A little birdie told us… well, it’s actually just from an artist’s online portfolio.

In the online portfolio of Xavier Treto, we came across these two pieces of concept art with the following description:

While at Disney Live Entertainment and other [sic] project I was a part of was to develop a meet and greet for Moana and Maui. Below you will find some concept renderings. Program used: Photoshop

Xavier Treto

[Editor’s Note: Since this story was published, the artist has removed this specific page from his website. Below is a screenshot of the site as it appeared this morning before this story was published. You can also see the original page stored at the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.]

Now, any Walt Disney World aficionado can tell you the whereabouts of the two locations in the above art: the entrance and pre-show of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room in Adventureland. When many of us heard of a Moana overlay of the attraction, we rightfully assumed it would be an update of the animatronic bird show inside, and it certainly still could have been, but clearly the Enchanted Tiki Room would not be in operation given the loss of an entrance, queue, and pre-show if Moana had taken over. The question is was this the full extent of the plan, or was the meet and greet a placeholder while the show inside was reworked? We may never know.

You may recall that we ran a rumor post about the Moana overlay on June 26, 2019, a day that will live in infamy within the Disney online fandom. Hours later, Thomas Smith of the Disney Parks Blog published a rather derogatory (and pretty vague) piece denouncing these rumors and stating the following:

A little birdie told us there are some rumors flying around about our beloved Tiki birds at Walt Disney World Resort. We’re sorry that our fans are being fed incorrect information by unscrupulous sources. While “toucan” play at that game, we deal in facts here at the Disney Parks Blog. Although we won’t address every rumor, we want to set the record straight: there are no plans for our feathered friends to fly the coop any time soon. We’re constantly evolving our stories, but these birds will continue entertaining our guests at the Magic Kingdom Park just as they have done since 1971.

When it comes to Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, “we’ve been a hit and we know you adore us, so come on and join us for another chorus!” Be sure to come back to the Disney Parks Blog for trusted and official news about Disney Parks!

Thomas Smith, Disney Parks Blog

I guess Disney isn’t friends with Clyde and Claude, the audio-animatronic tiki birds who live in the pre-show, and as they might have been entombed in the head of Te Fiti…

Yes, that was The Walt Disney Company referring to us as “unscrupulous” in a public forum, and there was quite the media firestorm after that for those of you might have missed it or are new to the site. This is notable because Disney had never taken the time to disparage a media outlet before.

If the rumor had some semblance of truth, why would Disney do such a thing? Well, this was a week after we had shared rumors of plans to turn the Country Bear Jamboree into a Toy Story attraction, and Disney had yet to respond to that. In fairness, our piece took a principled stand on the Country Bears that pointed a finger at management for the consideration of such ideas.

So, yes, there were plans to overlay Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room at the Magic Kingdom. While we still don’t know the extent of work that would’ve happened at the main attraction, it is clear there were plans to alter the experience for Moana. With the latest string of attractions being modified to be more culturally sensitive, the Tiki Room may still not be safe from this IP-infusion, but only time will tell.

By the way, if anyone has that Toy Story marionette show concept art in public view on their online portfolio, please shoot me a message.