Frozen Ever After vs Maelstrom

Better ride?

  • Total voters
    163
D

doctornick

Well-Known Member
Animaniac93-98 said:
Besides right before the fireworks, I don't think the ride was ever a walk-on when I was there.

The lack of other rides in WS + FP guaranteed that it would always have one.
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Yeah, I don't know when exactly people where going there that ever found it to be a walk on. I mean, during the fireworks or right before closing sure, but that's true of most rides. I guess if you went to it right at opening (which would be 11 AM, right, since it opened with the rest of WS not at park opening) before crowds meandered over the WS it might be a short wait. But any time in afternoon/early evening, it was always like a 45 min+ wait.
 
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JohnD

JohnD

Well-Known Member
Comparing rides in the abstract, then FEA is definitely the better ride. That doesn't necessarily mean it belonged in Norway. TouringPlans/Unofficial Guide now call the pavilion "Norway" for that very reason because of FEA as well as the Anna/Elsa M&G.
 
JustAFan

JustAFan

Well-Known Member
The Olaf animatronic in Frozen Ever After is pretty remarkable. My biggest gripe with that ride is with all the time, money, and effort put into it, that's the best you can come away with? Yes, visually stunning. Zero storyline. It feels like a book report ride similar to Nemo or Little Mermaid. I wish they would've given more attention to the story. After riding it, I wondered what all the fuss was about.
 
UNCgolf

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
JustAFan said:
The Olaf animatronic in Frozen Ever After is pretty remarkable. My biggest gripe with that ride is with all the time, money, and effort put into it, that's the best you can come away with? Yes, visually stunning. Zero storyline. It feels like a book report ride similar to Nemo or Little Mermaid. I wish they would've given more attention to the story. After riding it, I wondered what all the fuss was about.
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The AAs are very impressive (although the projected faces don't work except from specific angles), but everything else about the ride is barren and bad. Maelstrom wasn't especially good, but it was better than FEA if only because of the Norway fit and because the part where you're sent backwards made a lot more sense in the context of the ride. It doesn't make any sense at all in FEA; she's just singing Let It Go and suddenly you go back with a bunch of projected snowflakes on the walls around you.
 
Poseidon Quest

Poseidon Quest

Well-Known Member
Heppenheimer said:
I keep saying ditto for Horizons.

But don't mess with my nostalgic memory of the original Journey Into Imagination!
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I disagree with Horizons. I think it was truly spectacular. Same with the original Imagination.

JustAFan said:
The Olaf animatronic in Frozen Ever After is pretty remarkable. My biggest gripe with that ride is with all the time, money, and effort put into it, that's the best you can come away with? Yes, visually stunning. Zero storyline. It feels like a book report ride similar to Nemo or Little Mermaid. I wish they would've given more attention to the story. After riding it, I wondered what all the fuss was about.
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I don't really perceive it as telling its story any worse than, say, Peter Pan. They both go through highlights of those films, and while Frozen does it through its songs, I don't see any discrepancy it how effectively it tells the narrative. If you had never seen Peter Pan, I'm not quite sure that the attraction would make sense to you. If you strongly disagree, then I'd like to hear why but I currently don't see much difference.

UNCgolf said:
It doesn't make any sense at all in FEA; she's just singing Let It Go and suddenly you go back with a bunch of projected snowflakes on the walls around you.
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That is a really good point and I wish I had thought of that when I talked about it. When the troll casts the spell, it makes sense for the boat to go backwards, but then why does it travel to the tundra with polar bears, and then back to a forest? It's a strange series of geographic jumps, so I'm not quite sure that it makes sense in either context. In the original iteration, at least it was a fun novelty though, especially seeing the boat from outside.
 
Jrb1979

Jrb1979

Well-Known Member
BourbonStreet said:
Despite my strong dislike for FEA, I don't actually hate it. I just feel the Norway pavilion is the wrong place to have it. So yeah, you can't blame me for being up in arms when I heard my beloved Maelstrom was being replaced by some IP ride that has nothing to do with Norway.
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It's exactly where I am at. I hate the amount of IP they have been putting into EPCOT.
 
UNCgolf

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
Poseidon Quest said:
I don't really perceive it as telling its story any worse than, say, Peter Pan. They both go through highlights of those films, and while Frozen does it through its songs, I don't see any discrepancy it how effectively it tells the narrative. If you had never seen Peter Pan, I'm not quite sure that the attraction would make sense to you. If you strongly disagree, then I'd like to hear why but I currently don't see much difference.
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I think Peter Pan has better sets/environments. FEA has very little beyond the AAs themselves; there's a ton of empty, blank space in that ride. Beyond that, I think Peter Pan can be graded on a bit of a curve considering it's 40+ years older than FEA. and it also has the "flying" aspect that makes it different than most other dark rides.

That is a really good point and I wish I had thought of that when I talked about it. When the troll casts the spell, it makes sense for the boat to go backwards, but then why does it travel to the tundra with polar bears, and then back to a forest? It's a strange series of geographic jumps, so I'm not quite sure that it makes sense in either context. In the original iteration, at least it was a fun novelty though, especially seeing the boat from outside.
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Yeah, the geographic jumps after that part don't make any sense, but at least the troll spell scene itself works well as the catalyst for the backwards movement. FEA doesn't have that; the backwards part is just kind of random and clearly only exists because it already existed in Maelstrom. They didn't really make it fit the ride.

EDIT: I suppose the spell itself could be responsible for you jumping around. It may not be a great explanation, but there's at least something there to potentially explain it.
 
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Cadbury

Cadbury

Well-Known Member
PrinceCharming617 said:
I love Maelstrom, but it was just filled with a bunch of statues and an unpleasing oil rig. Frozen has way more eye candy and real animatronics.
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That oil rig gets a lot of flak from the Frozen diehards. It was supposed to represent the oil rigs you would normally find in the North Sea.To the best of my knowledge Maelstrom never received any kind of update other than routine maintenance. Too bad the Norwegian government stopped sponsoring/funding the pavilion around 2002 because imagine what an updated Maelstrom could look like.
 
Bairstow

Bairstow

Well-Known Member
BourbonStreet said:
That oil rig gets a lot of flak from the Frozen diehards. It was supposed to represent the oil rigs you would normally find in the North Sea.To the best of my knowledge Maelstrom never received any kind of update other than routine maintenance. Too bad the Norwegian government stopped sponsoring/funding the pavilion around 2002 because imagine what an updated Maelstrom could look like.
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The same could be said about Imagination, Horizons, or El Rio del Tiempo.

Any shortcomings of these attractions could have been corrected for considerably less money than the cost of their replacements and resulted in a far superior attraction today.

... except maybe El Rio del Tiempo. I'm not convinced Disney did spend more than like 400 bucks on the Donald Duck overlay.
 
PrinceCharming617

PrinceCharming617

Well-Known Member
BourbonStreet said:
That oil rig gets a lot of flak from the Frozen diehards. It was supposed to represent the oil rigs you would normally find in the North Sea. To the best of my knowledge Maelstrom never received any kind of update other than routine maintenance. Too bad the Norwegian government stopped sponsoring/funding the pavilion around 2002 because imagine what an updated Maelstrom could look like.
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Disney probably wanted it out anyways, it doesn't have an IP attached to it.
 
mergatroid

mergatroid

Well-Known Member
UNCgolf said:
The AAs are very impressive (although the projected faces don't work except from specific angles), but everything else about the ride is barren and bad. Maelstrom wasn't especially good, but it was better than FEA if only because of the Norway fit and because the part where you're sent backwards made a lot more sense in the context of the ride. It doesn't make any sense at all in FEA; she's just singing Let It Go and suddenly you go back with a bunch of projected snowflakes on the walls around you.
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I'm pretty sure that you've entered the Ice Palace at that part of the ride. In the movie she built it to live as a recluse so it's natural she would magically send you away at that point?
 
Animaniac93-98

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
Bairstow said:
Maybe I'm getting my rumors mixed up, but wasn't Maelstrom (the ride layout and building) originally intended for Fantasyland with a Black Cauldron theme?
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I don't know if that is true, but damn that would have been great.

They even ride a similar boat in the movie.

Is this the art for it?

1624720822651.png
 

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