Here's What Tiana's Bayou Adventure at Disney World Is Really Like

Jenifer Lewis, Terence Blanchard, and more spoke to Kindred by Parents about the new Disney World Attraction. Warning: Spoilers ahead!

At the front of the line, a crackling old-time radio greets you, with a thick New Orleans-accented host on a simulated radio broadcast blaring Crescent City music as the scent of freshly fried beignets tantalizes your senses. This queue leads to Disney Parks' newest attraction, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, in Disney World.

The music is so foot-stomping, jazzy, and vibrant that Terence Blanchard, who played the trumpet for Louis in “The Princess and the Frog” and helped to curate it for the new attraction, endlessly jokes that people won’t even want to leave the queue to experience the ride.

“We got a lot of great bands that are playing a lot of really fun, infectious type of music, and I hope everybody has a good time,” Blanchard tells Kindred by Parents. “We were worried about people not getting on the ride and wanting to get back in line and listen to the music…The idea is to just make the whole experience something fun from beginning to end.”

Once you let your imagination take over, you’re all the way in, and suddenly it’s 1927 in south Louisiana. Tiana has taken her entrepreneurial spirit to her community, creating Tiana’s Foods, an employee-owned co-op located in a former salt mine. As attraction-goers make their way to the mine, they are greeted by photos, newspaper clippings, and a walk-through of Tiana’s kitchen before they head into the very realistic salt mine, complete with sharp crystals along the walls.

Riders then board a log flume for a unique adventure down the bayou. They’re in search of musicians for a Mardi Gras celebration hosted by Tiana and her husband, Naveen. What better place to find musicians than in the harmonious bayou where cicadas hum, frogs take the bass, and animatronic critters play handmade instruments like washboards and buckets?

But this is no calm sailing. It’s a heart-pounding swamp tour through dark areas with sudden drops and sharp turns. Riders will hear familiar voices, like Louis the alligator (Michael Leon-Wooley), the southern belle sweetness of Princess Tiana (Anika Noni Rose), and the raspy snarl of the kindest Voodoo priestess you could ever meet—Mama Odie, voiced by Jenifer Lewis.

“I love Mama Odie so much,” Lewis tells Kindred by Parents. She developed the character’s voice and even her own comedic stylings by listening to iconic jokester Moms Mabley’s records as a child. “I learned my comic timing from her—she was powerful like that. I mean, she was just amazing. And my mother had all her albums, so I just learned her timing. And when they asked me if I could play an old woman at [“The Princess and the Frog”] audition…I used Moms Mabley to develop Mama Odie.”

Riders will meet Mama Odie along the way through the darkness of the swamp lure. That is, of course, where she lives. But there’s so much Disney magic in the experience that it’s hard to fear what lies ahead. So instead, excitement ensues as “Dig a Little Deeper” plays while the log flume slowly edges up an incline.

“You’ll get [to the party] in no time,” an animatronic Mama Odie says just as riders make their way a beautiful view of Magic Kingdom Park.

Then it’s a 50-foot drop reminiscent of Tiana and Naveen’s froggy fall into the bayou just before they meet Ray the Cajun firefly in the film. As riders react to the thrill of it all, the flume slowly floats in the beaming sunshine as it makes its way into a cave-like structure, welcoming guests to the party of the century.

Tiana is dressed gorgeously, singing a beautiful new tune, “Special Spice,” penned by New Orleans musician PJ Morton, who effortlessly pays homage to New Orleans jazz standards in the authentic Disney tune.

Voiced by Rose, the big band-sounding song is a good-time vibe and a bit of a dream come true for its native New Orleanian songwriter.

“I am genuinely a Disney [fan], I love these songs,” Morton tells Kindred by Parents. “When [Disney called] me, I knew where I wanted to go immediately; it was a matter of which type of Disney vibe… [but I also didn’t] want to be a caricature of New Orleans. I'm not trying to make what you've always heard exactly. There's going to be that touch of that, but let's just make it authentic, a great song that can live forever. And so, it's a combination of all those things—it is New Orleans, but it's still me, but it is still Disney, and all those things came very organically to me and very naturally to me.”

After the exhilarating experience of entering the co-op, venturing through the bayou, and dropping in on a party, riders exit their flumes and make their way to the attraction-themed store, where everything from clothing, accessories, toys, cookbooks, and spices is available.

The spices are straight from one of the oldest family restaurants in the U.S., Dooky Chase’s, nurtured for decades by the family’s late matriarch Leah Chase. Chase, also hailed as the Queen of Creole Cuisine, is who Princess Tiana is modeled after, not just as a chef but as an entrepreneur and a gold-hearted, resilient person who sought her dreams on the strength of words that resonated with her throughout her life. This is a thoughtful note that riders will likely experience during the attraction and as they reminisce about the cartoon film that inspired it all.

“As I think about the story of Princess Tiana, I'm reminded of my grandmother, a story of a young girl chasing her dreams,” says Edgar “Dook” Chase IV, Leah’s grandson and executive chef at Dooky Chase’s. “Her father would tell her as she headed off to New Orleans for school, ‘Remember three things, work hard, pray, and do for others.’

He says that Leah remembered those principles as she began working in French Quarter restaurants, became a seamstress, and chased her dreams. Soon she would meet his grandfather, a handsome trumpeter and band leader Dooky Chase.

“Dooky’s family had a small restaurant called Dooky Chase's that Leah would eventually turn into her fine dining dream. The connection is not just about how Tiana realized her dream, but more importantly, it's about confidence, resilience, and love of community. That is the true connection to us all,” says Chase.

The highly anticipated attraction is now open at Magic Kingdom in Disney World and will open in Disneyland later this year.

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Read the original article on Parents.