Disney World’s Splash Mountain Closes Perpetually, Makeover Due in 2024

Disney World solid members rode Splash Mountain for the last time on Sunday. The enduring theme park experience closed so Disney can retheme the experience across the 2009 film The Princess and the Frog — it is set to reopen as Tiana’s Bayou Journey in late 2024.

The reinvention comes after the attraction was criticized for being based mostly on the racially problematic 1946 film Music of the South (movie historian Karina Longworth launched a wonderful documentary sequence on this in 2019). 

The brand new model of the experience will comply with on from the occasions of The Princess and the Frog and take guests on a visit by Louisiana waters as Princess Tiana and alligator pal Louis gear up for a Mardi Gras celebration.

“Fireflies will mild up the night time and invite you deeper into the bayou … nearly like they’re waving you ahead. Stunning zydeco music will fill the air,” Carmen Smith, Disney Imagineering senior vice chairman for inventive growth, wrote in a weblog put up. “Zydeco is a particular mix of rhythm and blues that was born in Louisiana, and once you hear it, you may really feel such as you’ve really stepped into Tiana’s world.”

Disney revealed a rendering, giving us a way of Tiana’s Bayou Journey, having beforehand proven us the experience in diorama type.

The closure applies solely to Splash Mountain in Florida’s Magic Kingdom. The experience additionally exists in California’s Disneyland, however Disney stated particulars of that shutdown “might be shared at a later date.” So you will have a little bit extra time to strive the unique model earlier than it is gone. The experience additionally exists in Tokyo Disneyland, and the corporate hasn’t introduced plans to retheme that one. 

Splash Mountain initially opened in DIsneyland in 1989, with the Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland variations following in 1992.

The Princess and the Frog is offered to stream on Disney Plus, and its princess will return in follow-up sequence Tiana (although the discharge date for that’s unclear).

Now playing:
Watch this:

So you want to be… a Disney Imagineer

8:48