Epcot is, admittedly, a little weird right now…
Since reopening in July, Walt Disney World has definitely felt different. From social distancing measures to no fireworks shows, the Disney experience is certainly unique during this season. Despite these oddities, the past few months have brought some surprising benefits including historically low crowds, heavily discounted resort rates, and the arrival of character cavalcades as a new offering in the parks. We recently gave an update on what Disney’s Hollywood Studios is looking like during this season, and our overall experience there was quite positive.
What about Epcot though?
It’s fairly safe to say that Epcot has remained one of Disney’s least popular parks since reopening, despite some weekends with increasing attendance. The effects of lockdown hit this park hard, resulting in severe delays in construction, changes to The Epcot Food and Wine Festival, and the (hopefully temporary) ending of the cultural representatives program in World Showcase.
What exactly should fans expect while visiting Epcot right now? Can guests still look forward to exploring a nearly-empty park? Are enough attractions open? What is World Showcase like without cultural representatives?
Here’s what we found during our most recent visit…
1. You might feel kind of lost
Our visit took place on a weekday—Thursday, September 24th—and we could tell as soon as we arrived that things were a little different.
For one thing, your options for even getting to the park are going to be limited right now due to heavily-reduced resort transportation, meaning no Epcot monorail. We drove a personal vehicle and arrived about an hour after opening, and the parking lot definitely looked surprisingly full. However, this was largely because attendants were spacing out cars more than usual. The new temperature and bag check procedure went quickly, and we were in the park in no time.
The biggest thing we noticed right off the bat is it is really awkward to find your way around Epcot right now due to construction barriers filling the park. Epcot probably took the hardest hit from the COVID-19 lockdown in that it badly threw off construction schedules for the park’s massive refurbishment. Disney has had to cancel and delay multiple projects, including significant changes to the layout of Future World. Huge swathes of the park are shielded off by colorful barriers with signage marking how to get to popular attractions.
If you’re a longtime visitor, you might be scratching your head a lot wondering where you are…
The barriers in Future World start to feel a bit like a labyrinth after a while. Popular pathways like the Fountain Plaza or some of the side routes leading to Future World East and West are inaccessible right now, meaning the entire traffic flow for the park will be different than you’re used to. The good news is that signage is legitimately helpful, but we definitely got lost more than once, an experience that felt odd in one of our favorite parks.
2. Crowds are still low… but may not feel like it
This has been a consistent theme across all four of Disney’s parks: crowds are increasing even if attendance is still historically low. Despite this knowledge, we expected Epcot to feel pretty empty, particularly compared to Disney’s Hollywood Studios…
Our actual experience was something of a strange mix.
On one hand, Epcot certainly doesn’t feel packed. The crowds were definitely light for this time of year. We didn’t feel like we were having to navigate giant groups of people, and even the longest wait times reflected that the park wasn’t actually that full. For the most part, attendance seemed pretty reasonable and people spaced out.
However, the park still felt busy, particularly for a weekday during a pandemic.
The problem likely comes down to Epcot’s strange layout right now. Epcot is already a park with a fair number of bottlenecks, but the construction in Future World has definitely made this more noticeable. Areas where crowds can spread out more easily aren’t as accessible right now, so a lot of people are using the same pathways, making social distancing increasingly difficult.
This was so noticeable that one of our biggest takeaways was that social distancing was noticeably challenging at times during our day at the park. Some of this comes down to bottlenecks, but to be honest, I think some of it was that the day we visited, an unusually high number of guests were hilariously bad at social distancing. We had multiple instances of people insisting on walking immediately behind us on pathways and inside pavilions like The Land, and we even saw several occasions of people trying to get away with taking off masks when they thought cast members weren’t looking (to Disney’s credit, there usually actually was a cast member watching who addressed this behavior). There were even times when plenty of space was available but people would crowd around us for no reason at all. I can’t explain the psychology of it.
The good news is that we were able to social distance most of the time, and particularly later in the day, the park started feeling emptier.
3. Wait times are all over the place, but are still pretty low
Throughout the day, we kept an eye on attraction wait times, expecting the trend we’ve seen in other parks that waits are longest from rope drop to lunch time then taper off throughout the day. While we did see some of this, Epcot’s wait times are a little more difficult to predict. To make matters more complicated, it seems Disney is using the old strategy of over-estimating wait times, meaning lines may not actually be as long as the time posted.
We definitely got to take advantage of some unusually low waits overall. Right around noon, the longest wait was Test Track at 45 minutes, followed by Soarin’ at 30, and Frozen at 25. All other attractions only had between 5-15 minute waits. Like many people in the park, we were at lunch at the Biergarten.
Just one hour later at 1:00 PM, these times jumped up to 60 minutes for Test Track, 45 for Frozen, and 40 for Soarin’. Rather than trying to wait for rides, we used this time to explore a slightly-emptier World Showcase, a decision that paid off. By 2:00 PM, lines were dropping back to 40 for Test Track, 35 for Frozen Ever After, and just 10 minutes for Soarin’. We took advantage of the latter and practically walked onto the ride.
These times mostly held for the rest of the day until closing, with one strange exception: due to a temporary ride closure, the line for Frozen Ever After dropped to 20 minutes around 4:30 PM. I’ve only been on the ride once, mostly because I’m still salty about Disney closing Maelstrom (I… may or may not have listened to the Maelstrom audio through headphones while riding this time), but I decided to seize the opportunity and hop into the line.
I’m glad I did because just five minutes later, the line swelled up to 70 minutes.
In short, if you see a mega-short line for an E-Ticket at Epcot like Frozen or Test Track, go get in that line.
4. World Showcase is a little weird right now
Most of our visits to Epcot usually surround a fair amount of time spent in World Showcase, both to enjoy some food, shopping, and to hang out in the park’s beautiful gardens.
While World Showcase still holds plenty of its old charm, there is no question that it’s a little strange right now.
The first thing we noticed was that a lot of shops and dining stops are closed—this included some favorite locations like Kringla Bakery og Café in Norway and Tangierine Café in Morocco. If you are going to World Showcase for a specific experience, you may want to make sure it is open ahead of time. You also will want to place reservations for dining experiences early just in case walk-up lines fill up.
On a positive note, we were very happy to see one of Epcot’s newest offerings open: Regal Eagle Smokehouse! This place smells amazing, and it’s a perfect addition to the American Adventure pavilion. I’ve honestly longed for years for the American Adventure pavilion to up their food game with some barbecue. The plaza surrounding the restaurant is particularly cozy with lots of outdoor seating. We didn’t get a chance to sample it on this trip, but we definitely will on an upcoming visit.
The second thing that stood out was we definitely noticed the lack of cultural representatives. I first remembered this change when we checked in for our reservation at The Biergarten—we have German family, so I’ve always had a soft spot for the team at this pavilion. While there were still a few German cast members left, they were rare, and I definitely missed the element of being able to meet such a wide cast of people from the country. It definitely made World Showcase feel a little less magical.
Third was a change specific to The Biergarten restaurant—buffets have been converted to family-style dining experiences. I had actually tried to look this up ahead of time and wasn’t able to find a clear answer until we arrived for our reservation. We arrived just as the restaurant had opened, so it was pretty empty, and we were seated at our own table away from other guests. The family-style meal consisted of pretzel rolls, a selection of salads (macaroni, tomato-cucumber, potato and eggs, and pickled beets), a large tray of entrees (including schnitzel, bratwurst, potatoes, chicken, and spaetzle), and a selection of desserts (strudel, Black Forest cake, cookies, and a light berry cake). The band did play during our visit as well, even if they’re not having guests shout back the traditional German toast.
While I respect Disney’s efforts to preserve the most popular dishes from the buffet in a safer experience, I honestly felt like the price was too high for the dialed-back experience. The thing for me that really made the cost worth it at The Biergarten previously was how you could completely customize what you wanted, and the buffet also often included some special dishes like Sauerbraten with paprika sauce and a wide variety of cold meats to try. These aren’t deal breakers if all of your favorite items are included in the family-style offerings, but they were enough that we probably won’t be going back until the buffet returns.
5. Food and Wine fest – light version
One area where Epcot actually felt pretty familiar was in The Taste of Epcot Food & Wine Festival. This scaled-back version of the yearly festival may have been missing a few of the popular activities guests have grown used to (celebrity chef appearances, Eat to the Beat concerts, large exhibitions, etc.), but it actually didn’t feel that different from last year’s festival to us.
Around the time of last year’s Food & Wine Festival, we started to notice Disney already dialing back some of the festival offerings. The Festival Center, for example, went bye-bye to prepare for the construction of the upcoming Play Disney pavilion in the old Wonders of Life building. The food offerings this year are similar to those offered previously, with only a few favorites missing or adapted (the Liquid Nitro Chocolate Almond Truffle, for example, has been converted into a cake-pop dessert). We liked the creativity of some of the new dishes, and we appreciate that Disney even attempted something like a Festival Center in using the World ShowPlace building near the International Gateway to house several booths, a festival merchandise center, and even offer some live music and other demonstrations.
Overall, we really appreciated the presence of the festival this year. It did give a sense of normalcy for the park, and you may even find different booths open on multiple visits.
Oh, and Starbucks fans, don’t fret—just because the fountain plaza is closed doesn’t mean you have to go coffee-less. Starbucks has a large booth for the festival near Promenade Refreshments.
6. The park still has some great quiet places… if you know where to look
Despite a little weirdness, we still enjoyed some really great moments during our visit to Epcot, particularly in the quieter areas of the park.
The Morocco pavilion remains our favorite quiet getaway in the park. The pavilion doesn’t have as many shops open, so less guests are crowding into the area. We definitely caught a few beautiful “empty park” pictures and enjoyed just taking it easy. While we are hopeful to see Tangierine Café reopen soon, you can still pick up some Moroccan quick bites at the country’s booth for the Taste of Epcot festival.
Certain pavilions felt more crowded than others. We didn’t find much peace and quiet in the UK pavilion, France, or Norway, but China, Japan, and Germany felt emptier. Even Japan’s Mitsukoshi store felt much easier to navigate than usual, and the gardens across World Showcase remain very peaceful. If you catch it at the right time, this also may be a good time to hang out at Akershus Royal Dining Hall, which is currently available as a relaxation station where guests can remove their masks while distanced and stationary.
We also really loved the way that guests get a lot more space on rides during this season. I had the whole back of a boat to myself on Frozen Ever After, which was surprisingly relaxing. We also noticed increased distancing measures on other rides, even Soarin’. If you’re more on the introverted side, this still might be a good time to visit Epcot.
Epcot isn’t a terrible park right now, but it definitely feels scaled back compared to the other three at Walt Disney World. The combination of heavy construction, no cultural representatives, dining changes, and limited attractions is definitely noticeable on the park experience. The difficulties we saw with social distancing give us the impression this is not a good time to visit if you or someone in your household are high-risk. At the same time, if you love the park overall and want to enjoy short waits and low crowds, this could still be a good time to visit Epcot while capacity remains reduced.
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