Take a musical journey aboard a hollowed-out log through a colorful bayou populated with cheerful critters. One of the most elaborate Disneyland Park attractions, Splash Mountain culminates in a daring 5-story plunge down rustic Chick-A-Pin Hill. During the approximately 9-minute water flume voyage, a cast of 103 backwoods critters tell the tale of carefree Brer Rabbit's plucky escapades as he strikes out on his own in search of a little bit of adventure. Drift past unforgettable sights and sounds that recreate memorable scenes from the classic Disney film Song of the South - including the pursuit of the crafty Brer Rabbit by the scheming Brer Fox and his bumbling partner in crime, Brer Bear.
You can preview the climatic plunge from the front of Splash Mountain and get a sense of what you are in for. Or can you? The logs appear to race down Chick-A-Pin Hill towards the Briar Patch...and then mysteriously disappear with a tremendous splash. Brer Rabbit pretends to be frightened by the Briar Patch, but he has a secret. The Briar Patch is actually his favorite hideaway: his laughing place. Take the plunge down Splash Mountain and discover Brer Rabbit's laughing place for yourself!
Most riders will get wet during their excursion on Splash Mountain. There are several smaller drops before the final plunge down Chick-A-Pin Hill, all of which have the potential to spray and splash. Riders in the front of the log tend to receive a more generous dowsing than riders in the back - but you can never be sure, that's part of the fun!
Ride Experience
Guests enter the queue in front the main drop viewing area. The queue winds past the Critter Country sign into the main entrance where a number of machines with cogs and gears dominate. Various thoughts and sayings from Uncle Remus are featured on signs throughout the queue, which winds around a barn structure and reaches the loading area.
Passengers ride aboard six-to-seven-seater logs with six single-file seats. The last seat in each log is larger and allows room for larger guests or an adult and a small child, thus along the capacity to be seven in each log. The log departs the loading area and ascends two conveyor-type lifts before floating gently through scenery designed to evoke the feeling of a river in the southern state of Georgia. The homes of the three main characters and aged farm equipment are incorporated into the landscape, along with an instrumental version of "How Do You Do?" emanating from hidden speakers along the waterway.
Before the logs enter the indoor portion, snoring is heard emanating from Brer Bear's cave. The snoring is a tribute to the original entrance to Bear Country (the former name of Critter Country) where a bear named Rufus was heard snoring from a cave.
After a short drop down "Slippin' Falls", guests enter the indoor portion of the attraction, where various Audio-Animatronic animals, such as geese, frogs, and opossums sing the attraction's first musical number, "How Do You Do?". Most of the animals on Splash Mountain were reused from the closed attraction America Sings. Brer Rabbit (voiced by Jess Harnell) is seen laughing at Brer Bear's misfortunes, preceding a "dip-drop" into the surreal Rainbow Caverns, where characters sing "Everybody's Got a Laughin' Place."
Brer Fox then manages to trap Brer Rabbit in a beehive. The mood turns ominous as two mother characters sing the "Burrow's Lament." The logs begin climbing up the final and longer lift hill, passing beneath two vultures that taunt guests and tell of foreboding danger. Shortly before the attraction's climactic drop, Brer Rabbit is seen alongside the hill, about to be eaten by Brer Fox.
But Brer Rabbit outsmarts Brer Fox and Brer Bear by tricking them into throwing him into the briar patch (where he was born and raised). Riders are sent down the final drop into the briar patch, mimicking his fall. The top half of the drop is highly visible from the adjacent areas of the park. A photo is taken as the log begins to fall, and it can be purchased after disembarking from the ride. From the top of the hill, riders looking toward the splashdown point will notice a full pond of water ahead of them.
The log then 'dives' under the water into an underground runout. The collective weight of the riders generally determines the degree to which they get wet here. An indoor segment follows the drop, after which the logs make a final entrance into a section of the mountain named "Doo-Dah Landing", where a full cast of Audio-Animatronic figures sing "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" and the respective fates of Brer Rabbit (reclined happily at home) and the antagonists (fending off a hungry alligator) are seen.
Before the return to the loading area, riders are given a preview of their picture that was taken on the final drop via an overhead screen. Professor Barnaby Owl, an overhead Audio-Animatronic, calls the riders' attention to the screen with various phrases describing the looks on their faces. After disembarking from the log, riders enter a "dark room," where they preview their on-ride photograph before exiting to Critter Country.
Touring Tips
- This is a must see! If you have limited time in the park make sure to ride Splash Mountain at least once. Understand there is a height requirement of 40" (102 cm) or taller. Those in your party not meeting the height requirement will have to pass this one by for their own safety.
- You will almost always get wet on this ride! The amount of wet you will get varies each time. We've discovered through observation that typically the closer you are to the front of the log the wetter you will get. If you don't want to get soaked, sit toward the back.
- Use FastPass on this attraction! Splash Mountain is one of the more popular rides in the park and using a FastPass will get cut your wait time down significantly.
- For those brave enough to get a little wet after dark, ride Splash Mountain at night. The inside of the mountain is lit up and you notice different characters you may not notice in the daylight. You get a beautiful view of Disneyland lit up at night from the top of the mountain. Just be sure to have a dry jacket waiting for you after you get off the ride when riding at night- Especially if you're visiting the park during colder seasons. And as an added bonus, the lines are usually not as long once the sun goes down.
- Splash Mountain has some dark areas inside, including a drop in the dark, and some kids may be leery of the big drop at the end.
- This ride contains a five-story drop with descent speeds of 40 mph. Throughout the entire attraction you will encounter two lifts and several drops - one in the dark.
- It's a good idea to bring a ziplock bag on the ride with you to store any electronics you may be carrying (i.e. cellphones, cameras, etc.). We may or may not know someone who has fried a phone screen when they thought it was secure in their pocket on this attraction.
- There is a bridge where you can watch your family and friends plummet down Chickapin Hill. This is a great place for photos!
- Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore are usually found throughout the day outside the Splash Mountain exit by the Pooh Corner shop.
Facts
- Opened on July 17, 1989.
- Many of the Splash Mountain audio-animatronic characters were originally developed for the America Sings attraction, and were re-located to Splash Mountain after the America Sings attraction closed in 1988.
- More than 100 audio-animatronics fill the attraction, which also has one of the largest animated props in the finale. The Showboat is 50 feet wide and 30 feet high, and rocks back and forth as a cast of audio-animatronics sing and dance to "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah."
- Splash Mountain at Disneyland features music in a jazzy "big band" meets orchestral style, fitting the attraction's proximity to New Orleans Square.
- To bring the classic Disney story "Song of the South" to life, Walt Disney Imagineers created a magnificent mountain chock-full of backwoods swamps, bayous and waterfalls.
- Animators took over 80 hours to synchronize each figure. To re-wire and test each figure took an additional three months before the attraction could open, as programmers were tasked with having to make characters "forget" their old America Sings settings and then perform with a decent level of realism in accordance with the new settings. Each character can carry out 45 seconds of movement and dialogue before a loop function resets it and restarts the sequence from the beginning.
- The concrete flume course is more than 2,800 feet long, or about 1/2 a mile.
- Splash Mountain is 87 feet high.
History
The idea for Splash Mountain was originally conceived in the summer of 1983 by Imagineer Tony Baxter while stuck in rush hour traffic on his way to work. He wanted to attract guests to the often-empty Bear Country land and make use of the Audio-Animatronics from America Sings, which was also receiving poor attendance. It was Dick Nunis who insisted that the Imagineers create a log flume for Disneyland, but the Imagineers were initially unenthusiastic about it, insisting that log flumes were too ordinary a theme park attraction to include in a park like Disneyland. While trying to solve the problems of including a log flume, bringing people into Bear Country and reusing the America Sings characters, Baxter then thought of Song of the South.
At the time it was built, Splash Mountain was one of the most expensive projects created by Walt Disney Imagineering at a cost of $75 million. According to Alice Davis (wife of the late Marc Davis), when America Sings closed in April 1988, production of Disneyland's Splash Mountain had gone far over budget. The only way to recover was to close down America Sings and use the characters from that attraction.
Baxter and his team developed the concept of Zip-a-Dee River Run, which would incorporate scenes from Song of the South. The name was later changed to Splash Mountain after then-CEO Michael Eisner's mostly-ignored suggestion that the attraction be used to help market the film Splash. The characters from America Sings were used in many scenes, though all of the main characters were specifically designed for Splash Mountain. Coincidentally, the two vultures seen just before the final drop at the Disneyland version are the same vultures used as the Boothill Boys in America Sings.
Dave Feiten was then brought in to animate and fix story and staging problems. Feiten then moved nearly all of the animatronics to new locations and then took out 10 animatronic figures and removed them from the ride completely to improve the show. A version of the popular attraction was planned for Disneyland Paris, but was scrapped due to budget reasons and the cold weather in Europe.
Hidden Mickeys
- At the beginning of the Splash Mountain queue, disguised as a knot, there is a tiny Classic Mickey hidden on the ride warning - height requirement sign.
- In the Splash Mountain queue's barn, there is an old hand crank machine with gears that form a Classic Hidden Mickey.
- As riders near the end of the ride, there is a photo of Mickey Mouse hidden on the wall. The framed picture can be found in Barnaby Owl's photo preview area.