Splash Mountain
| Splash Mountain | |
|---|---|
| Park | Magic Kingdom |
| Land / area | Frontierland |
| Type | Log flume |
| Opened | October 2, 1992 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering |
| Height req. | 40 in (102 cm) |
| Status | Closed |
Splash Mountain was a log flume attraction in Frontierland at Magic Kingdom in the Walt Disney World Resort, Florida. Based on the animated sequences of the 1946 film Song of the South, it combined dark ride scenes with a series of flume drops, the largest about 52.5 feet (16 metres). The Magic Kingdom version opened on October 2, 1992, following the original at Disneyland Park, which had opened on July 17, 1989. It closed on January 22, 2023, and was rethemed as Tiana's Bayou Adventure.
A version of Splash Mountain continues to operate at Tokyo Disneyland, where it opened on October 1, 1992.
History
The attraction was developed for Disneyland under Imagineer Tony Baxter. Disney held a large number of Audio-Animatronic animal figures from the former America Sings attraction, and a ride built around the animal characters of Song of the South offered a way to reuse them. A log flume also gave Disneyland a water ride of a kind it lacked, set into a mountain built in Critter Country.
The name came from the 1984 film Splash; an earlier working title had referred to the ride's best-known song, "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah". Construction and testing at Disneyland ran behind schedule, in part because the original single-file logs took on too much water, and the ride opened in July 1989 rather than earlier that year.
Its success led Disney to build versions for Tokyo Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom. The Florida mountain was placed in Frontierland, next to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, giving the west side of the park a second large mountain structure. Soft openings began in the summer of 1992, and the formal opening followed on October 2, 1992, one day after the Tokyo version.
Experience
Riders boarded hollowed-out logs and floated past scenes telling a composite version of the Br'er Rabbit stories. Br'er Rabbit leaves his briar patch in search of a "laughing place", pursued by Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear, who set a series of unsuccessful traps. Songs from the film accompanied the scenes, including "How Do You Do?", "Ev'rybody's Got a Laughing Place" and "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah".
The course mixed outdoor flume sections, indoor scenes and several drops. Midway through, a drop in darkness carried the log into a cavern sequence. In the climax, Br'er Fox finally caught Br'er Rabbit, and the log climbed the final lift — passing vultures who taunted riders from above — before descending the main drop at about 45 degrees and roughly 40 mph (64 km/h) into the briar patch pool below. The story resolved in a final interior scene: a riverboat celebration in which the characters concluded that Br'er Rabbit was safest, and happiest, at home.
The full ride lasted around eleven minutes, making it one of the longer attractions at the Magic Kingdom.
Closure and retheme
Song of the South had been criticised since its release for its depiction of race and of the post-Civil War South, and Disney had withheld the film from home video and streaming release in the United States. Petitions both for and against changing Splash Mountain circulated for years.
On June 25, 2020, Disney announced that the Disneyland and Magic Kingdom versions would be rethemed to The Princess and the Frog (2009). The Magic Kingdom ride closed after January 22, 2023; Disneyland's followed on May 30, 2023. The ride systems, mountains and main drops were retained, and the replacement, Tiana's Bayou Adventure, opened at the Magic Kingdom on June 28, 2024, and at Disneyland that November. The Tokyo version was not part of the announcement and remains in operation.