Want to ride the new installation of Tiana's Bayou Adventure when it opens at Disneyland? Well then, let's put a twist on an old idiom - "you pays your money, or you takes your chances."
Tiana's Bayou Adventure will not have a standby queue when it opens to all Disneyland guests on November 15. Instead, guests wishing the ride the attraction will need to use either a (paid) Lightning Lane or a (free) Virtual Queue.
Anyone who has used one of Disney's Virtual Queues can tell you that they often feel like a free lottery. Everyone rushes to try to enter the queue when it opens at 7am, but only what feels like a random selection of those fans actual get assigned a boarding group for the ride. For everyone else, there's a second-chance entry at noon. If you don't get in via either, you're out of luck and will not be able to ride.
Unless... you pay to access the ride via Disney's Lightning Lane. Tiana's Bayou Adventure will be available as a Lightning Lane Multi Pass selection, starting November 15. Remember that Disneyland guests who pay for Lightning Lane must wait until they are in the park to make ride reservations, unlike at Walt Disney World, where you can book Lightning Lane times in advance.
Tiana's Bayou Adventure has been available to Disneyland's Magic Key holders on a reservation basis for the past two weeks, as well as to cast members and their guests, so that should help alleviate some demand for the new ride. But if the Lightning Lane Multi Pass selection proves hard to come by, I suppose there's always that pricey new Lightning Lane Premier Pass as another option.
Some potential good news in all this is that Disneyland limits guests to entering only one Virtual Queue for a ride at a time. That means that guests who get into the virtual queue for Tiana's will not be able to enter the queue for Haunted Mansion Holiday until they ride Tiana's. That should help open up availability for the Mansion virtual queue.
Eventually, Disneyland will open the standby queue for Tiana's and drop the Virtual Queue. But not "during the attraction’s initial opening days," the park said. Until then, here's the plan:
Open the Disneyland app and refresh the page to request to enter the Virtual Queue just as the clock hits 7am. If you make it, great. If not, try for the Mansion VQ. Then buy the Lightning Lane Multi Pass and rope drop the park opening to get a Lightning Lane return time for Tiana's as soon as you enter. If that doesn't work, keep checking for openings throughout the day.
November 15 also is the start of Holidays at the Disneyland Resort, so the park will be packed. But with Magic Key holders often being late arrivals after school and work, weekday mornings will be prime time for visiting Disneyland during the holiday season.
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