Walt Disney World has confirmed that its Frozen Ever After ride will reopen at Epcot on Feb. 12, sporting familiar (but updated) faces on the key animatronic figures of Elsa, Anna and Kristoff.
The attraction has been closed since Jan. 26, and the effects area is currently being tested in anticipation of its debut.
“I was in awe and got chills seeing Elsa, because it’s literally like she stepped off the screen and it’s standing in front of you now. You will notice the improvement,” said Ken Ricci, executive creative development. He oversees show quality for Imagineering at Walt Disney World.
The change for the heads of three of the attraction’s figures comes with advancements in technology, he said.
“This is a more lifelike articulated head that has a silicone skin,” Ricci said. In the past, their faces were created with projections.
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“The technology advanced, and there was opportunity to improve the quality of the show and the guest experience,” he said. “As we saw these figures progress for [Disney parks in] Tokyo, Paris and Hong Kong, we saw that as an opportunity to leverage that technology for Walt Disney World.”
The look of the new figures is similar to the Tiana figure in Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, the Magic Kingdom ride that opened in 2024 as a replacement for Splash Mountain, he said.
There have been several animatronic developments at Disney World lately. A Clawhauser figure fronts the new “Zootopia: Better Zoogether” show at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and a new figure has been revealed for the renovation of Magic Kingdom’s Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin ride. An animatronic version of Scooter has been announced for the upcoming Muppet makeover of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Frozen Ever After opened in Epcot’s Norway pavilion in 2016. It is a remodeled version of the Maelstrom boat ride that opened in 1988 and closed in October 2014.
The updating of the show control system was done while Epcot was closed, Ricci said.
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“Then we literally had to modify the figures’ necks to accept the change in the heads. And that took a few days, but we did a lot of pre-planning with technology and software to make sure that we were ready to port over these figures,” he said.
The reopened ride maintains the same experience and story as before, echoing some themes and scenes from the 2013 animated film.
“Anytime an attraction goes down, we take an opportunity to freshen up what we can,” Ricci said. “So, we touched up a lot and some show lighting, so it should look refreshed.”
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