Blue Bayou are full-service

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

Cajun The Cajuns (; French: ''les Cadjins'' or ''les Cadiens'' ), also known as Louisiana ''Acadians'' (French: ''les Acadiens''), are a Louisiana French ethnicity mainly found in the U.S. state of Louisiana. While Cajuns are usually described as ...

-style

restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

s renowned for their unusual ambiance. They are located at

Disneyland Disneyland is a amusement park, theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney in ...

Anaheim, California Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most p ...

Disneyland Paris Disneyland Paris is an entertainment resort in Chessy, France, east of Paris. It encompasses two theme parks, resort hotels, Disney Nature Resorts, a shopping, dining and entertainment complex, and a golf course. Disneyland Park is the origin ...

and

Tokyo Disneyland (local nickname ''TDL'') is a theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, near Tokyo. Its main gate is directly adjacent to both Maihama Station and Tokyo Disneyland Station. It was the first Disney park to be ...

, in

Chiba Chiba may refer to: Places China * (), town in Jianli County, Jingzhou, Hubei Japan * Chiba (city), capital of Chiba Prefecture ** Chiba Station, a train station * Chiba Prefecture, a sub-national jurisdiction in the Greater Tokyo Area on ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Guests wishing to dine at the restaurant are advised to make reservations at least a day in advance. At Disneyland, it is advisable to reserve at least one week in advance for the 4–8 pm dinner period; reservations are accepted up to two months in advance. The restaurant is built within the same show building that houses part of the

Pirates of the Caribbean ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' is a Disney media franchise encompassing numerous theme park rides, a series of films, and spin-off novels, as well as a number of related video games and other media publications. The franchise originated with th ...

attraction, with parts of the ride even taking place beneath the restaurant. Although seated in a large, enclosed building, diners experience the illusion of being in an outdoor restaurant at nighttime. The effect is achieved through the use of a dark and distant ceiling, air conditioning, and carefully coordinated lighting. The theming is intensified by the sounds of

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

s and

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...

s, the meandering glow of

fireflies The Lampyridae are a family (biology), family of Elateroidea, elateroid beetles with more than 2,000 described species, many of which are bioluminescence, light-emitting. They are soft-bodied beetles commonly called fireflies, lightning bugs, ...

, and projection effects that imitate the night sky. The restaurant is also popular for offering a view of the beginning portion of Pirates of the Caribbean. Guests can see riders floating by in their boats, and the riders can see the restaurant's festive nighttime lighting as they pass by. The Disneyland restaurant opened on March 18, 1967, to respond to persistent criticism of the park's lack of fine dining options. It was originally to feature live entertainment, but Disney historian Jim Korkis reported that after a dress rehearsal and trial dinner in 1966,

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

declared "In this restaurant, the food is going to be the show, along with the atmosphere".

Similar restaurants

The Blue Lagoon restaurant at

takes a similar approach to that of the Blue Bayous at the other Disney parks, but it is themed as a

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

beach rather than a Louisiana bayou.

Blue Bayou at Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom

Virtual Magic Kingdom ''Virtual Magic Kingdom'', also known as ''VMK'', was a massively multiplayer online game developed by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and Sulake and published by The Walt Disney Company. It was a virtual representation of the Disneyland-style th ...

featured a single room inspired by the Blue Bayou. The waiter was Gator Waiter. "Magic words" such as "mint julep" and "gumbo" allowed players to order food and drink.

References

External links

{{Commonscat
Official website
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts restaurants Theme restaurants New Orleans Square (Disneyland) Restaurants in Orange County, California Culture of Anaheim, California Restaurants established in 1967 1967 establishments in California Restaurants at Disneyland