Posted by Aubrey on 11/02/2022
Update 11/10/24
With the opening of Tiana's Bayou Adventure, the narration has changed yet again:
"The most famous landmark in this area is Tiana's Foods, built on an old salt dome and home to Tiana's Bayou Adventure. From here, you might spot guests making quite a splash at Princess Tiana's Party. Head on over when you get the chance. You're almost there."
<Almost There excerpt>
Update 10/25/24
Sometime after the closure of Splash Mountain the Splash Mountain portion of the narration with "How Do You Do" was removed. A new portion was included by March 2024 with the song "Almost There" (with vocals).
"Beyond those levee walls on the port side is the bayou, the future home of Tiana's Bayou Adventure. Princess Tiana swears there's magic out there, and wherever you find magic, you're bound to find surprises. Blue skies and sunshine guaranteed. It's not quite finished yet, but we're almost there."
<Almost There excerpt>
I have seen several mentions of the Mark Twain dock music, but I’ve sadly never heard it. I found some great information on the queue music (with pictures!) from the folks over at MiceChat. Forum member Westsider explained [1]:
In the 1950's and 60's there was an actual calliope in the covered queue area on the Mark Twain dock. It played songs constantly. In the 1970's it was falling apart due to exposure to the elements and it was replaced with a 60 minute recording of the original machine. But then in the late 1990's that 70's era analog recording fell into disrepair and the Pressler/Harriss era didn't have money to fix it. The recording was recently redone in digital format, and it now plays in the queue area via new speakers. It's a throwback to the 1950's, with a stop in the 1970's.
Specifically, the “calliope” was actually a Wurlitzer model LX orchestrion. Apparently the orchestrion had been acquired by Walt Disney when he bought the collection of a LA area collector [1, 14]. Some more information is provided by Mike Cozart [7]:
The Frontier Landing featured an actual mechanical orchestrion to entertain passengers. When Disney began selling off its massive collection or mechanical music boxes and band organs, Jack Wagner had the Mark Twain orchestrion recorded and is still used at the park today. It also was used for a time in the 90’s inside the Golden Horseshoe.
With regards to the actual queue music recording, we unfortunately seem to be empty-handed. The Mark Twain dock speakers are high up in the covered area and therefore too difficult to reach for an induction recording, and the loop doesn’t seem to be playing anymore in the last few years.
There is additional, albeit limited discussion of the Orchestrion in several other posts [2-6; 13].