Walt Disney World has announced the closing date for Frozen Ever After at EPCOT, which will receive a refurbishment for enhanced Audio Animatronics in 2026! This shares dates & details of the upgrades, our predicted reopening date the reimagined ride, commentary about why this is happening and has us so excited, and more.
Since Frozen Ever After first debuted, the company has gone even bigger on Frozen in its theme parks. The World of Frozen at Hong Kong Disneyland just celebrated its 2nd Anniversary, and another Frozen Ever After opens in Disney Adventure World at Disneyland Paris in March 2026. On top of that, the biggest new theme park land ever, Fantasy Springs at Tokyo DisneySea, contains its own version of the new land.
EPCOT’s Frozen Ever After was one of the quickest ride reimaginings that Imagineering has ever undertaken, retrofitting the quirky Maelstrom boat ride. Despite the challenging assignment, EPCOT’s Frozen Ever After was improbably well-done. The results speak for themselves, as Frozen Ever After has now directly inspired two marquee boat rides, and shares very clear bloodlines with a third. (The spirit of Maelstrom lives on in all three!) Frozen Ever After will celebrate its 10th Anniversary in Summer 2026, and ahead of that, the original attraction is getting enhanced at EPCOT.
Previously, Walt Disney World had only shared that in “early 2026,” at EPCOT will receive new updates, taking inspiration from the advancements seen in Audio Animatronics figures at World of Frozen in Hong Kong Disneyland to bring a more true-to-film look for these beloved characters in the Norway pavilion at EPCOT.
As part of Walt Disney World’s Full Calendar of Dates & Details for Reimagined Rides, Areas & Attractions Coming in 2026, the company revealed that Frozen Ever After will reopen in February 2026. Still no specific return date, but at least we’re dialing in the closure timeline to the first two months of the year.
In a subsequent website update shortly thereafter, Walt Disney World has added the following red ‘warning bulletin’ to the official attraction page on DisneyWorld.com: “Frozen Ever After will temporarily close for refurbishment January 26, 2026 and reopen in February 2026 with updates to Anna, Elsa and Kristoff Audio-Animatronics figures.”
There it is: Frozen Ever After closes on January 26, 2026! That makes sense–long after the busy New Year’s break, WDW Marathon, MLK Day Weekend, and EPCOT Festival of the Arts kickoff. Right in one of the winter lulls (to the extent those still exist) at the end of January 2026.
Still no reopening date, which at this point suggests that Walt Disney World is not 100% confident in sharing one. Our best guess is that the target is to reopen before Presidents’ Day weekend.
We’ve listed February 13-22, 2026 as one of the 10 Worst Weeks at Walt Disney World in 2026, which will actually be worse than many years due to the one-two punch of Presidents’ Day/Mid-Winter Break/Ski Week and Mardi Gras overlapping.
In years when Presidents’ Day and Mardi Gras have coincided in the last decade, that timeframe has typically been one of the worst 5 weeks of the year. With winter getting busier with each passing year and EPCOT’s Festival of the Arts becoming more popular, EPCOT is the park that gets hit especially hard by this dynamic.
Accordingly, it’s our strong suspicion that Walt Disney World will want to have Frozen Ever After back online before the Presidents’ Day rush starts. Perhaps not, but I would be absolutely shocked if they purposefully scheduled this refurbishment to fall over Presidents’ Day/Mardi Gras. In all likelihood, Frozen Ever After will reopen on or before February 13, 2026. (Just to reiterate, this is our prediction and has not been officially announced by Walt Disney World.)
Since only the human Audio Animatronics (not Olaf or Sven) need to be upgraded, and it’s a 1:1 swap out, it stands to reason that the project shouldn’t be too lengthy. But it’s entirely possible, that Frozen Ever After needs additional TLC and show scene upgrades. It’s only received brief refurbishments during the last decade. See our post on the Frozen Ever After Enhancements at EPCOT for more details, commentary, and my up-close photos of the AAs at HKDL.
What follows is the original announcement about the enhancements from Walt Disney World, a bit of brief commentary from us, and my photos of the new Audio Animatronics in the cloned Frozen Ever After at HKDL…
Frozen Ever After Audio Animatronics Upgrades
Frozen Ever After at EPCOT is full of Audio-Animatronics figures – from Sven and Kristoff, an ice-skating Olaf, Marshmallow and a whole herd of Snowgies, and of course, Anna and Elsa.
Many of these figures were groundbreaking in the world of Audio-Animatronics. Not just as part of the world’s first Frozen attraction, but also as the first attraction to have all electric Audio-Animatronics figures, and the first to combine electric motors and 3D printing.
To build the attraction and make it feel like the Frozen story, it all came down to one wrist. Elsa is known for her magical, ice-forming hand gestures; for her Audio-Animatronics figure to handle the fluid movements just like Elsa does on screen, Imagineers needed enough space to run cables and motors down her arms and hands. They figured out how big Elsa’s wrist needed to be and scaled everything else in the attraction to match.
Since then, Walt Disney Imagineering has built upon that technology of all-electric motors, 3D printing, and scaling for every figure they produce, from Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, to Anna & Elsa’s Frozen Journey at Tokyo DisneySea, and Frozen Ever After at Hong Kong Disneyland.
In a full circle moment of innovation, the Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff Audio-Animatronics figures in Frozen Ever After at EPCOT will soon receive new updates! Taking inspiration from the advancements seen in figures at World of Frozen in Hong Kong Disneyland, the Frozen Ever After figures will soon be modernized to the latest generation of Audio Animatronics.
Our Commentary
This is something Walt Disney World diehards have been clamoring for since the first reveal of the modernized Beauty and the Beast Audio Animatronics teased for Tokyo Disneyland back in 2018.
The requests became louder a few years later, once Disney pulled back the curtain on the international versions of Frozen Ever After, showcasing Imagineering’s newest A-1000 Audio Animatronics generation with incredibly fluid movements and lifelike (as far as animated characters go) facial features.
These new AAs are stunning, perfectly melding old and new technology to create something with wow-factor that will stand the test of time. Just like the Audio Animatronics from classic dark rides still look great today.
In so doing, they make the last generation’s projected faces on EPCOT’s Frozen Ever After or Magic Kingdom’s Seven Dwarfs Mine Train look antiquated by comparison. That technology was envelope-pushing for its time, but hasn’t held up.
It’s fantastic to see this full-circle moment, with the attractions that the EPCOT retrofit inspired going on to provide the foundation for improvements in the original ride reimagining at Walt Disney World.
I hope this is just the start. World of Frozen at Hong Kong Disneyland could serve as the template for more ways that Walt Disney World could integrate the film franchise into EPCOT (or beyond) in addition to the new Audio Animatronics in Frozen Ever After.
Beyond the Audio Animatronics, there are little ways the sets and staging of Frozen Ever After at EPCOT could be improved. These wouldn’t result in nearly as major leaps forward as the new Audio Animatronics, but it is worth remembering that the turnaround time for Frozen Ever After a decade ago was under 2 years, and the ride was a race against the clock to complete.
I’m sure the Imagineers who are still around from the original project would love a few more months to get in there and implement some ideas that were ‘cut for time’ or budgets during the original go-round. Maybe they’ll get that opportunity during the 2026 upgrades–although perhaps not if the closure is only around 2 weeks long.
Then there are the ways that Imagineers could take inspiration from World of Frozen beyond just its marquee boat ride. At the risk of stating the obvious, Walt Disney World is handcuffed by Frozen Ever After at EPCOT being in the Norway pavilion. This isn’t just a thematic limitation, but also a spatial one.
It is not possible to build Arendelle Castle or a new restaurant or Wandering Oaken’s Sliding Sleighs, all of which is fine. We don’t expect any of that, although it’s probably fair to say that Akershus could use a shot in the arm, and maybe it’s time to turn this into a Frozen dinner show as opposed to a princess medley.
Much like World Showcase, World of Frozen excels in the worldbuilding. The shops and storefronts are beautiful. The landscape is stunning. Watching our daughter experience Playhouse in the Woods literally brought tears to our eyes. More than anything else, there’s a lived-in quality to World of Frozen that is palpable, and makes you instantly realize what’s missing from all of Disney’s other recently-opened lands.
The ‘secret sauce’ to World of Frozen is that it’s overflowing with live entertainment. Arendelle is home to several different acts, from live bands to adorable rock troll puppets.
The most popular of these, unsurprisingly, is the free roaming characters. Whenever Anna and Elsa appear, the heaviest crowds we’ve ever encountered at HKDL suddenly materialized. I can understand why, as seeing these princesses wander around Arendelle–and Elsa conjure up snowfall–is magical. It was also really neat to see these characters in the attraction queue for Frozen Ever After.
There is not the space for this in Florida’s queue, but it’d nevertheless be nice to see a greater atmospheric entertainment presence in Norway at EPCOT. It’s worth noting that this would not be a new thing, either! Back in the summer when Frozen Ever After first debuted, there were free roaming vikings added to World Showcase the blended authentic culture with the warmth and charm of Frozen (without being movie characters–they would’ve fit the Norway pavilion pre-Frozen). Similar characters now appear in Isle of Berk over at Epic Universe.
Simply bringing back these vikings would be a huge win for Walt Disney World’s atmospheric entertainment. Better yet, restore the vikings, while also adding live music and the rock troll puppets. At minimum, the rock troll puppets should be a no brainer. They’d more than pay for themselves in viral social media videos. Frozen is such a smash sensation and important franchise for the company that it really deserves more at Walt Disney World!
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Your Thoughts
Excited that Frozen Ever After at EPCOT is getting advanced Audio Animatronics in Winter 2026? Thoughts about the attraction closing January 26, 2026? Think Walt Disney World will be able to reopen the ride by February 13, 2026? Hoping that more is enhanced on the attraction than just the AAs? Do you agree or disagree with our thoughts here? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
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