We have seen some animatronic fails in our time. We have covered frozen faces, limp arms, blinking issues, and the occasional figure just staring blankly into the void. But this one. This one is different.
A video posted this week by Victoria Jacobs of A Magical Disney Day on Facebook has officially become one of the most viral Disney park clips in recent memory, and once you see it you will understand immediately why she captioned it “This video is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”
In the final scene of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Magic Kingdom, the top half of Princess Tiana’s animatronic head — hair, scalp, and all — had separated from the figure and was sitting on the floor. The animatronic continued its programmed movements with only the bottom half of its face intact, essentially creating a horror movie version of one of Disney’s most beloved princesses standing at the emotional climax of her own attraction.
Jacobs called it perfectly: “You may have lost your weave!!”
We cannot stop watching it and we are so sorry.
The Reactions Have Been Everything
The clip spread across every Disney fan page, group, and Twitter timeline within hours. The responses have been split pretty evenly between people absolutely losing it laughing and people who are genuinely, properly exhausted by Tiana’s Bayou Adventure’s ongoing maintenance situation.
Because here is the thing. This is funny. It is objectively one of the funniest animatronic fails Disney has ever accidentally created. But it is also the latest entry in a very long log of show element problems at this attraction, and that context makes the laughter a little more tired than it might otherwise be.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Has Had a Rough Time
Let us be real about where things stand with this ride, because the head incident does not come out of nowhere.
Guests who have ridden Tiana’s Bayou Adventure 15 to 20 times since opening say they have never experienced a fully functional run. That is not one person exaggerating — that sentiment shows up repeatedly across Reddit threads, fan forums, and social media. Specific issues that riders have documented consistently include the Tiana animatronic at the first lift hill running with a frozen face, Louis the alligator showing visible wear and degradation way too early for a ride this new, and the Mama Odie screen element being broken for most of 2025. The physical Mama Odie figures are also reportedly unreliable at two separate points in the attraction.
Splash Mountain, the ride this replaced, ran for decades and eventually got its act together. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is barely out of its opening phase and already has a longer maintenance grievance list than most attractions twice its age. That is genuinely not what anyone wanted from this retheme.
What Happens Next
Disney is going to fix the Tiana head situation fast. The video going this viral makes that essentially guaranteed — nobody at Disney wants Princess Tiana’s scalp on the floor showing up in every news roundup and fan page for the next two weeks. Expect a quiet repair and zero official acknowledgment, which is standard Disney operating procedure.
The bigger question is whether the head incident prompts any serious look at the broader pattern of reliability problems across the attraction. Quick viral fixes are easy. Committing to actually getting this ride running the way it was designed to run on a consistent basis is harder and takes longer. Fans are hoping this is the moment that tips the balance. Honestly, if half of your lead character’s head falling off on camera does not do it, it is hard to know what will.
Should You Still Ride It?
Yes. Absolutely yes. The core ride is still fun, the music is genuinely great, and the bayou atmosphere works. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is still worth your time on a Magic Kingdom day despite everything going on with it.
But go in knowing what you might find. Check Disney fan Twitter or Reddit the morning of your visit to see if anything major is down or if the attraction is running smoothly that day. Ride it early before the Florida heat and repeated cycles start taking their toll on the show elements. And if you see something broken, report it through Disney’s official channels. That feedback genuinely matters and helps maintenance teams prioritize.
Tiana deserves better than this and so do the fans who were genuinely rooting for this attraction to succeed. Here is hoping the head heard around the world is the thing that finally gets Disney to take a long hard look at what is going on in that bayou. In the meantime, pour one out for the weave. It deserved better.
