I finally rode that Frozen and the AA's are very well done. Good sound and lighting too. But overall the show building, track and boats underminded this attraction. It felt as if they kept the same boats, same old track and same "surprises". There are some bumpy hurky jerky parts and poor transitioning during the backwards to forwards segment.
I was able to ride a couple times during my trip last week, and I agree. The technology behind the AAs seemed pretty impressive, and was very well integrated into the ride. The projections on the trolls were particularly seamless, and Elsa's flowing arm movements were really impressive But the ride itself just felt old. Lots of bumping, thunking, and splashing as the boats made their way through the tired old flume. Our boat shook violently as it reached the top of the lift hill one time, a feature that I've only experienced with the oldest and lowest caliber log flumes. And the sets were clearly shoehorned into the existing building, with the bright lighting only serving to highlight just how small the original sets were (though they carefully concealed it with darkness and effective backdrops) And of course none of this addresses that the ride is woefully under-capacity for the demand, too short for something that commands multi-hour waits, and entirely inappropriate for the Norway pavilion and Epcot in general
I've heard that too, and the sources seem pretty reliable. It's interesting that HKDL is planning to copy the awkward Epcot boat ride, rather than build the DL/TDL trackless ride. Considering they're building it from scratch, there's really no reason to saddle themselves with the problems inherent to the Epcot design I understand that they don't want to have too many trackless rides (Mystic Manor and the proposed Frozen spinner), but it's strange that they would rather have such a flawed ride than something new, considering they would cost roughly the same price. And by HKDL's logic, their Frozen boat ride would sit between 2 other boat rides (Jungle Cruise and small world), potentially being redundant still
So not one of the 6 US parks has a trackless ride but Hong Kong has Mystic Manor, Tokyo has Poo and aquatopia, Paris has the Rat ride. Why do the USA parks deliberately forsake trackless technology? This is rotten and uncalled for. We lose again
The new-ish Luigi's flat ride in Carsland at DCA uses trackless technology. The technology itself is rather impressive, but the ride can be kind of lackluster. I believe it was built as a proof-of-concept to test the waters on California's restrictions on trackless amusement park vehicles without an operator, opening the door for future attractions. Also, the Universe of Energy, Great Movie Ride, and WDW's Tower of Terror use trackless ride vehicles, though a much older system that doesn't have the flexibility of the modern iteration If rumors are to be believed, both Star Wars rides will use a trackless system. It should be pretty evident for the Escape attraction, but it sounds like it may not be so easy to notice on the Millennium Falcon one, which will feel more like a simulator than a traditional moving-through-scenery ride There are also rumors of a trackless Mickey Mouse ride replacing The Great Movie Ride in WDW (is if that park can stand to lose another attraction for rebuilding at this point). Depending who you believe, there may also be a chance it gets built at DCA The US parks have been slow to add the modern trackless technology, but it seems as if we might see a ton of it in the next few years
We saw the Frozen ride for the first time on our most recent trip in February. I liked it but I wouldn't wait more than 20-30 minutes for it. But that's easy for me to say since I don't have kids who probably REALLY want to see it when they are there. I think the ride could have been spectacular if the creators had had free reign to create something from scratch rather having to shoehorn it into an old ride. I have to say that the animatronics really impressed me though.
