While it’s not the arrival of a certain walking, talking snowman — something Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland will receive later in 2026 — Disney World Epcot’s flagship attraction, Frozen, is getting a major upgrade after a brief renovation.
The doors will reopen on February 12, 2026 – for the first time in what seems like forever to fans of the attraction – and when guests see Anna, Elsa and Kristoff in Frozen Ever After, Ken Ricci, director of creative development at Walt Disney Imagineering, told TechRadar, they will feel “like they’re jumping out of the screen themselves.”
“We wanted to improve the look of Anna, Elsa and Kristoff to be more faithful to their film,” Ricci said. “So their movements are still the same, they’re still part of that same show, that same story, but now they have more expression and resemblance on their face, which just adds this extra dimension to the telling of that same story.”
Frozen Ever After opened at Epcot on June 21, 2016, featuring for the first time the then-state-of-the-art figurines combining 3D-printed faces with projection-based animation superimposed on motors. It was a major breakthrough at the time: blending physical movement with digitally animated expressions in a way few attractions had done before, while still matching the movements, particularly those of Elsa, to the moments in the animated film.
Nearly a decade later, the technology has evolved. In 2023, the next generation Frozen animatronic figures debuted at Hong Kong Disneyland. While Epcot’s version still results in some of the longest wait times in the park, Imagineering saw an opportunity to make the experience even better.
The visible change is the sculpted faces and enhanced expressions, which make these real-life characters more in line with the film’s visuals. The less visible – and equally important – update is the infrastructure underneath.
Ricci explained that Imagineering updated Epcot’s control systems and refined the character cinematics to match those of Hong Kong.
“So these heads are actually an improved version of the Hong Kong design,” Ricci said. “We’re always thinking, ‘How can we do this quickly to get the attraction open to visitors again?’ So we made updates to the behind-the-scenes control system and other updates to the figures to match what we call the kinematics – the mechanical vibrations – of the Hong Kong figures…”
By aligning these mechanical behaviors with the attraction’s control architecture, Imagineering could reuse existing performance data rather than rebuilding the show’s animation from scratch, reducing the downtime required for this renovation.
The choreography has not changed and the music remains intact, but the precision, fluidity and fidelity of the characters’ faces have been modernized. More importantly, it will make driving even more immersive.
Ricci emphasized that this type of cross-park upgrade strategy is part of a long-standing Imagineering philosophy.
“We are always looking to leverage new technologies from our new capital projects and integrate them into our older attractions to enhance the guest experience,” he said.
The Frozen Ever After refresh arrives amid a broader wave of animatronic innovations taking place across Disney experiences in its parks and on cruise ships. In 2025, Disneyland park launched a Walt Disney audio-animatronic timed for the park’s 70th anniversary, while Disney World received an animatronic parrot inside the fully immersive Beak and Barrel Lounge and one for Clawhauser in Zootopia: Better Zoogether.
And in 2026, Hong Kong Disneyland and Disneyland Paris are set to launch an incredibly lifelike Roaming Olaf figurine, signaling Disney’s continued investment in advanced character technology.
Ultimately, the success of the upgrade won’t be measured on a technical level; it will be in the experience of riding it. Ricci rode the refreshed attraction shortly before our conversation and shared:
“I just came up this morning as a test to give grades, and I tell you: watching Elsa doing her ice magic, I got chills. It’s like she’s standing there in front of you and just walked out of the screen.”
This is an exciting upgrade, designed to make returning guests feel at home while giving the attraction a heightened sense of immersion. And for new riders, it raises the bar for what a character-driven park ride can look like in 2026.
Frozen Ever After is always the same musical journey through Arendelle. It’s simply more immersive now, with modernized animatronics that sharpen the visuals without overpowering them – technology serving the story, not the other way around, which certainly marches to Disney’s tune.
You can of course stream Frozen and Frozen 2 on Disney+, one of the best streaming services.
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