not a retelling of the Princess and the Frog movie. If you go in expecting that, you will be disappointed.
The theme is set after the movie. The queue is so well themed with sets of Tiana’s kitchen and photos of her family and letters. Almost like you are walking through her house. It is very well done.
The ride itself starts with Tiana saying she’s looking for musicians to play at a party. The first part of the ride focuses on that.
In my opinion, Mama Odie is the star of the attraction. I wasn’t expecting her to be featured so much. She casts a spell on you and you “shrink” to the size of the fireflies. I’m not sure how that effect happened, but it felt like we were going through a small tunnel and actually shrank. It was so cool!
When we rode there was no water going down the big drop. We did get soaked but it was wonderful in the sweltering heat. Overall, I thought the ride was well done. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
We peeked in the gift shop and it was empty. I guess they have some time to get that ready. They did capture photos but the CM indicated we wouldn’t get them until June 10. We shall see what we get tomorrow.
We really wanted to ride People Mover but Kate said she was blocked out from MK and they were told that unless they had a park reservation, they had to leave after the preview. I’m not sure how anyone would have known other than the blue wrist bands we had one but we weren’t going to risk getting her into trouble. We slowly walked out of MK and got on the monorail.
We hopped back to Epcot around 5:00. Our preview started at 4:00 and we had entered MK just after 4:00.
On the monorail, the family in front of us let their children climb the poles, swing round the poles, and hang from the poles on the ceiling of the monorail. It was like watching monkeys in the zoo. If one of those kids lost their balance and hit the monorail door hard enough, would it have opened? The adults with these kids never batted an eye and never said a word. I’m sure if their children had been injured they would have been the first to blame Disney for their bad behavior though. I’ve never seen such behavior on Disney transportation.
Back at Epcot we did:
TT single rider
Got a Viking Coffee–so refreshing on a hot day
Shopped for pins
Met some of Kate co-workers at Oasis Sweets and Sips
Dodged the rain at the Beauty and the Beast Sing along
Split the Croque Glace at L’Artisan des Glaces–My part was more bread than ice cream and I thought it was ok. Amy had the bulk of it and said it was really good.
The rain let up so we headed to Soarin. It was only a 15 minute wait.
When we had check in for our flight that morning at 7:00, the departing time had changed from 10:30 PM Thursday night to 12:15AM Friday morning. We checked multiple times during the day to see if the time had changed. Kate had someone cover some shifts so she was coming home for a few days as well. Before getting on Guardians at 8:15, we checked flight times again and Spirit continued to show a 12:15AM departure so we knew we had time to ride. We were in the parking lot of Epcot sometime after 9:00. The fireworks were still happening so it was before 9:30.
Kate needed to drop her car off at Flamingo Crossing since she was coming back with us for a few days. We were going to take an Uber from Flamingo Crossing to MCO. We refreshed the Spirit app again on the way to Kate’s apartment. Still showing 12:15 departure.
Here’s where the excitement begins:
At 9:50 Kate drops Amy and I at the ride share location and she parks her car. Amy calls an Uber. We refresh the Spirit app and it’s now showing a 10:37 flight departure when all day long and just 20 minutes before, it said 12:15AM.
What the actual f^ck How do you change a flight time to almost 90 minutes earlier departure and give about a 40 minute notice? I’ve made it from resort to gate in an hour many times but I’m thinking there is no way were are going to make this flight.
Other than my lunch around 2:00 at Les Halles and the few bites of the Croque Glace, I hadn’t eaten. I was hungry and a little queasy after that spin on Guardians. Anxiety and panic then set in as we get in the Uber and try to make it on time. I shut my eyes and rolled down the window thinking I was going to be sick.
We make it to the airport in about 20-25 minutes but the traffic to get to Terminal A had to have 100 cars. Driver says it will take 40 minutes to get to the terminal. He says he can take us to Terminal B and we can walk (who is he kidding—RUN) to Terminal A.
Amy and I have prescheck. Kate does not. She tells us to take her bag. If she doesn’t make it, she will got back to her apartment and get another flight the next day. Quick refresh of the Spirit app and the departure time is pushed back to 11:10. It’s about 10:30. That gives us less than 15 minutes to get through security and to the gate.
I hate that. They say you should go to the airport for your original departure time but who is going to do that and spend an extra two or more hours just sitting??? Not me! Glad you made it!
Amy and I get thru security in about 3 minutes. No sign of Kate. It’s 10:43. We have 12 minutes to get to the gate. Refresh the Spirit app and the flight is pushed back to 11:30. Kate reappears and we hop on the fake monorail to the Spirit gate.
We are hot, sweaty, stinky, and generally kinda of gross from being in park all day. I desperately needed to repack my personal item since I had just shoved my park bag in there and my personal item was bulging. My personal item meets the Spirit guidelines but since it’s on wheels they always stop me and have me check the size in the bin. I needed to rearrange some stuff for that to happen. I also wanted to wipe off my face and get a long sleeve shirt and my airpods for the plane ride home.
Refresh Spirit app again and flight is now at 11:45. We had plenty of time to repack, refresh, and get what we needed. The urge to vomit has now subsided that we are at the gate and good to go.
I will say that when the flight changed to the earlier time I thought about @OBNurseNH and her “I’m an airport dad” stance. She totally would have still shown up at the airport like the flight was at the original 10:30 time regardless of what the app had said ALL DAY LONG.
We didn’t actually board the plane until about 11:45. At midnight the captain comes on and says they left out of Atlanta this morning and that MCO had a ground stop due to storms and that he apologized for the delay. We were like DUDE–the storm didn’t happen until about 7:30PM. We were outside in Epcot and saw it. The flight announced a delay by 7AM.
Then we had a maintenance issue that had to be fixed. The flight didn’t actually push back from that gate until about 12:30. I was asleep before we made it to the runway.
We pulled into my driveway at 3:30AM. I had a hair appointment at 8:45 and literally fell asleep during it.
I would have been there at 10 for a 12am departure but I am not spending even more time in an airport if my flight is delayed especially when I can still be in a park!
I had seen TikTok’s of hoards of people waiting in line for hours.
Evidently it had been down quite a bit on Thursday when we went. A group of three with green wristbands tried to ride and were denied. We had blue wristbands. The green group said the ride was down when they tried to ride during their time and wanted to ride then. CMs said they were no longer accepting green, only blue and didn’t let them ride.
