The second day of my vacation to Disney World was spent at Epcot. The common belief amongst many avid Disney World vacationers is that Epcot is not a park which requires an all-day visit, but I strongly disagree. My favourite thing about visiting Epcot is that you can really take your time exploring all the different pavilions at the world showcase, and honestly, because of all the vast cultural experiences that are available, the amount of delicious food you can eat is unmatched! Let me tell you more about my day at Epcot.
Firstly, for anyone who is unfamiliar with Epcot, it is one of the four parks that make up Walt Disney World. The core of Epcot is the World Showcase; a section of the park dedicated to immersing you in the culture of other countries around the world. While touring the showcase, you feel as though you’ve stepped into Mexico, Italy, France, Morocco, China, England, and more. Each section of the showcase provides not only delicacies from these countries, but you’ll find buildings and streets similar to those you’d see there, as well as music and other performers based off of that culture. You really feel as though you’ve stepped into the streets of those places all over the world. The showcase offers shops where you can buy authentic merchandise and items from these countries as well; England has the most dope tea and biscuits collection, while China offers an amazing selection of artwork, jewelry, and collectables. There is more to Epcot than the world showcase, but this is definitely a section of the park you’ll want to dedicate much of your time!
Another interesting thing to mention about Epcot is that it constantly has special events going on. For example, in the fall, it offers the International Food and Wine Festival, and while we were there recently, the Festival of the Arts was happening. The Festival of the Arts provides not only different foods and special performers to Epcot, but it allows artists to showcase their work and visitors of the park to purchase all sorts of art pieces. Sometimes, the artists were even there to talk about their work or sign a piece for you when you purchased it. As you journey through the park, you could stop and look at some amazing variations of artwork both Disney and non-Disney related.
Alas, we arrived at Epcot around 10 am on Thursday morning; allowing ourselves to sleep in a little after such a busy day at Hollywood Studios. We had some time to spare before our first Fast Pass at Mission Space, so we decided to stop and say hello to Pluto who was the first character greeting only steps away from the park’s main entrance. After this, we decided to grab a quick snack for breakfast and roam around the park for a bit to check out those art exhibits I was mentioning previously. We stumbled upon some cool real-life statues that symbolized the elements and snagged some pictures with them; one of the statues kept tickling my friend and it was pretty hilarious. After some other quick browsing, we headed over to Mission Space for our first Fast Pass. We selected the Green mission over Orange; we weren’t ready for such intense astronaut training before lunch.
After a successful Space mission, we stopped quickly at one of the gift shops, then headed over to San Fransokyo to meet Baymax. With a less than 20 minute wait, we were satisfied with our care and headed over to say hello to Joy and Sadness. These two are always fun to interact with, especially since they are polarizing emotions of one another, but Sadness always tries her best to be a trooper and never says no to a picture or two. After these character greetings, we made our way to Spaceship Earth for our second Fast Pass of the day. Once our trip around the earth was complete, it was time to head to Italy for lunch!
I had heard so many amazing things about Via Napoli restaurant in Italy within Epcot’s world showcase, so I was looking forward to trying the traditional woodfire Italian pizza. My friend and I were able to share the individual size pepperoni, and it was everything great pizza should be! An interesting fact about the world showcase is that every employee who works at the different countries is actually from there; all of the staff at Via Napoli were from Italy and our waitress even spoke some Italian to us. Again, another way that Disney will immerse you in the experiences! After lunch, we had some time to spare before our next Fast Pass, so we took the opportunity to walk around some of the countries and take some pictures as well as browse the shops and artists’ booths.
Before long, we found ourselves travelling past China and Morocco and in Norway; it was time to ride Frozen Ever After (yay for a fast pass), and upon exiting we stumbled upon some Vikings! Just a note, Vikings don’t like hugs or photographs, but they are very entertaining! We fled from the Vikings with roaring laughter and walked right into the Sommerhus to meet Elsa and Anna; literally, there was no wait or line at all. Elsa and Anna were a delight. After meeting these gals, we were feeling like having a snack, so it was time to grab a bite to eat from Mexico!
Mexico is one of my favourite spots in all of Epcot’s World Showcase, so I am always sure to stop here and grab a snack. This time we indulged in empanadas and margaritas, and of course my favourite, churros! I love Mexico because the entertainment and artwork and collectables are most fascinating to me; I always have such a wonderful time looking through all that the Mexican Pavillion has to offer. Of course, we made sure to say hello to our friend Donald Duck while in Mexico too!
With churros in hand, we left World Showcase to go utilize some more of our Fast Passes. We were able to ride Soarin’ and The Seas with Nemo and Friends. Ralph and Vanelope were also doing character greetings, so we waited for a short time to snag some photos with them. By this time, the sun was setting but we had more of the World Showcase to see! We headed over to France, England and the UK, and a few other spots. By sunset, you get to hear some amazing bands and watch some wicked displays; not to mention roaming the “streets” of France at nighttime is magical!
Our day at Epcot was coming to an end; it was almost 9 pm. Our stomachs were full of incredible food and our feet were sore from an epic day of adventure. There was sunshine for most of our day, and the temperature was steady around the 16-18 degree mark, an improvement from the previous day. It was off to get some much-needed rest for tomorrow’s voyage to the Magic Kingdom!
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for my next blog…
Five Feet High Thoughts 