Tuesday, January 21, 2014

WDW Frozen Experiences

Do you like Frozen?  

I absolutely love it!  In fact, it might just be my new favorite Disney movie!  




There were so many fun things we did and saw this trip that involved Frozen.  I wanted to do a separate post about our Frozen experiences while at Walt Disney World.  I have a ton of photos and I didn't want to overload my recap posts with Frozen pictures! But I also didn't want to hold out on you guys either!  So if you like Frozen, you'll love this post!

The first thing that we saw Frozen in was "
Celebrate the Magic" at the Magic Kingdom. Celebrate the Magic is a projection show that is shown with Cinderella Castle as the projection "screen".  It is set to music and it's amazing!

Here's the full effect of the show with the entire Cinderella Castle projection:



Frozen segment in Celebrate the Magic Castle Show featuring "Let It Go" (Video Credit: Attractions Magazine)


If you'd like to see a video with a closer view of the projections, check out this video by The Dis.  And here are all of my pictures from the show!




It starts with the castle lit up as if it were Arendelle.




Elsa appears in a spotlight singing "Let it Go". 



Then there are swirls of snowflakes all over the castle.  This was so coo!




Elsa continues to sing and there are flashbacks to her and Anna when they were kids.  




We get a quick glimpse of Olaf with the girls and Anna giggling.




The scene changes back to Elsa singing with a bunch of trees covered in snow swirling around the base of Cinderella Castle.




Elsa begins her transformation into her blue ice dress.


We see more swirling snowflakes before Elsa's magic appears to transform Cinderella into a shimmering purple, pink and blue ice palace.  The colors were incredible.


Elsa comes out fully transformed and snowflakes begin to appear all over the castle.



It was beautiful so I took as many pictures as I could!



The snowflakes swirled away.



Then Elsa walked across the front of the castle.



The Celebrate the Magic Frozen segment ended with "the cold never bothered me anyway" and Elsa shutting the castle door just like in the movie!  Then the snow magically disappeared and the next segment of the show started!




It was so good!  I'm so happy that we got this front row view last minute!  We didn't mean to but it really worked out!  I also didn't think that they'd still have this portion since I'd heard that it was an addition for the holidays!  I hope they keep it!  It's beautiful!!!



The next Frozen adventure we had was at Hollywood Studios when we went to the Animation Building.  I always love seeing the drawings in the Magic of Disney Animation. One of my first Disney memories was watching the animators drawing in a room filled with Disney toys and figures.  I was mesmerized by it.  I think that's the moment when I knew that I wanted to so something creative with my life.




We walked through the section of the Animation Building with paintings and sketches of cities, towns, jungles, and the castles.  Afterwards, we headed to the other side.  I wanted to watch the animators for a few minutes.  When we arrived, we noticed the room next to the animators had a ton of Frozen displays.  


There was an awesome board with Elsa in her coronation dress on the far wall.  We also could see one of Kristoff on the same wall.  On the side tables, there were some Olaf sketches!  There was also a pin board with all sorts of drawings on the side wall.  But it was so hard to see them from the angle we were at.  It was even harder to get pictures due to the reflections from the lights and glass!


At this point, I really started to get my hopes up.  The last time Eliot and I were at Disney, we saw the artwork from Wreck it Ralph in the Production Gallery. The trip prior to that, we got to see artwork from Tangled.  The drawings in the room below us were awesome, but I was really hoping to see more art from Frozen up close!




I was not disappointed when we entered into the Production Gallery and "bam!" there was a picture of Anna, Kristoff and Olaf right in front of me!  Woo-hoo!!!




There were three display cases.  The one closest to the entrance had concept art of the trolls, Kristoff, Sven and Olaf!




The case to the left of the first was filled with artwork of the different backgrounds and the scenery in Frozen.  You could see the mountains, snow, Arendelle, the village, and the ice castle that Elsa creates.




Finally, the last case next to the entrance to the show had concept artwork of Anna and Elsa! (Ok, so there were also a few pictures of Hans... but I'm still mad at him!  Ha!)


I was so excited to see all of the artwork!  I waited until everyone cleared the room for the show and then I dove into taking as many pictures as I possibly could!  And because I love you guys, I'm going to share them with you!




Here are close-ups of the case with Kristoff, Sven and Olaf!



I love the drawing of Olaf with all of the sand snowmen in summer!


Oaken's store was actually full at one point!


Here are sketches of the trolls and their home.


Arendelle and the surrounding mountains are covered in snow.




Here you can see a few drawings of Elsa's ice palace.



Here's the real fun!  I love character development!  Here are the many faces of Elsa. And how awesome are her shoes?!?!  I want a pair!



Anna's character development.  They even did a study of how her traveling cloak moved.



More pictures of Elsa as well as a few of Anna and Elsa when they're just kids.



Concept art of Elsa in her room with her powers taking over the room.



Last, but not least, Hans.  (Wait, last and probably least: least liked.  Anyways...) Here's Hans during his duet with Anna.


Finally, before we left the Production Gallery, Eliot and I took pictures with the poster of Anna, Kristoff and Olaf!  We love Olaf and couldn't pass up the chance!



The artwork was incredible!  I'm so glad that we got to see it while we were there!  But our biggest Frozen experience was still yet to come!


Photo Source: Pinterest (Original Pin here.)
As most of you know, I worked really hard on making myself a custom Elsa ear hat before we left for our trip!  (For those of you who don't know, I will be opening an Etsy shop for them very soon!)  My big goal this trip was to get a picture with Anna and Elsa while wearing my ear hat!


I also teased that I had another project that I was desperately trying to finish before we left. That didn't end up working out.  And although I brought my glue gun and supplies to Florida, I still never finished the last one!  (I'm hoping to finish it later this week!)  In the meantime, here's a behind the scenes look at Anna! 



Eliot and I knew that meeting Elsa and Anna was going to be quite an adventure.  What we didn't realize was how long we were going to wait to meet them!  We were hoping to get there right at 11:00 am when the character spot opened.  When we arrived at the Norway Pavilion Friday morning, it was apparent that everyone else had the exact same idea we did.  By the time we got over to Anna and Elsa, the line was already backed up to a 1:00 pm greeting time.  We finally decided to stay after realized that we'd probably be waiting that long no matter when we got there.


While we waited in line, we realized that Anna was the only one greeting guests.  I started to question staying in line.  We were told that Elsa would be there by 1:00 or maybe even 2:00. The cast members didn't seem to have an exact time.  We were in the 1:00 window, and I was debating letting people cut us if Elsa wasn't going to be there.  I really wanted a picture with her and my Elsa ear hat!  


Thankfully, as we got closer to the doors, someone spotted Elsa!  The sign outside the door was changed to both "Elsa and Anna" and I was thrilled that we were going to see both of them!  It was so going to be worth the 2+ hours standing in line!

Eliot and I got to enter the room while the family in front of us met Anna and Elsa. The little boy and girl had the cutest Olaf t-shirts on and the girls loved them.  The kids were so cute!  Anna and Elsa really took the time to interact with them too.


Before I knew it, it was our turn!  I started to walk over to them and Anna spotted my ear hat and proclaimed, "aww... wow!"  I then told her that I didn't have the time to finish the design for her hat and that I was really sorry!

She said, "no, it's ok.  It's just that I'm really impressed."  She then showed my hat to Elsa.  "Elsa look!"


Elsa loved it.  She asked me how long it took me to make it.  I told her it took a few hours. She showed me her snowflake cape and said that she made it herself, except for this one snowflake towards the front.  Anna made that one for her.

Anna replied "Yeah, it took me about 2 hours to make it too."  Then she looked back at my hat, "If I made your hat, it'd probably take me 2 months!"  I had to laugh.


I told Elsa that she's been visiting us a lot this winter in Maine.  She replied "I don't think I did that.  Although, I also don't remember freezing my entire kingdom either!"

We posed for a few photos together.  Then Eliot joined us and Elsa asked me, "shall we show our ice powers?"  So she and I posed using our magical ice powers.  (Yup, I totally tried to copy what she was doing.)


The girls were very nice and made everyone feel special.  Everyone had a good amount of time with them, especially after waiting so long in line to meet them.  The girls fit their personalities well and their outfits were amazing too.  Elsa draped her cape around a few times and the snowflakes sparkling on her cape were beautiful.

It was definitely worth the 2 hour wait!  My only regret is not having my Anna hat done so I could get pictures with both hats.  (Maybe next time!)  I was also pretty pumped at how many people asking me where they could buy my Elsa ear hat!  They thought Disney made it!  Yippee!!  I was so proud to tell them that I made it myself.  I also had a ton of cast members compliment it, which I consider the ultimate compliment!


Frozen is definitely the hot ticket at the parks right now.  There are rumors swirling around about Disney turning Maelstrom into a Frozen ride.  Disney has recently confirmed that they're going to eventually bring Frozen to Broadway.  There's even rumors of a movie sequel!  One thing is for sure, you can't find Frozen items anywhere in the parks!  I found one pin that I bought, and the only other Frozen merchandise I saw were a few books and a light up snowflake wand in the Emporium at the Magic Kingdom. It appears that they had a Frozen inspired display, but everything sells out as soon as it's put out according to cast members and guests alike.  


Photo Source: Disney
Hopefully with the movie's popularity, there will be many more Frozen experiences to come to the parks for guests to enjoy!  In the meantime, I hope that you enjoyed our Frozen experience at Walt Disney World!  °o°

4 comments:

  1. We were sooo happy to meet Anna & Elsa, we waited almost 3 hours and it was worth it!
    Its my new fav. too!!! I LOVE Elsa!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was totally worth it! I'm so glad that we stayed and waited in line! :-)

      Delete
  2. I love Celebrate the Magic and I am so sad I missed this year!! I love Let It Go! At least I got to see the Frozen art too, really liked the movie :)

    BTW, I loved your Elsa ears. At first I thought it was Disney-made and was already thinking why I didn't see it at the park hehehe.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much!!! I'm really proud of my ears! And I'm so happy everyone loves them and wants some for themselves! It's a huge compliment! :-)

      Delete