Tiana's Bayou Adventure is the next step in Disney's $60 billion theme park investment

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In this article DIS Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Tiana's Bayou Adventure opens June 28 at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida! The ride will take guests on a musical adventure picking up after the events of the Walt Disney Animation Studios film, "The Princess and the Frog." Guests will encounter fan-favorite characters including Prince Naveen, Mama Odie and more, plus all-new music. Disney | Olga Thompson We're almost there. Tiana's Bayou Adventure, the rethemed Splash Mountain, is set to reopen June 28 at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. The refurbishment of the iconic water ride was first announced four years ago. Similar alterations at Disneyland in California are expected to be complete before the end of the year. Featuring characters from Disney Animation's "Princess and the Frog," Tiana's Bayou Adventure takes guests through the swamps of New Orleans as Tiana preps a massive Mardi Gras celebration. And don't worry, the more than 50-foot drop remains. Riders will be immersed in a musical experience as they jettison along the log ride with new, original music alongside favorite songs from the 2009 animated film. Along the way, riders will spot familiar faces like Tiana, Louis and Mama Odie as well as a number of instrument playing critters from the bayou. The revamp of Splash Mountain into Tiana's Bayou Adventure is part of a bigger strategy for Disney to infuse relevant, fan-favorite intellectual properties into its existing rides and theme parks. It's all part of Disney's wider effort to invest $60 billion in its parks business over the next decade. Already the company has rethemed the iconic Tower of Terror at California Adventure to feature characters from Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy," converted the California Screamin' roller coaster into an "Incredibles" coaster (also at California Adventure) and replaced Maelstrom in the Norway Pavilion at Epcot with a "Frozen" ride. Disney often refers to these updates as "plussing," which is done in order to make attractions more relevant and to elevate the guest experience. Tiana's transformation Splash Mountain has been a staple at Disneyland since 1989 and at Disney World since 1992. There is a third Splash Mountain in Tokyo, which also opened in 1992. In recent years, there were calls from some parkgoers to strip away the "Sound of the South" theme from the ride. The source material, a film released in 1946, has been deemed racist by many even though the ride itself hasn't been criticized as racist. For Disney, retheming Splash Mountain allows it to upgrade ride elements, like its animatronics, tie the ride to a popular studio film and develop a slew of new merchandise, food items and drinks for guests to enjoy. Imagineers have developed all-electronic audio-animatronics for the ride, including for characters such as Louis, the trumpet-playing alligator from the film. Disney revolutionized animatronics decades ago with its hydraulic, or liquid-fueled, and pneumatic, or air-fueled, systems, but the electronic animatronics for Tiana's Bayou allow for more refined and precise movement, making them appear more realistic. Similar animatronics can be seen in the rides Smuggler's Run and Rise of the Resistance, in Galaxy's Edge. A preview of Walt Disney Imagineering's audio-animatronics for the upcoming refresh of Splash Mountain, Tiana's Bayou Adventure. Disney