In celebration of World Princess Week, Disney is sharing new details about the upcoming "Princess and the Frog" retheme of its Splash Mountain rides.
The company published a Disney Parks Blog post on Monday that included a concept rendering of what parkgoers might see on the ride. The artwork shows Tiana, Naveen, and Louis as they sail through a Mardi Gras celebration.
The post also notes that "original music inspired by songs from the film" will be played throughout the log-flume attraction.
Disney also released a video about the retheme on Monday. It shows ABC correspondent Kenneth Moton speaking with members of the Chase family — who own Dooky Chase's Restaurant, which inspired Tiana's story — and Disney creatives Carmen Smith, Marlon West, and Charita Carter.
In the clip, Carter noted that the ride's new design was partially inspired by New Orleans artist Sharika Mahdi, who created original artwork for the project to help inspire Imagineers.
"We pitched to her our concept for the story," Carter said. "We didn't show her any of our storyboards. We just pitched it to her because we wanted to see from her perspective, from a native New Orleans artist, how she would interpret what we were saying and how it resonated with her."
Finally, Disney announced on Monday that it donated $50,000 to the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), which teaches students about dance, music, culinary arts, and more.
Disney first announced that it would retheme Splash Mountain in June 2020.
The attraction has long been controversial, as it features characters and music from Disney's 1946 film "Song of the South" that's set on a plantation and follows "a black former slave who lives happily on his former white master's plantation," as Insider previously reported.
At the time of writing, it's unclear when the rides at Disney World and Disneyland will be updated. However, Magic Kingdom Vice President Melissa Valiquette recently said on the "Theme Park Rangers" podcast that it could be years before parkgoers see any changes.
"When we are reimagining a new attraction or a new area of our parks, this can be a lengthy process. There's a lot of work that goes into it," she said.
"I'm in a lot of meeting right now around Splash Mountain, and of course, our guests haven't seen any changes yet. That's going to take some time," Valiquette continued. "The sequence of these things is that sometimes the decision can be made many many months, even years, before any of that will be seen onstage. So it's going to take us a little bit of time to reimagine Splash Mountain."
