The majority of Disney’s most popular characters share a surprising trait: they are almost all teenagers. Jasmine, Rapunzel, Snow White, Aurora, Mulan, the list goes on and on—the greatest stories in the Disney collection all surround the adventures of teenagers caught up in unexpected circumstances.
This is a bit ironic, considering how many families throw up their hands in despair at the idea of bringing a teenager to Walt Disney World…
There are many reasons people assume Disney parks and teens are a bad combination. By and large, teens tend to favor thrill-heavy destinations like Universal Orlando Resort and Busch Gardens over Disney, which they associate with “rides for little kids” (something most teens detest). Many parents grow exasperated trying to get moody teenagers to pry their attention away from phones to participate with the rest of the family on a Disney vacation without moping or complaining.
Writing about Disney parks isn’t my primary vocation–my full-time job is actually working with and mentoring teenagers in Florida. During my time in that role, I’ve learned a lot about what teens do and don’t like, and on rare occasion, I’ve had the pleasure of bringing students to Walt Disney World. It’s a real joy when these two streams of my world collide—particularly when we have the opportunity to change the mind of teens certain they would hate everything about Disney but end up having a great time.
One of the most surprising things we’ve found bringing teens to Walt Disney World is they seem to really, really like Epcot.
Most parents can barely believe this idea: “Epcot?! It’s Disney’s most adult park!”
How is this magic trick possible? Here are 10 tips we found to help ensure your teenager has the best trip ever at Disney’s most peculiar park…
1. Teens like choice
If there is a #1 rule for bringing teenagers to Walt Disney World, it is this: teens appreciate choice.
This may not always be obvious with some teenagers—many adolescents I know have almost comical difficulties making choices and may frequently brush off opportunities to choose with a non-committal, “I don’t care.”
Despite this, most teens care about having the opportunity to make choices. Adolescents are both older children and little adults at the same time. They’re in an in-between phase of life where they don’t have enough experience to be ready for major responsibilities, but they are self-aware enough to want to make decisions for themselves.
Many of the teenagers who I’ve spoken to who didn’t think fondly of Walt Disney World cited a common theme: they felt like they didn’t get any say in the vacation. In some cases, entire vacations centered around the desires of the youngest child. In others, adults made all the decisions and didn’t leave any room in the itinerary for the teenagers to try things that interested them.
If you want to win points with your teenager on your next Disney vacation, give them the opportunity to make some meaningful choices on the trip. If you like touring with an itinerary, purposefully leave some wiggle room where your teenager can choose between a few options of what they want to do. Include them in the trip planning process, scoping out any experiences they seem to really be interested in. If you tend to tour the parks with a lot of flexibility, this is even easier as you can identify these choices as you go.
One important caveat on this: don’t pressure teens regarding choices. They may not have a strong opinion or be able to make a decision quickly, and teens are at a particularly vulnerable time where they can get anxious easily if they think everyone is annoyed with them. Be patient and flexible.
2. The power of nostalgia
Disney nostalgia isn’t a thing with all teens, but it can produce surprising results in those who grew up watching Disney films or visiting Disney parks.
Epcot doesn’t tap into the nostalgia bug as much as Disney’s other parks, but you may be in for some surprises if your teen has a soft spot for films like Finding Nemo, Frozen, Coco, Ratatouille, or other Disney classics. Epcot has attractions, pavilions, and character encounters connected to all of these that might hook a teen’s interest. I’ve been surprised more than once by the burst of excitement from teens overseeing Mary Poppins wandering through the UK pavilion or realizing there is an entire section of Epcot dedicated to Ratatouille.
If your teen shows a surprising moment of nostalgia for an unusual attraction, lean into it! These are just the opportunities where a teen can feel like they’ve been heard and had a say in your family vacation.
3. The power of curiosity
One of the factors that works strongly in Epcot’s favor as a park for teens is that there really is nothing for them to compare it to.
It’s easy for a teen to make comparisons between Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Universal Orlando Resort. Same thing for Busch Gardens and Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Teens will often have strong preferences for one or the other. Epcot is an utter oddball among theme parks—it is probably the only theme park on the planet that started out as a concept for a prototype utopia, evolving into a celebration of the human experience purposefully leaning away from familiar tropes employed in other parks.
Curiosity has played a major role for almost every group of teens we’ve taken to Epcot—everything in the park is strange and intriguing and utterly unique. Often raw curiosity is enough to keep teenagers engaged in exploring Epcot because they have no clue what they might find next.
We saw a funny example of this with a recent group of teens. A 16-year-old boy with us insisted he wasn’t interested in any of the park’s slow rides, but he somehow became fascinated with Journey Into Imagination. No matter how much we tried to tell him he probably wouldn’t enjoy the ride, our preposterous descriptions just piqued his curiosity further. He had to see what was in that giant glass pyramid, no matter how ridiculous it might be. A similar situation happened with The Seas with Nemo and Friends—none of the kids wanted to ride a Finding Nemo ride, but they immediately perked up with interest when they realized it housed a massive aquarium.
Keep an eye out for things in the park that pique your teen’s curiosity. Try new things. If teens have questions about an attraction and you know the answer, give them honest facts, but if they’re really interested in something, just roll with it.
4. Don’t skip thrills
While every teenager is different, by and large, most tend to appreciate thrill rides.
The big three that tend to be a major hit with teen visitors are Test Track, Soarin’, and Mission: SPACE Orange Team (for teens who aren’t claustrophobic or prone to motion sickness). When Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind opens, it will also be on that list. When planning your itinerary, you’ll want to make plans to hit these particular attractions if you have an adolescent in the group.
“But what if I—the obligated adult–don’t want to go on those rides?!”
Disney has two wonderful tools for this sort of scenario. If you are comfortable letting your teenager tour on their own or with a friend for a bit, they can use the single rider line on some attractions. Waits in these lines tend to be very low, and they can get your teenager onto rides far quicker than the standby queue.
The other option is to take advantage of Rider Switch. The system has gotten a little convoluted lately, but the short version is this: if you have someone in your party (child or adult) who doesn’t want to (or can’t) ride a ride, stand in line together, then let the attraction cast members know you want to do a rider switch. Your whole party, minus the person staying with the party member not riding, will ride the ride first. Once they are off, the person who was hanging out with the non-rider can ride the ride. In the past, you could split into two even groups, but you may want to clarify this policy with cast members as Disney has tightened policies surrounding Rider Switch lately to prevent double rides.
5. Use slow rides as rest times
We found this trick the last time we brought a group of teens and young adults to Disney (joys of being a Florida resident). Our group was mostly made up of girls , most of whom were interested in some of Epcot’s more chill experiences. Our 16 year old boy wasn’t nearly as keen on a leisurely cruise through Spaceship Earth or Living with the Land.
The way we got around this was we treated the slow rides as rest times.
Most visitors are going to walk a lot at Walt Disney World—an average of 20,000 steps a day. When teens get tired, they tend to make it known. When we sensed our teens getting tired, we suggested taking a rest by jumping on a slow ride like Spaceship Earth, Living with the Land, or the Seas with Nemo and Friends.
Using this phrasing helped our 16-year-old feel like there was a tangible purpose to visiting these rides—we even told him we didn’t mind if he took a quick nap on Spaceship Earth (which he did). Everyone felt included, and we got a chance to pace our day more evenly.
6. Food, glorious food!
Food is part of the magic of Walt Disney World, and nowhere is this truer than at Epcot.
Touring Epcot’s incredible food scene is a huge selling point for teenagers—it comes back to choice and curiosity. Particularly if you visit during one of the park’s major festivals, there is a lot of choice for things to try, and the somewhat more reasonable pricing on festival plates gives lots of opportunities for teens to sample specific things that hook their interest.
Our teens spent a good part of the day on our last visit just touring the food possibilities throughout the park (the 16-year-old particularly enjoyed the fresh Belgian Waffles with chocolate from the Epcot Food and Wine Festival). We made sure all of the kids had festival passports so they knew what options they had (during non-festival times, the My Disney Experience app offers similar info), then we let them make stops as we toured the park.
“But my kid is a crazy-picky eater!”
Picky eating is definitely a common issue with teens, enough to prevent some from trying anything too adventurous. The great thing about Epcot is there are a lot of great options for fussy eaters. Instead of being relegated to hamburgers and chicken tenders, you may find surprising success bringing a teen to Regal Eagle Smokehouse (offering familiar favorites like roasted chicken or amazing mac n’ cheese) or Sunshine Seasons. Both offer a good amount of choice and will let picky eaters try something familiar but elevated from what they might find at home.
Oh, and don’t forget sweets! We highly recommend making a stop at Les Halles Boulangerie-Patisserie, L’Artisan des Glaces, or Kringla Bakery for some spectacular sweets that teens will love.
7. World Showcase is selfie-heaven
This doesn’t apply to all teens, but these days, kids sure do like taking pictures of themselves. While many teens tend to loathe others taking photos of them, they don’t mind if they’re the ones with the camera, particularly if they have a friend in tow and a cool setting.
Enter World Showcase.
Many adults assume teens won’t like World Showcase, but the opposite is true: we’ve found teens really seem to enjoy exploring World Showcase so long as they can do so at their own pace, ducking into pavilions that hook their curiosity. Some frequent winners include the Japan, China, Morocco, Mexico, and German pavilions.
The teen obsession with selfies might seem a little silly to adults, but this can actually be a significant source of fun for teenagers—let them go to town taking their pictures to share with friends! Sometimes just giving them that freedom can open doors for connection as a family.
8. Don’t skip Mitsukoshi!
If there is one place in World Showcase we’ve found a frequent hit with teens, it’s Mitsukoshi.
For those unfamiliar, Mitsukoshi is the massive Japanese department store in the Japan pavilion. Everything about this place is cool. Kids who enjoy anime tend to particularly enjoy it since they have a large section dedicated to that fandom. Beyond that, there seriously is something for everyone in there, from unique souvenirs to clothes, to Japanese sweets. In the past, they’ve had Japanese swords on display as well (though we didn’t see those out on our last visit).
9. If possible, let them bring a friend
This one is a big if, particularly for families visiting from abroad, but allowing a teenager to bring a friend can make a HUGE difference in a Disney vacation. Fun tends to be contagious between teenagers, and sometimes situations a lone teen would write off as boring or “cringey” instead can result in goofy fun with a friend.
This is easiest for Florida residents as Disney tickets can be somewhat more affordable for this group, but it isn’t impossible for families visiting abroad. In some cases, a family may not be able to afford a Disney vacation for the whole family, but they might be able to cover a ticket and some expenses for a teen to visit with a friend’s family who invites them. For those in Florida, a common scenario we’ve seen is that parents aren’t particularly interested in visiting Walt Disney World, but if a teen wants to go with a friend, they’re open to them going with a trusted adult.
This option, of course, depends on your situation and isn’t an option for everyone. If you can make it happen, you can exponentially increase the fun factor for teens visiting in your party. I can safely say some of our visits to Walt Disney World with teens who were friends have been our most fun trips to date.
10. Consider park hopping
Epcot has a unique point in its favor among Disney parks: it is an excellent park for park hopping due to its proximity to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Making a day of visiting both Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Epcot can make for a seriously amazing trip teens will love. We have had the best luck starting our day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (hitting attractions like Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, Tower of Terror, and Rockin Roller Coaster early in the day), then drifting to Epcot for the afternoon when crowds are still moderate. In our case, we concluded our evening by drifting back to Disney’s Hollywood Studios for a ride on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance (which has been enjoying low waits in the final hours of the day lately).
Park hopping isn’t for everyone, but these two parks go together like peanut butter and jelly, and we can say that the combination definitely passed the approval test for teens we’ve taken to Walt Disney World.
What are your best tips for bringing a teenager to Epcot? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook. Thanks for reading!
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