Bean Travels: Epcot, Exploring the World in 80 Minutes!

Greetings and Salutations to everyone! Since my last post, I have finished my lovely two week holiday in Florida and returned to the manky/miserable weather of the UK! Fear not though, as I will be continuing on with my reviews of the theme parks (totally not compensating for not being there). So, let's dive into the review of Epcot!

The Introduction

The famous Spaceship Earth with the Food & Wine festival advert

Epcot (or the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) opened on the 1st of October, 1982, as Walt Disney's idea for a futuristic community where people could work and live. This idea then evolved into the second theme park of the Walt Disney Resort, where the park was separated into two sections, Future World (now World Nature, World Celebration and World Discovery) and World Showcase, which hosts pavilions from various countries, such as France, the United Kingdom and Norway for example. 

Epcot has evolved a lot over the years into the park we see today, including more recent IPs rather than the creative minds that were once of the imagineering teams.

The Rides

The Guardians of the Galaxy Ride Entrance

In comparison to the last post, where we covered the Magic Kingdom, I found Epcot to contain more ride offerings, especially with rides catering to all members of the family. As I mentioned earlier, I found there to be more IP based rides such as Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, Ratatouille: The Ride, Frozen: Forever After and The Seas with Nemo and Friends. But, Epcot still contains a good track of IPless rides (if that's even a word). 

Personally, I felt that some of the rides were not worth their wait times. And that the park was a bit sparse in some aspects of rides. There were plenty in Future World (now insert newer world names here), but as soon as you hit World Showcase there are 3 main advertised rides - Ratatouille, Frozen, and the one in the Mexico Pavilion (a nice little boat ride to cool you down on a hot day though).  Most of the waits were a wide variety of 15 minutes to around 65 minutes. Myself and my best friend queued for the Ratatouille ride for 30 minutes, but did not feel like the queue time matched the quality of the ride. I would ride it again, if the time is 15 minutes or less.

One thing I will note is that the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind utilises the same virtual queuing system that Tron: Lightcycle Run in the Magic Kingdom uses. This is handy if you want to ride the ride, but don't want to wait in a 45-60 minute queue, but there are only two openings to the VQ, one at 7am and another at 1pm. We got into boarding group 41 at the 7am VQ, as we knew we were attending Epcot that day, but the 1pm VQ is recommended if you intend on Park Hopping over to Epcot later on.

The Characters

One thing I did notice wandering around Epcot is how little characters there were to meet. Albeit, Figment (the adorable purple dragon from Journey into Your Imagination) was a newer meet and greet, but we were unable to meet him, as everytime we headed over, the CMs had shut off the queue due to the popularity.

Some characters that we did notice were Joy (who did have a semi-regular meet and greet), as well as Snow White, Alice (from Alice in Wonderland), and Elsa & Anna (who have a meet and greet spot in the Norway Pavilion). However, trying to actually meet these characters was hard, as we did struggle to see when they were wondering around, as there were no times on the app or an updated list on the app as to who was present on the days we were in the park.

The Food

The Thai Shrimp Rice Noodles from the Epcot Food & Wine Festival

The best thing about being in Epcot in September was the Epcot Food & Wine Festival. This typically runs from July to about mid-November each year, with food stalls from a variety of countries. However, do not despair if you are not going during Food & Wine as World Showcase has a variety of restaurants from across the globe (or the respective Pavilion) that you can sample food in.

If, like me, you are avoiding Gluten, do not worry as most of the restaurants are amazing at offering a variety in the menu and replacing items when they can. For example, we ate at the San Angel in the Mexican Pavilion and I ordered the Tacos de Ribeye and they changed it around so it came out with GF tortillas instead of the normal ones!

The Fireworks

One main difference between MK and Epcot is that it only has a fireworks show, which in my opinion is a much better show than the MK fireworks. The Epcot fireworks are set around the World Showcase Lagoon, so wherever you witness the fireworks, you can get an amazing view of them!

Our tip is that if you want to witness the fireworks, try to get a bit by the lagoon early, as by about 8:30 there are barely any free areas. The show itself starts at 9pm when the park officially closes, and last around 10-15 minutes. Be prepared for an influx of people when the show finishes as everyone heads to the exit and cannot ride anymore rides.

If you have already seen the fireworks or are not bothered by the fireworks, another tip we have is go on a last minute ride such as Test Track, Ratatouille or Frozen: Forever After. Typically everyone heads to watch the fireworks, so the queue times for these rides are lower than what they are during the day.

The Burning Question - Can You Explore the World in 80 Minutes?

The answer - yes! As a joke, and a little homage to the book, Around the World in 80 Days, myself and my best mate ended up going around World Showcase in 80 minutes. This was mainly us wandering around the lagoon and looking in the shops, as most of the rides had a 45+ minute wait time. It was a fun experience, and would recommend it to those who just want to experience Epcot without going on rides.

So in conclusion, Epcot is one of the better Disney World parks (and now my favourite), with there being more options for both riders and non-riders alike. It is definitely an all-day park, but if you would like to do the park hopping option, we found that going in the morning was better for us, as the wait times were typically lower.

Have you been to Epcot? What was your favourite ride? Do you think you'll explore the many food options they have to offer? Let me know in the comments, and as per usual, I'll see you next time!

Sadie!