Overview
Frozen Ever After (named Anna and Elsa's Frozen Journey in Tokyo DisneySea) is a musical reversing Shoot the Chute dark ride in Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort. Part of the Norway Pavilion of the Epcot's World Showcase section, the attraction features scenes inspired by Disney's animated film Frozen as well as the 2015 animated short Frozen Fever. It opened on June 21, 2016, using the ride vehicles and track layout of the former Maelstrom attraction. Versions of the attraction are scheduled to open at Hong Kong Disneyland on November 20, 2023, at Tokyo DisneySea on June 6, 2024, and Walt Disney Studios Park in the second half of 2025.
History
On September 12, 2014, Walt Disney World officials announced that the Maelstrom attraction would be replaced by an attraction based on Frozen. Maelstrom's final day of operation was October 5, 2014.
In June 2015, then-Disney Chief Operating Officer Tom Staggs revealed that plans for a Frozen attraction were discussed prior to the film's release, but were accelerated after the film's worldwide success. On responding to whether converting a portion of the Norway pavilion into an attraction based on a fictional place was appropriate for World Showcase, Staggs stated: "If the goal is to give people a taste of something like Scandinavia with the Norway pavilion, then Frozen would only increase the extent to which people would be drawn to it. To me it doesn't seem out-of-character at all."
Disney also released the first details on the new attraction and revealed its final name, "Frozen Ever After." The attraction uses the same ride vehicles and course that was used for Maelstrom. The Audio-Animatronic figures for the attraction feature improvements in facial animation that were first used on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which opened in 2014 at the Magic Kingdom. The Audio-Animatronics are also the first ever all-electric Audio-Animatronics, with previous Audio-Animatronics using either pneumatics or hydraulics. While there are no new songs in the attraction, some of the original songs from Frozen have revised lyrics written by the original composers.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).