Around the world in a day at Walt Disney World EPCOT
After a somewhat restful rest day in the middle of our week-long trip, we headed to EPCOT! This part was HUGE - much bigger than I was anticipating - though maybe it also felt bigger because we were a bit weary at this point!
Despite that, we still had a lot of fun at EPCOT! The world showcase was a really cool area with lots of dining options and shops. Besides the Ratatouille and Frozen rides, the other rides in the park are located in the front half, so the World Showcase area really feels like it’s much more dedicated for a lax time eating and drinking. Because of that, I can definitely see why this park is a fan favorite! I only wish we had more time to spend there!
Schedule
| Time | Activity | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 6:40AM | Waited at Skyliner stop | Art of Animation |
| 7:20AM - 7:40AM | Skyliner ride to EPCOT | |
| 7:50AM | Scanned into EPCOT (back entrance) | EPCOT |
| 8:30AM | Cosmic Rewind (20 min wait) | World Discovery |
| 9:15AM | Coffee at Joffrey's Coffee & Tea | World Discovery |
| 9:30AM | Remy's Ratatouille Adventure | World Showcase - France |
| 11:15AM | Flower & Garden Festival food | World Showcase - France |
| 11:30AM | Flower & Garden Festival food | World Showcase - Morocco |
| 11:50AM | Food & shopping | World Showcase - Japan |
| 12:30PM | Food & shopping | World Showcase - The American Adventure |
| 1:30PM | Flower & Garden Festival | World Showcase - Italy & Germany |
| 2:15PM | Food & shopping | World Showcase - China |
| 3:00PM | Walking | World Showcase - Norway |
| 3:50PM | Food | World Showcase - Mexico |
| 4:50PM | Frozen Ever After (10 min wait - lightning lane) | World Showcase - Norway |
| 5:20PM | Mission: Space - Orange (10 min wait) | World Discovery |
| 6:00PM | Spaceship Earth | World Discovery |
| 7:00PM | Flower & Garden Festival food | World Showcase - Canada |
| 7:30PM | Souvenir shopping | World Showcase - Japan |
| 8:00PM | Dinner at Connections Eatery | World Celebration |
| 8:30PM | Living with the Land (No wait) | World Nature |
| 9:00PM | Luminous The Symphony of Us | World Showcase |
| 9:30PM | Skyliner back to Art of Animation (20 min wait) |
Park entrances
View from the back entrance of EPCOT
There are two entrances to EPCOT, and because of EPCOT’s size, the front and back entrances are quite far from each other! (We actually never ended up at the front entrance of EPCOT at all the whole day - never got past Spaceship Earth 😅)
The skyliner access brings you to the back entrance of EPCOT which is right by the France pavilion of the World Showcase. Since we wanted to ride Cosmic Rewind first, we basically had to fast walk / run as fast as we could to get to the front entrance where Cosmic Rewind was closer too. The funny thing was, we saw lots of people from the front entrance rushing to get to the back entrance so they could line up for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure!
Rope drop
By the time we visited EPCOT, Cosmic Rewind ceased their virtual queue, so that meant that we could rope drop it! I believe the three main rides that people would rope drop for EPCOT would be Cosmic Rewind, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, and Frozen Ever After. All of those rides are great options for rope dropping since their queue lengths were consistently pretty long throughout the day. We chose Cosmic Rewind since that was the ride that I was honestly the most excited for, and I think that was a great choice. We only had to wait 20 minutes after early entry started which was incredible. It was also my favorite of the three rides, so that’s one I would definitely want to ride multiple times if possible.
However, Cosmic Rewind is a bit of a trek if you’re entering EPCOT from the back, so be prepared!
Flower & Garden Festival
We just so happened to be visiting EPCOT during Flower & Garden Festival which was really cool! I don’t know much about the other festivals hosted at EPCOT or even what EPCOT is like during an off-season, but I’m so happy we got to see Flower & Garden! The topiaries all around the park were so cute and added so much to the energy of the park, and all of the florals all around were really vibrant! The festival food stalls also had really great food offerings that were both intriguing and tasty! We ended up mostly getting Flower & Garden festival food options, so I actually wonder what we would have eaten if the festival wasn’t happening!
Rides
Cosmic Rewind
Wow, this might be one of my favorite rides ever. I’ve purposely ignored all things related to this ride since I wanted to experience it for myself, and I’m so glad I did because everything was such a pleasant surprise. This is one of those moments that I wish I could forget so that I could experience it again for the first time! 😂 If you also haven’t ridden it yet and you don’t want anything spoiled, skip this section!!
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This ride felt SO innovative!! The way the ride vehicles swivel and almost “move positions” was mind-blowing - I was literally saying “oh my gosh” every few seconds 😂😂.
From the second the ride started BACKWARDS, I was sold. The ride is also so smooth and the ride feels so seamless in the coolest way. The music is incredible and I can see why everyone wants to experience September, but honestly any song choice available is amazing.
Without giving away any spoilers here, I have to say this ride is definitely worth rope dropping. The crowd was huge by the time early entry started and the queue was super long by the time we got out of the ride when we only had to wait about 20 minutes after we started walking to the queue when early entry started.
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure is a 4D ride where the ride vehicle is in the form of a rat! The queue is so adorable with very “French-looking” wrought iron elements and rustic brick facades. There’s even a part of the queue that mirror the rooftop that Remy goes to when he sees the light-up Gusteau’s sign! It’s so cute!!
The 4D elements are really fun and were quite unexpected if you go in not knowing about them ahead of time! You do wear 3D glasses on the ride for the 3D screen parts of it, so there’s a mixture of virtual and practical effects throughout the ride.
Trackless rides are a lot of fun, and I love that more of the Disney rides use this technology now - it makes the ride so smooth and seamless!
I did feel like the visual and practical elements mixed together gave me a bit of motion sickness, so I’d be weary of that if you’re prone to motion sickness, but overall the ride was still really cute and fun to experience!
Frozen Ever After
This ride is a large boat ride similar to Pirates of the Caribbean that goes through a Frozen-centered ride story. This ride was fun and was very reminiscent of Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey in Tokyo DisneySea! The faces of the animatronics in this ride at the time of our visit was all screens though, which feels a bit uncanny and rather less immersive.
You CAN get wet on this ride since it’s a boat ride in the water and has dips, and since I was on the edge of the boat I actually got VERY wet right at the end.
We were also lucky to get a lightning lane for Frozen Ever After. I believe we waited around 30 minutes in the standby line before the ride broke down and they gave us lightning lanes and we exited the line. When the ride re-opened and we got in the lightning lane line, we only waited around 10 minutes!
Mission: Space
Mission: Space actually has two separate rides known as the green mission and the orange mission. The green mission is more chill and is more suitable for people of all ages whereas the orange mission is a lot more intense (and not great for anyone prone to motion sickness).
We chose to do the orange mission over the green one, and it was definitely an experience!
The ride vehicle is actually really cool - the pre-ride show and queue feels very much like you’re about to board a space shuttle. Getting yourself seated and locked in is actually quite immersive, but also when I saw the barf bags that were set up in the vehicle I already knew it was going to be an intense ride. The g-forces from the simulator were a lot, and I have to say I did leave the ride feeling quite nauseous. I probably wouldn’t do the orange mission again, but it was cool to experience once!
Spaceship Earth
Spaceship Earth is a dark slow ride that’s inside the large EPCOT sphere. This one’s pretty cool since it takes you to “the future”, but since it’s a pretty old ride everything looks quite dated (in a charming way!) It gives similar energy to Carousel of Progress where it’s quite fun to see what the people of the past imaged the future to look like.
It does get very dark inside and the ride moves so slowly that it’s quite easy to doze off. I’d say this is a nice ride to get a little break or nap in if you need it! 😂
Living with the Land
This is one of the classic EPCOT rides that I was looking forward to experiencing! I know there’s a small subset of superfans for this ride, so I really wanted to know what it was all about!
This ride is another very slow very easygoing ride. It’s another boat ride that takes you through the different agricultural innovations that Walt Disney Imagineering works on. It was really cool to learn about hydroponics and see the different greenhouses and agricultural techniques being used. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Disney ride without some fun hidden Mickeys and Disney easter eggs! I especially loved the little Moana setup they had and the Mickey hedge!
World Showcase
We basically spent most of our day walking through the world showcase pavilions. Most of the pavilions primarily had food shops and little areas to walk through. There pretty much aren’t any rides in this area of the park aside from Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure and Frozen Ever After.
The pavilions were themed really well and even the food options offered in each area was catered to the part of the world the pavilion was based off of! I believe the cast members area also actually from the pavilion’s country/area as well, which is really cool!
While I enjoyed visiting the pavailions, and I can see why people can spend their day taking it easy here, I did wish that we spent more time in the other half of the park since it feels like we barely got to see any of it!
The Japan pavilion was really fun to visit since it has an actual Mitsukoshi department store and sells non-Disney anime and Nintendo merch, which I thought was quite funny! I didn’t buy any of these items, but it was still odd to see it in a Disney park!
I did appreciate that we got to see a bunch of different topiaries throughout the different pavilions!
Sadly, I think I’ll now always remember the China pavilion as the place where I lost my favorite umbrella 😭. I tried filling out the lost and found form online and even went to all the stores in the surrounding areas to ask about their lost and found sections to see if I could get my umbrella back, but sadly it never turned up :( (If you happen to recognize it and can return it to me, I’ll be FOREVER grateful!!!)
Shows
Luminous The Symphony of Us
This is the main nighttime show at EPCOT, and is plays at the center of the World Showcase Lagoon. I love that the show uses a combination of water fixtures, lights, and fireworks! The music and story is so moving and the spectacles are really fantastic! I was honestly expecting the show to be more like World of Color in Disney’s California Adventure, so the fireworks really caught me by surprise!
Since the lagoon is so large there’s a lot of space to get a good view. However, if you’re short like me and you don’t get a good spot near the very edge of the fenced areas, it might be a little difficult to peer through the crowds. Since we got to the water shortly before the show started, the fencing was already crowded so I had to peek around lots of people to try to see the water. It was a bit of a struggle, but I made do, and the show was still incredible!
Food
France
Beignet caramelise
📍 Fleur de Lys (Flower & Garden Festival)
💵 $6.95
This was like a creme brûlée donut with a hard sugar top and a creamy center. The donut was more on the dense side and it was a tad dry at the parts that were not moistened by the cream center
Gnocchi, canard confit
📍 Fleur de Lys (Flower & Garden Festival)
💵 $8.95
The pulled duck confit was flavorful and moist, and the gnocchi was fine, but a little bland without the duck.
Morocco
Seafood ceviche
📍 La Isla Fresca (Flower & Garden Festival)
💵 $8.25
The ceviche was very fresh and had a nice tartness to it. It also had a bit of a spicy kick to it as well which was nice. I really enjoyed this one!
Jamaican jerk chicken
📍 La Isla Fresca (Flower & Garden Festival)
💵 $6.25
The chicken was very flavorful and not dry at all, and the rice and plantains were also very good!
Japan
Kyoto boba
📍 Hanami (Flower & Garden Festival)
💵 $6.75
The drink was a Kyoho grape juice which I really enjoyed - I love Kyoho grapes! The drink also came with strawberry popping boba - I’m not a huge fan of popping boba so I didn’t really care for it. They didn’t offer any straws here so we used a spoon to scoop up the boba. I really enjoyed the juice and would have loved it on its own!
American Adventure
Spicy chicken gumbo
📍 Magnolia Terrace (Flower & Garden Festival)
💵 $6.50
This gumbo was actually SUPER spicy - I did not expect that at all! At first it was fine, but the heat really does build on itself. All the ingredients were very delicious and the flavor was great. I did really enjoy it, but it could possibly be to spicy for some people.
Grilled gulf oysters
📍Magnolia Terrace (Flower & Garden Festival)
💵 $8.00
The oysters were delicious! I really enjoyed the flavor of these and the breadcrumbs added a nice textural contrast. I think the sauce was just a bit too heavy for me - they went quite heavy on the butter and I felt like it masked the oyster flavor just a bit, but otherwise the texture and overall flavor was good!
Bananas Foster bread pudding
📍Magnolia Terrace (Flower & Garden Festival)
💵 $5.00
This was a really tasty dessert! The bread pudding itself wasn’t too sweet which I liked, but the rum caramel sauce was verrryy sweet. Adding a bit of the sauce with the bread pudding was really good - too much sauce was a little overwhelming
China
Satay beef bao bun
📍 Lan Yuan (Flower & Garden Festival)
💵 $7.75
This was a delicious bao bun! The beef was very flavorful and tender and the bao was very pillowy soft!
Mango bubble tea
📍 Lan Yuan (Flower & Garden Festival)
💵 $7.75
The mango juice drink was refreshing and it was carbonated which was a bit of a nice surprise! The boba was fine - they were on the smaller side and were a bit harder than I would have liked, but overall not a bad drink!
Norway
Kristoff kaffe
📍 Kringla Bakeri Og Kafe
💵 $6.59
This tastes like a mocha freeze from Costco! They have additional chocolate crisps in them which add a nice texture that I enjoyed!
Canada
Seared scallops
📍 Northern Bloom (Flower & Garden Festival)
💵 $8.00
These were soooo good! The scallops were cooked perfectly and the flavor was really delicious. The veggies were also good and went well with the scallops. I wish we got more of this!
Iced strawberry island latte
📍 Joffrey’s Coffee & Tea (near Canada)
💵 $6.49
The strawberry and coconut flavor sound better together than they tasted. I think the coconut flavor tasted more like coconut flakes rather than like a fresh coconut flavor, and since both of the syrups leaned more synthetic-tasting it was overall just okay.
World Discovery
Hot honey chicken sandwich w/ truffle fries
📍 Connections Eatery
💵 $15.19
This was actually another Flower & Garden Festival seasonal food item! The sandwich was fine but overall not very memorable. The chicken was decently moist and the brioche bun was nice and soft. I could taste the honey, but there wasn’t much of a kick to this dish as I would expect from a hot honey. The truffle fries were an additional $2, but the truffle sauce on top of the fries was not very generous and didn’t really add too much flavor, so I’d stick to the regular fries.
Highlights
Cosmic Rewind
This ride was just SO good!! I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day and I STILL think about how much fun this ride is. I can’t wait to go back and ride it again!!
Luminous The Symphony of Us
The Luminous show was really fun and lively! I wasn’t expecting too much about it because I didn’t know much about it, so I was so pleasantly surprised and it was so nice to go in not knowing what the show was going to be like! Anytime there’s a big fireworks bang, I’m into it!
Flower and Garden Festival
The topiaries were so pretty and all the florals around the park were beautiful! Since I haven’t been to EPCOT during any other time, I’m not sure how the park looks during a non-festival time, but I’m so glad we got to see it decked out in so many beautiful blooms!
The food was also great, and we ended up being mostly interested in the festival food offerings most of the time!
Notables
The park is BIG
The pavilions area is quite far from the other side of the park where more of the rides and other stuff are. We spent a lot of time at the pavilions so we didn’t get to spend as much time in the front half of the park.
I did want to spend more time in the front half, but as a somewhat large group we were moving at a pace that was better for everyone else. Personally I wouldn’t spend so much time at the pavilions, or I’d want to balance it out a little more with time at the other parts of the park.
Lots of quick service options!
Unlike the other parks, EPCOT actually has quite a few quick service options that are tasty and interesting! It could also be in part because it was Flower and Garden Festival, but I liked that there were more quick service areas where we could just grab a seat and order some food to share instead of having to sit down at a restaurant.
Lightning Lane for Frozen Ever After!
We were just lucky that the ride had broken down in such a way that they offered us lightning lane passes to return when it reopened! We weren’t planning to get lightning lanes, but it was nice to have for Frozen Ever After since it typically had a pretty long wait!
A few things I missed
Journey into Imagination
Being not a WDW-local, I’ve been fascinated by the obsession with Figment, since I haven’t really experienced anything related to Figment before. I was looking forward to riding to ride and actually seeing what this ride was all about! We unfortunately didn’t have enough time to ride this one, though, so I’ll have to prioritize this one the next time around!
Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana
I was REALLY looking forward to this since I love Moana. I didn’t want to be too pushy if everyone wasn’t up for the pace, and I thought we’d eventually find our way over to the experience, but the park was larger and we took longer than I anticipated and we never quite got there!
Recap
The day started off very exciting with our rush to Cosmic Rewind, and I would say that was totally worth it. The ride was incredible and is now one of my all-time favorite rides. We only had to wait 20 minutes to ride it from the start of the day, so I’m happy with that!
I think our group as a whole had less energy than I thought we would as we ended up really taking our time going through the pavilions. This was fun because we got to see stuff, but we also spent a lot of time sitting down and eating - and eating was part of what we wanted to do since we wanted to try the Flower & Garden festival foods - but I also wanted to spend more time at the front half of the park.
Losing my umbrella really messed the day up for me, unfortunately 😭. I tried really hard not to let it get to me, but it really put a damper on my day. I tried asking different lost and found areas several times, and went to the front park lost and found area. I filled out the online form and everything, so I think I tried to do everything I could to recover it, but I was still really bummed out.
I’m still hoping I get a random email that it’s been found and that it’ll be shipped to me, but I think it’s long gone by now. If someone stole it, I hope they will one day realize how mean that is. 😞
But lost umbrella aside, we still had quite an eventful day! There are a couple things I’d do differently the next time I visit EPCOT, but all things considered I think we hit all the major wants, and that’s really all I could ask for!
