Throwback Thursday 4/9/15 - Maelstrom

Maelstrom was a dark ride located in the Norway Pavilion of EPCOT's World Showcase. It was a mix between a log chute and a traditional film attraction. Visitors rode boats patterned after Viking ships that passed through various scenes that featured audio-animatronic figures.

The ride opened on July 5, 1988. On September 12, 2014, it was announced that the ride would be replaced by an attraction based on Disney's animated film Frozen, scheduled to open in early 2016. Maelstrom's final day of operation was October 5, 2014 

Riders departed from a dock traveling by boat, which turned a corner into a dark tunnel and up the flume's lift hill. A voice told riders that those who seek the spirit of Norway find adventure and peril. Arriving at the top of the hill, a lit face of the Germanic god Odin hovered above. Riders passed through scenes of seafarers and maritime villages depicting a mythological version of Norway's Viking days. Entering a marsh, the boat would come face to face with audio-animatronic depictions of Dökkálfar and Ljósálfar from Norse mythology. The trolls, angered by the trespassing boat, cast a spell onto riders as the vehicle began to move backward rapidly, accelerated by hidden conveyor belts underneath the water's surface. The boats floated briskly past scenes of polar bears and living trees, before coming to a stop on the edge of another waterfall, exposing the Norway pavilion's main thoroughfare. The backwards edge of the boat peeked out through the facade as the track pivoted to let the vehicle travel forward again. Correctly oriented, the boats plunged forward down a 28-foot (8.5 m) flume into a stormy depiction of the North Sea. After passing very close to an oil rig, the ride came to an abrupt end in a calm harbor of a small village, where the narrator announced, "Norway's spirit will always be adventure." As guests exited the ride, they had the option of watching a 6-minute tourism film, "The Spirit of Norway", which highlighted various attractions in Norway including skiing, hiking, and Kjerag mountain.

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