The Walt Disney World Resort in Florida offers a lot of variety with the four theme parks. We recommend exploring one park per day and here are our tips to help guide you!
Tips for a day in EPCOT
Tip 1: Visit during one of the festivals
Before your Orlando vacation, you should find out whether one of the many festivals is taking place at EPCOT during your trip. The festivals, including EPCOT Food & Wine Festival, EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival or EPCOT Festival of the Arts, offer additional entertainment and offers on food and drinks - you definitely don't want to miss them!
Tip 2: Start from the back of the park
Once the park opens, most guests in EPCOT stay at the front of the theme park and work their way to the back. So, if you start your day at the back of the World Showcase and gradually move towards the front later in the day, you have a better chance of finding shorter queues.
Tip 3: Join the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind virtual queue
The new attraction Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind in EPCOT has no normal queue! You can only ride the attraction via the virtual queue on the My Disney Experience App that opens at 7am. Starting at 6am, you can confirm your group via the app to ensure that everyone in your party ends up in the virtual queue (this requires all tickets to be linked and parking reservations for EPCOT be made).
You can join the virtual queue from 7am sharp. If successful, you will be assigned a boarding group and will receive a notification when you are scheduled to arrive at the attraction. You must arrive within one hour of your allocated time. If it doesn't work at 7 am, you can try again at 1pm. To do this, all fellow travellers must be in EPCOT or at least have already been there!
Our guide for a day in EPCOT
There is so much to explore in the EPCOT and the other Walt Disney World Resort theme parks. We recommend that you use this guide as an example or rough guide and adapt it to your preferences so that the day is magical for you, and includes all the shows and attractions that are important to you!
Before visiting the park - 7am
If you want to experience the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind ride, then you will have to wait in the virtual queue before entering the park as there is no physical queue for the roller coaster. Ideally, you should practise this before it starts at 7am sharp.
You enter the queue from your My Disney Experience app, which only requires your tickets to be in the app. Shortly before 7, you can click on the symbol of the three lines and press the “Join Virtual Queue” button under the image that shows the words Virtual Queue. To confirm your group, click the “Confirm Your Party” button. To do this, you must be linked to the other members of your group. By the way, you can confirm your group from 6am.
From this point, you stay in the “Review Details” page. Here you can see all of the details and wait until 7am. while repeatedly pulling the page down again and again, or just keep tapping on the “Refresh” button below until the page changes and you can click on the “Join Queue” button. If you were successful, your boarding group will be displayed including an estimated waiting time. The waiting time is updated throughout the day under the “My Queues'' section of the app. Once your group is called, which happens via a notification from the app, you then have one hour to head over to the attraction.
If it doesn't work out at 7am, you can try your luck again at 1pm - as explained in tip 3, you have to be inside EPCOT, or have already been there on the day.
Morning
Depending on if you entered the virtual queue of Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, make sure to keep an eye on your smartphone and keep your notifications on so you don't miss your spot. When entering the park, you can also check what queue is being used for Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana. Normally the attraction offers a normal physical queue, but on busy days a virtual queue may also be opened for this attraction.
We recommend starting your day at the back of the World Showcase. Two popular attractions in this area are Frozen Ever After in the Norway Pavilion and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in the France Pavilion. You should be able to experience these without too much of a wait, as long as you try to get there before lunchtime. As you walk from Norway to France, you can marvel at the World Showcase in all its splendour. Then it's time to shrink down to the size of a rat for the 4D adventure!
Midday
Exploring the different countries is perfect for finding a suitable destination for your lunch as you are in EPCOT, home to some of the best culinary offerings in all of the Walt Disney World theme parks. If you have no luck with the virtual queue for the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind ride at 7am, you can try again at 1pm sharp!
Afternoon
After lunch, the different countries offer the opportunity for many magical meetings with Disney characters. In the UK you can meet Alice, in France you can say bonjour to Belle, Princess Jasmine can be found in Morocco and Mulan in China, while Donald Duck is waiting for you in Mexico and Snow White in Germany. Furthermore, the World Showcase offers some wonderful movies and shows, like Reflections of China and Canada Far & Wide.
The World Showcase fills up towards the afternoon usually, which is when you should move towards the front of the park. World nature is an exciting themed area full of attractions, from Journey into Imagination with Figment, Soarin’ Around the World and The Seas with Nemo & Friends. Opposite is World Discovery which offers attractions such as Mission: Space and Test Track, two attractions which usually have shorter lines at the end of the day!
Evening
In the evening there is another film attraction that you shouldn't miss: Impressions de France. Once it's dark, don't miss the sight of Spaceship Earth lit up, which is the park's landmark and logo. To end your day in EPCOT, enjoy Luminous The Symphony of Us, the evening performance that illuminates the sky with dazzling fireworks over the World Showcase Lagoon in the most beautiful colours!
Now that you have a possible itinerary for your day in EPCOT, decide on your favourite attractions and rides. Book your tickets for Walt Disney World Tickets now!
