Disney announced tonight at a D23 fan event that the Yeti inside Expedition Everest at Disney's Animal Kingdom is getting fixed. The animatronic will move again, ending nearly two decades of "b mode."
The news came as a surprise reveal during the event. Disney did not share a timeline for the repair or say when Expedition Everest might close for the work.
A Long Wait for Fans
The Yeti was the centerpiece of Expedition Everest when the ride was announced in 2003. Early test riders in January 2006 called the figure one of the most impressive audio-animatronics Disney had ever built. Some said it moved faster and looked more real than anything they had seen on a Disney ride before.
That full motion did not last. The Yeti stopped working as designed in late 2007, about a year after the ride opened. The forces from its lunging motion damaged the structure underneath the figure. A proper fix meant closing the ride for an extended period to rebuild the show building floor and the mounting system. Disney chose not to do that at the time.
Instead, Disney switched the figure to what fans call "b mode." The Yeti stays still while a strobe light flashes on it as your train passes, creating the illusion of movement. It was meant as a short-term fix. It became permanent.
There was a brief moment of hope in July 2009, when the Yeti ran in a version close to its original motion during testing. Guests who saw it said it looked almost the same as the 2006 version. The repair did not hold, and the ride went back to b mode.
Two major refurbishments came and went without a fix. In 2014, crews removed a broken track section and brought back the bird effect near the summit, but the Yeti stayed untouched. In 2022, Expedition Everest closed for months to update the ride control software. When it reopened that April, Disney confirmed the closure had not included any repair to the Yeti.
WDWMAGIC Intelligence
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