Meet the Critters of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World
All photos ©Disney unless otherwise noted
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is opening in Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World on June 28th! New original characters with names and distinct personalities will join the familiar faces on the ride with bands of adorable critters playing music with instruments made out of natural materials and human-made found objects. While Princess Tiana is getting ready to throw a big Mardi Gras party, there’s a mix-up between Louis and Prince Naveen that leaves Tiana without a band. Tiana and Louis will take guests into the bayou in a search of music for the party and find adorable bands of musical critters. For more details on all the new critters, keep reading!
Everything We Know So Far About Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World
Meet the Critters of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will feature dozens of new Audio-Animatronics figures. The attraction will include many new and returning characters from Walt Disney Studios The Princess and the Frog.
Bands of adorable critters will be some of the new characters on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. The first band of Audio-Animatronics friends are musical critters who play Zydeco music on fiddle, accordion, washboard, and more with the makeshift instruments being constructed out of natural materials and human-made found objects.
The critters include:
Byhalia the Beaver – Strong-willed percussionist, natural designer, engineer; she builds dams and helps build the musical instruments for the band using natural bayou materials
Gritty the Rabbit – Plays the washboard, made from a found automobile license plate; she’s high-energy, overzealous, and digs when she’s anxious
Beau the Opossum – Plays the upright gourd bass with both her hands and tail; “all she knows is beauty, especially her own”
Apollo the Racoon – Plays the squeezebox; loves transforming abandoned objects into works of musical art, is full of energy loves telling stories about the objects he finds in the bayou; is close with Rufus and appreciates his calm demeanor
Rufus the Turtle – Plays the harmonica; he’s the first to join on a new adventure and is genuine and sincere but might come across as sarcastic sometimes because he sighs often; he loves going on adventures with Apollo
Timoléon the Otter – Plays the fiddle; eldest of the band; he’s famous for telling stories of his past explorations of every corner of the bayou
The second group of critter characters are musicians found further down the bayou. This group of critter musicians plays Rara music, a musical tradition from Haiti featured in street processions and marches. The genre features unique instruments including horns, bamboo instruments, and drums.
The critters include:
Octavia the Bobcat – Plays the vaksin, a single-note horn Rara music instrument; she’s an adventurous bobcat kitten, loves climbing and hanging out in trees, and almost never gets scared
Pawpaw the Bobcat – Plays the vaksin; Octavia’s grandfather, he taught her to play the vaksin and lives to make her smile; he believes everything has a way of working itself out
Phina the Gray Fox – Plays the drums; she’s imaginative and always thinking of new ideas with optimism and energy
Claude the Louisiana Black Bear – Plays the horn with his family members; he’s a “salt of the earth kind of bear” (or, “salt of the mound”) who loves to tinker and create with things he finds in the forest, and is often funny without meaning to be
Bernadette the Louisiana Black Bear – Plays the horn with her mate Claude and cub Sebastián; she’s a warm and supportive clear thinker who loves splashing in the bayou waters and eating plants
Sebastián the Louisiana Black Bear – Plays the drums; he’s a “mama’s cub” but charted his own musical course as a dummer and is happy to follow his friend Octavia’s lead as they explore and play, and loves all the small details in the bayou like insects and mushrooms
The third group of critter musicians are a band of frogs who play Afro-Cuban music. The frog band is called “Ranitas Verdes” and they perform at an exclusive bayou nightclub popular with local fireflies.
The critters include:
Felipe the Frog – Plays the piano; he’s the band leader and proprietor of the bayou nightclub; an old-school family guy, especially his band family
Mayra the Frog – Plays a flower blossom trumpet; she’s the most ambitious of the frogs and has been practicing since she was a tadpole
Mondo the Frog – Plays the conga drums; he started playing the drums when his favorite bottle cap got stuck on his second-favorite acorn; he’s steady, reliable, and copacetic, accepting what comes
Isabel the Green Tree Frog – Plays the conga drums; she’s the youngest member of the group and loves getting lost in her music and going with the flow
While many of the critters we’ll meet on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure are musicians, there are a few new non-musical friends on the ride. Gloria and Delores are frogs and best friends who enjoy relaxing and gossiping about everything they observe in the bayou.
My new personal favorite, Lari the nine-banded armadillo, is another critter you can spot on the ride. Lari is mischievous and quiet finder and fixer with a habit of “borrowing” things that aren’t his - but they eventually make it back to their rightful owner! He tells everyone a different story about how he lost his eye - and he also switches his eye patch from eye to eye. Lari can be spotted three times on the ride, once holding a Second Line umbrella, and also has a mailbox outside of Critter Co-Op.
