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I suppose I qualify as a Disney Grownup, the pejorative time period for grown-ups who go to Disney theme parks with out kids in tow.
Disney has 12 theme parks and two water parks around the globe, and I’ve been to all of them. I used to be at Walt Disney World in Florida when the theme park reopened in July 2020 after closing for 4 months in the course of the coronavirus pandemic. And I used to be at Disneyland in California in 2022, when Mickey Mouse was allowed to share hugs once more after a two-year pandemic-induced hiatus. I additionally frolicked on the Turkey Leg Stand in Disneyland’s Frontierland for a whole afternoon.
And this month, when Disney World started testing its latest journey, Tiana’s Bayou Journey, I used to be on it.
However I didn’t do any of these issues as a dewy-eyed Disney fan. I am going to the corporate’s parks as a result of, as a reporter who covers the leisure enterprise, it’s a part of my job.
Early in my profession, within the late Nineteen Nineties, I coated “laborious information,” together with cops and courts in Philadelphia. That posting was a picnic in contrast with my present one. Disney doesn’t reply nicely, to place it mildly, when articles puncture its Happiest Place on Earth mythmaking. I as soon as tried to get info out of a Toy Story Mania journey operator — I wished to understand how Disneyland staff felt about new security procedures — and a company communications officer appeared out of nowhere and curtly put an finish to the dialog.
As of 2021, the Walt Disney Firm had a 500-person world media relations crew. There is only one of me. Nonetheless, I purpose to cowl all the massive information.
Tiana’s Bayou Journey caught my eye as a possible story in 2020. That summer season, as protests for racial justice swept america, Disney mentioned it could shut Splash Mountain, a preferred and problematic log flume journey based mostly on the 1946 Disney movie “Track of the South,” and would change it with one based mostly on Tiana, Disney’s first Black princess. Tiana, an bold chef in Twenties New Orleans, was launched within the 2009 animated movie “The Princess and the Frog.”
The brand new journey would use the identical journey observe as Splash Mountain however could be totally redesigned. As a substitute of that includes characters and music from “Track of the South,” an Oscar-winning movie with racist depictions, the log flume would observe Tiana’s journey via the bayou, looking for musicians to carry out at a Mardi Gras occasion.
Some individuals cheered the choice to take away Splash Mountain. Others threw full-on hissy matches.
It’s simple to dismiss this sort of conduct — good, unhealthy, ugly — with one phrase: foolish. It’s a log flume, individuals. Get a grip.
However Disney is a big a part of how many individuals make their reminiscences. Even the smallest change to a Disney park can spark intense reactions. Different examples embody an ill-fated replace to the Enchanted Tiki Room attraction at Disney World within the late Nineteen Nineties, and worries over an replace in 2012 of a revue referred to as “Nation Bear Jamboree.”
Park devotees need to reinhabit their reminiscences as exactly as doable after they go to once more. The logs now not scent musty. They’re purported to scent musty!
On the identical time, the addition of a significant journey themed round a Black heroine — the primary marquee attraction at a Disney theme park to be based mostly on a Black character — can have a optimistic affect on younger guests, notably these of coloration. Tiana’s Bayou Journey will open to the general public at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom on June 28; the same model of the journey is ready to reach at Disneyland by the top of the yr. Collectively, the 2 parks entice roughly 40 million guests yearly. That’s cultural energy.
The overhauled journey additionally provided perception into Disney as a enterprise. Sure, the corporate was attempting to proper a incorrect with the removing of Splash Mountain. However the change was additionally about wanting on the nation’s shifting demographics and recognizing a possible progress alternative: to “widen the web,” as one Disney journey designer advised me, by creating extra inclusive areas on the park.
For these causes and others, I attempt to not be too cynical in my protection. In my important article, I actually, actually wished to crack a joke about Disney lacking the mark by naming the brand new journey Tiana’s Bayou Journey. Shouldn’t it have been referred to as The Princess and the Log? Too flip, I made a decision.
To report the article, I flew to Florida from my residence base in Los Angeles and stayed the night time at considered one of Disney’s cheaper motels, Port Orleans. (As a part of The Occasions’s ethics tips, I by no means settle for something without spending a dime from Disney. The Occasions coated the invoice.) The subsequent morning, I met up with Jacquee Wahler, a Disney World communications govt who respects the journalistic course of. She took me to a convention room behind Essential Avenue in Magic Kingdom, the place I interviewed a designer of the journey.
After an hour or so, we walked to the journey, which was within the testing part. And after extra interviews, I hopped right into a log with a journey designer and took a number of journeys via the bayou, asking questions alongside the best way.
I didn’t love getting moist. (Fortunately, my pocket book was spared.) However taking the time to be there resulted in a greater article — and helped me perceive what Disney was attempting to do with the journey in a manner I didn’t fairly comprehend over the cellphone.
As is commonly the case with Disney rides, the eye to element was evident. For instance, the journey is embroidered with hundreds of tiny white and pink synthetic flowers. However the grins of passengers left the most important impression — particularly these on the faces of Black riders. “I lastly really feel like I belong right here,” one girl shouted.
