Frozen Ever After has always been a crowd-pleaser, but let’s be real: the original animatronics were doing the bare minimum. The projected faces on Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff looked fine in still photos and deeply uncanny the moment they started moving. Disney closed the ride on January 26, 2026 for a refurbishment that also touched up show lighting, set details, and the show control system. Less than three weeks later, it reopened with something that genuinely stopped us in our tracks: physical, articulated faces inspired by the upgraded figures already installed at World of Frozen in Hong Kong Disneyland. We went back as soon as it soft-opened to see if the hype was worth it.
The Ride: Scene by Scene
Frozen Ever After is a slow boat ride through the Norway pavilion at EPCOT, themed to the world of Arendelle. You board an open longship and travel backward up a short lift hill before splashing through a mild drop. The story loosely follows the plot of the film, taking you through a Nokk-led journey into winter, past the spirits of Arendelle, and into a colorful celebration with Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Olaf, and Sven.
The “For the First Time in Forever” scene near the start of the ride is where the new faces make their first appearance. Anna and Kristoff stand side by side in the town square, and the difference between what this scene used to look like and what it looks like now is dramatic. The articulated faces move with real expressiveness — lips, cheeks, eyes — in a way the projection system simply couldn’t replicate consistently. Elsa gets her moment in the ice palace, and this is arguably where the update lands hardest. The Imagineers reportedly modeled the figure closely after the character’s design in the film, and Ken Ricci of Walt Disney Imagineering said, " the result gave him chills." After seeing it in person, that’s not an overstatement.
The finale gathers both sisters together in a bright, celebratory scene, and having both figures with physical faces makes the whole ending feel more like a complete tableau than it used to. Olaf and Sven were always physical and always charming. The gap between them and the human characters was awkward before. Now the whole cast feels like it belongs to the same attraction.
Beyond the animatronics, the refreshed show lighting makes the ride feel warmer and more intentional overall. It’s a smaller change but you notice it, especially in scenes that previously felt a little dark and muddy. The ride itself hasn’t changed: same track, same drop, same runtime. But it feels more like the attraction it was always trying to be.
Is It Worth Riding After the Update?
Absolutely! If you’ve ridden Frozen Ever After before and thought it was decent but unspectacular, the 2026 update is worth experiencing on its own. If you’ve avoided it because the projected faces annoyed you, now is a great time to give it another chance. Lightning Lane is available, which helps on busy days. The Norway pavilion queue is also one of the better themed queues in World Showcase, so the wait rarely feels brutal even without it.
Frozen Ever After doesn’t have the thrill factor of other EPCOT headliners, but it’s a beautiful ride in a beautiful pavilion, and it’s now carrying animatronic figures that are among the best Disney has installed in recent years!
Watch Our Full Ride POV
Watch our full
Frozen Ever After Ride POV on the Magic Daydreamers YouTube channel, and subscribe for more Universal and Disney content every week!
