Waiting outside the attraction guests are treated to a new pre-show in which two Toucans (Voiced by legends Don Rickles and Phil Hartman) are discussing their new position as agents of the Tiki Room’s new owners. What was Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management? The exterior sign for the now defunct Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management. “The Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management” officially opened to guests on the 5th of April 1998. 8 months after the initial closure the Sunshine Pavilion reopened, with very little changes to the exterior apart from a new sign out the front. Disney believed that to reinvigorate the ageing Tiki Room they could call on the help of two birds that had recently entered their portfolio through two of Disney’s most successful films ever. What would happen to the attraction, would it’s run-time be slashed like Disneyland’s, would it simply be gone and forgotten like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea or would something entirely different happen? Not too trusting of Disney at the time fans feared the worse, and their fears turned out to be in some ways realised. So when it was announced around the same time that the Magic Kingdom’s Tropical Serenade would also see an upcoming closure, people were intrigued as to its future. The Disneyland version would see the length of its show cut from 18 minutes down to 14, cutting out much of the fluff. Both versions of the attraction would see changes to try to appeal more so to the 21st Century attention spans. In the 35 years since The Tiki Room and at the approach of the new millennium it’s understandable to imagine that audiences were no longer as enthralled at the singing and dancing bird animatronics. The interior of the iconic Enchanted Tiki Room.Ĭhanges Were Coming to the Enchanted Tiki Room. Magic Kingdom’s version of The Tiki Room played for over 25 years until all of a sudden it was closed for “renovations and updating” on the 1st of September 1997

So when Imagineers were designing Walt Disney World it was obvious that the enchanting bird-chorus would have a place of honour in the new Magic Kingdom and opened with the park on October 1st 1971, with very little changes made to the show from it’s Disneyland counterpart apart from the name change to “Tropical Serenade”. The Enchanted Tiki Room was instantly a smash hit, even with its high ticket price of 75 cents (Compared to E-Ticket attractions at the time such as the Matterhorn which were only 50 cents). This technology at the time was so futuristic to guests that outside the attraction sat a “Barker Bird” which stopped them in their tracks, actively blocking the entrance of Adventureland. The Enchanted Tiki Room that did eventually open on the 23rd of June 1964 was a marvel for the time, featuring the first ever use of the now famous Disney technology “Audio-Animatronics”. Walt wanted to bring a piece of this Polynesian Pie to Disneyland and his original idea was a full-service restaurant with guests dining below tropical birds and plants (though he did have to ensure his Imagineers that these birds would be mechanical so as they didn’t “Poop in the food”.) Ultimately it was decided though that it wasn’t the most appetizing thing to be dining beneath a plethora of birds (Even robotic ones) and the idea for the restaurant was eventually scrapped. People had always wanted a piece of a lush, tropical beach paradise and Hawaii suddenly made it feel attainable. In 1959 Hawaii officially become the United States of America’s fiftieth state and suddenly all the tropical, exotic wonders of the South Pacific became all the rage. Walt Disney admiring one of the many bird animatronics within the Enchanted Tiki Room. But in order to take a look into the disaster that was Under New Management, we need to step back in time almost 40 years before it’s opening and look at what Walt was dreaming up for Disneyland.

The Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management was designed to breathe some life back into an ageing attraction ultimately though it’s misguided attempts have gone down in history as one of Disney’s worst ever permanent attraction overlays. The 90’s at Disney can be characterised in a few ways, we were seeing unprecedented expansion of the Disney parks right in the middle of the Disney decade, we had experienced the extreme failure of Euro Disneyland and the Disney Parks were all about squeezing Disney characters into places they don’t really belong or were needed. What do you get when you take the timeless classic of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room and add in a mix of crude humour, self-depreciation jokes and a style that’s painfully 90s? You get “The Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management”.

O a new world from aladin song