Meet Princess Tiana at Disneyland

My kids love The Princess and the Frog. We did not watch it in the theaters when it came out, but we rented it from a redbox and then proceeded to watch it a bazillion times over the course of a weekend. When the kids found out they would be meeting the Disney Princesses at Disneyland, meeting Tiana became a "must do."

The problem is that meeting the Princesses at Disneyland is a bit of a pain. Luckily, I had been prepared for the state of affairs at Disneyland, thanks to Disneyland Vacation Tips. However, we beat the system a bit with Tiana. She comes out in New Orleans Square every hour or two and alternates between singing a bunch of songs from the movie and doing a meet-and-greet. She does both of them. We first ran across her by accident during one of her singing shows. We were walking towards Big Thunder ranch and heard the songs. We followed the music and found her here:




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Unfortunately, there were a ton of other people there too. However, we decided to come back later for the meet-and greet. Well, that did not happen, but we tried again on another day. We started by asking the information booth at the end of Main Street. They initially told us that Tiana was not performing in New Orleans that day. Luckily, we had seen her earlier and knew that was incorrect. They then studied their books and determined that the next meet-and-greet would be at 5:30 pm. At 4:45 pm we were in between rides and decided to head over. The information booth had also told us that perhaps we could meet her around the corner from the New Orleans bathrooms, in an alcove near the caricature artists.

We went over there and did not find Tiana. However, we did find one of her band members. I stopped him as he was going up the stairs and asked him when the next meet-and greet was going to be. He said it would be at 5:00 pm. Good thing we came by early! We went over to where we had seen her do the songs earlier and sat down on the steps. We were the only ones camped out. Eight minutes later, Tiana and crew came marching out. Her "handler" came right up to my kids and asked if they were there to meet Tiana. When we answered in the affirmative, she said that they would get to dance with her! So she finished coming out, danced with my kids, talked with them, and posed for pictures. All the while other people started gathering and some girls started trying to interact (but were herded into line by the handler).

What are the lessons learned?

• Know where the princesses will be and get there before they are actually there
• Don't trust the information booth with the success of your trip
• Castmembers in the act will actually know what is going on, so ask them

Here is a nice interactive youtube video (click on things to see other videos) about New Orleans Square. There are apparently a number of other shows that I did not see that involve Tiana. However, that is one of the great things about Disneyland: there is always more to do and see!