I have officially done Tiana’s Riverboat Party & Ice Cream Social at the Magic Kingdom three times. I absolutely love it! It’s such a nice way to break up the day and have some delicious treats with a one-of-a-kind character experience.

Tiana’s Riverboat Party & Ice Cream social takes place aboard the Liberty Square Riverboat. Guests first gather on the boat landing for ice cream, desserts, beverages, and a meet & greet with Tiana and Naveen. This is the only place to meet Naveen on a regular basis as far as I know. Around 2:50pm, the call for final boarding takes place and the boat leaves the landing for a closer spot to the parade route.

On Disney’s website, they tout this as “VIP Parade Viewing”. I have to disagree with this. I personally do not think the parade viewing from aboard the boat is all that wonderful. You can hardly see the street level characters and dancers, if at all, and the floats seem so far away. Being front row along the ropes is much better viewing. So if a selling point for you is the VIP parade viewing, I wouldn’t hang your hat on that. It definitely isn’t the reason to choose this event.

After the parade is over, the boat returns to the landing to pick up Tiana and Naveen, where they board the boat and entertain guests as the Liberty Belle makes its way around Tom Sawyer’s island.

The first time we did this event in January 2017, the sequence of events aboard the boat was a bit confusing. There isn’t great info from cast members or on the website, so we didn’t really know what was happening when, especially with Tiana and Naveen. They obviously don’t board the boat while the parade is going on because Tiana and Naveen are also in the parade, so they can’t be two places at once 😉

My favorite part about this event is most definitely the food. On the landing, you get unlimited canned coca-cola drinks, scoops of ice cream, and delicious, Tiana-themed desserts. The lemon meringue-ish pie dessert is my absolute favorite. The chocolate whoopie pie comes in a close second! Once you board the boat, there are unlimited ice cream treats like mickey bars and sandwiches, frozen chocolate covered bananas, bags of popcorn and chips, and more canned coke products. It’s Disney snack heaven. Make sure there’s room in your bag to stash some extras for later!

 

My 4 year old daughter’s favorite part is most definitely Tiana when she boards the boat. Tiana and Naveen go to each floor of the Liberty Belle and interact with the children. On the first Riverboat Party we attended, there were hardly any kids on board because it was so new, so Maely was able to get a lot of one-on-one interaction with Tiana especially. She went all over the boat with her holding her hand. The other two parties we attended had slightly more kids since the event is growing in popularity and there are less days it is offered now than when it began, but Maely still got all the Tiana and Naveen time she wanted.

By the third time at the party, Maely was more interested in running around and exploring the Liberty Belle than anything else, but she still had an absolute blast. I think she gets a great kick out of being on “Tiana’s Riverboat like in the movie”.

All in all, the experience takes roughly 1.5-2hrs. I would strongly recommend getting to the landing by 2:20 if you want to enjoy your desserts and not be rushed. On this last trip, we came at about 2:45 thinking the boat leaves at 3, which I had done before and been fine with no rushing, but this time we were hustled through the dessert area and the meet and greet on the landing. The cast member at the entrance said more than once, “I don’t want to rush anyone, but you have 4 minutes to board the boat”. This REALLY stressed me out, especially since we were the very last people there, no one was even left in the landing area eating ice cream by the time we got there.

Everything ended up fine, but it was a hectic start after an already hectic morning and I would strongly recommend if you don’t like being rushed, get there in plenty of time.

All in all, Tiana’s Riverboat Party is a great addition to the Magic Kingdom’s lineup for dessert party events! Perfect for little ones and adults alike, you’ll love the New Orleans atmosphere and fun aboard the Liberty Square Riverboat!