“Us Olds Know What Was Taken From Us.” Why Disney Fans Aren’t Over This EPCOT Ride Change From 12 Years Ago

Disney theme park fans have long memories. That often means they’ll remember every detail of their earliest childhood trip to Disney World, and can recite obscure park facts and easter eggs. However, it just as often means they ruefully remember changes that have come to their favorite attractions.

When it comes to EPCOT, many fans are still sour over the losses of Body Wars, World of Motion, Horizons, and the original version of Journey into Imagination. However, in my experience, no ride gets some fans more riled up than the closure of Maelstrom.

Maelstrom first opened in 1988 as the centerpiece attraction of the Norway pavilion. The ride was a traditional chute-the-chute boat ride themed around the idea that “those who seek the spirit of Norway face peril and adventure, but more often find beauty and charm.” The ride touched on many elements of Norwegian culture, including the Norse god Odin, historical Vikings, myths of trolls and living trees, natural glaciers, a Polar bear, and even an oil rig.

Thanks to the ride’s somewhat thrilling elements, including a backwards portion that teased falling out of the show building and a flume drop, as well as its excellent theming and whimsical animatronics, it quickly became a beloved attraction, and remained so over the quarter-century it was open, even as larger and more advanced thrill attractions were added to EPCOT.

However, after the gargantuan success of Frozen in 2013, Disney rushed to get the film into the parks, including announcing that Maelstrom would be closed and rethemed into an attraction based on the film entitled Frozen: Ever After.

The announcement — and the fact that the new Frozen attraction would reuse Maelstrom’s exact ride system and track layout —  was met with derision from many Disney fans, who mourned the ride when it closed on October 5th, 2014. Many were upset that the iconic and culturally significant attraction was closing to be replaced by a ride based on a film that was set in the fictional country of Arendelle as opposed to the real Norway.

Despite a decade having passed, some fans are STILL bothered by the attraction change. Anytime we ask our readers what rides they wish would come to EPCOT, we’re almost guaranteed to receive at least a few answers calling for Maelstrom’s return.

Heck, even those who LIKE Frozen Ever After still bring it up. Case in point, reader mwpanek recently left a 9/10 review of the attraction, calling it a “Great paint-by-numbers retelling of Frozen.” However, they also made sure to include, “Us Olds know what was taken from us for this attraction to live.”

Unfortunately for those “olds” — and I include myself in that field, at least on some level — Frozen Ever After isn’t going anywhere. The ride has been a MASSIVE success at EPCOT, still drawing some of the longest waits in the parks over a decade after opening. In fact, Disney just gave the ride a massive refurbishment, installing new and improved animatronics.

The new animatronics are based on versions from the Hong Kong version of the attraction. In fact, versions of Frozen Ever After or Frozen Ever-inspire rides have been built at several Disney resorts, including the aforementioned Hong Kong version, a version under construction at the Disney Paris Resort’s Disney Adventure World park, and the much larger scale Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey at Tokyo DisneySea’s Fantasy Springs.

While some Disney fans may still be bitter about the loss of Maelstrom, Frozen Ever After continues to reign os one of Disney World’s most popular rides, and a lynchpin of the company’s international parks. Be sure to let us know what YOU think of Frozen Ever After on our review page!

Disney Adults Can’t Stop Hating the Changes They BEGGED For

Are you a fan of Frozen Ever After or do you still miss Maelstrom? Let us know in the comments below.

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