February 25th was the first day that Disney decided to have Tiana’s Bayou Adventure function without a virtual queue, going to a normal line for the attraction, and boy did it not go well! For the first time ever, the Splash Mountain replacement was revealed to not be very popular at all. The weather was warm, the ride didn’t even open until later in the day (which should pump up the wait time), and still it was one of the shorter lines at Magic Kingdom.
The ride sucks #wdwnt. Its not because it’s cold
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Wait Time Only 20 Minutes on First Day With Standby Queue at Magic Kingdom https://t.co/O1AeLy12Rt— TRUMPISMYPRESIDENT (@AaronCo31143734) February 25, 2025
From the opening of the attraction until Space Mountain closed for technical difficulties, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure hovered between 25 – 45 minutes for its wait time. Some reports suggest the wait may have also been a bit exaggerated. Without a virtual queue, people could just stand in a normal line. And despite Splash Mountain having been the most popular attraction in the world — not just at Magic Kingdom — its reskin was often a shorter line than the carousel in Fantasyland. This was revealed live during The Pro Show as it was happening!
In all fairness, once Space Mountain was taken offline completely during the day, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure finally did get a significant line. That may have been because with both Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad unavailable, as well as long lines for Tron and Seven Dwarfs… people just finally had nowhere else to go!
Taken at 4:00 PM Eastern; courtesy WDW Passport
Over at Epcot, one other ride received a normal line for the first time ever, dropping its virtual queue system for a real line. Cosmic Rewind, however, opened with far different results than Tiana. The attraction quickly zoomed to over an hour’s wait right out of the gate!
You can now put 1 finger before that 35 minute wait. Currently posted 135 minutes. pic.twitter.com/CO5jOJnVX0
— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) February 25, 2025
As one might expect, Cosmic Rewind had significant fluctuations throughout the day in wait times as people get accustomed to the ride being more than just a pay-to-ride additional DLC. For both attractions, the change may have essentially been forced upon Disney World management. Frontierland is more like Ghostland without Big Thunder Mountain Railroad — that meant Pecos Bill’s was being severely underutilized, putting stress on other Magic Kingdom restaurants. At Epcot, meanwhile, there simply aren’t enough attractions. With Cosmic Rewind going into normal attraction availability, all of Epcot has a grand total of nine rides. Nine.
But at least that’s better than Animal Kingdom… with all of five open attractions.
But the takeaway for today most certainly has to be, Disney spent hundreds of millions of dollars to take their most popular attraction and turn it into something that gets less interest than the carousel. It’s an L for the House of Mouse in a very visible way we haven’t seen until today.
Why did Disney think eliminating the virtue queue was a good idea? It just made it impossible to hide what everyone knows: Tiana’s Bayou is one of the most unpopular “attractions” at their park. All that time, all that manpower first building it and getting it to work, and all that money spent on it and it’s an absolute failure.
Wonder what illegal maneuvers the Board will stoop to to stop another investor rebellion? They already violated SEC codes when Nelson Peltz tried oust Iger. They’re already engaged in false advertising over D+ having “ad-free” tiers by forcing ads into them. We know they’re cooking their books. How long before they stoop to outright murder?
All the good stuff removed and now it’s just a log flume with no story and no soul.
It’s sad how even with them limiting guests through virtual cue you could tell it just wasn’t popular anymore, and now that they don’t even have that excuse anymore because it is lifted, Tiana’s is just a full on failure