EPCOT Update: Construction, Crowds & Enjoyable Evenings…For Now
We’re back at EPCOT for our first crowd and construction update in almost a month. In the first couple weeks after Walt Disney World’s reopening, we did more updates from EPCOT than all the other parks combined, and “promised” we’d pump the brakes on that for a while. It’s now officially been “a while.”
By way of quick recap in case you missed our previous updates, the prismatic pylon was installed in front of Spaceship Earth (which has us way more excited than it probably should), the Taste of EPCOT Food & Wine Festival is underway, and construction has resumed on some Future World projects, plus both Harmonious and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in World Showcase.
It’s probably no surprise, but we haven’t stopped visiting EPCOT during our posting hiatus. It’s far and away the easiest Disney Park Pass reservation to score–although that hasn’t been much of a weekday issue for the last couple of weeks with any park. More importantly, EPCOT is the park that’s open the latest, and we love our enjoyable evening strolls at Walt Disney World.
We aren’t the only ones. EPCOT is the only park at Walt Disney World that gets gradually more crowded as the day goes on. It’s basically the anti-Disney’s Hollywood Studios, peaking in the late afternoon and evening instead of shortly after rope drop. This isn’t a huge surprise–even prior to the reopening, EPCOT would frequently see post-work crowd spikes.
This is what makes Walt Disney World’s reduced operating hour schedule for EPCOT so illogical. Cutting evening hours is not “confounding” or “perplexing.” It’s simply a bad decision. If Disney wants to reduce hours due to lower attendance forecasts, fine. (It’s still a bad long-term idea, but that’s a different story.)
Don’t reduce evening hours, though. If park hours are going to be cut, axe a couple of morning hours and leave the 9 pm closing time. Especially at the one Walt Disney World park that’s known as a local dinner spot.
At a time when people are traveling less and Walt Disney World’s own numbers show that visitor demographics are skewing heavily towards locals. Tourists are unquestionably more profitable for Disney than locals, but locals are better than nothing.
This is not particularly shrewd commentary. It’s all pretty obvious. Look no further than the low crowds on weekdays versus moderate crowds on weekends at every Walt Disney World theme park.
The explanation is simple: most locals work Monday through Friday. To the extent that the parks are open on weekdays after work, only EPCOT is worth burning a Disney Park Pass on–and that has only become true in the last couple weeks as availability has freed up. Most Annual Passholders are still using their limited Park Pass allotments more strategically, and on weekends.
EPCOT is not going to draw post-work visitors with a 7 pm closing time as of next week, which will lead to even lower afternoon and early evening crowds, reinforcing the idea among Walt Disney World decision-makers that they made the right call. (They didn’t.) A better idea would’ve been creating 4-9 pm Park Pass slots for EPCOT, or loosening up availability before hours were cut. But I digress.
The point is that crowds at EPCOT, particularly in World Showcase, increase later in the day in spite of Park Pass mismanagement. There are actually lines at the food booths, restaurants are busier, etc. It’s “worth it” for enough locals because of visiting EPCOT at night is actually enjoyable. There’s the more pleasant weather and ambiance, plus crowds are still low by normal standards.
Another thing worth pointing out for anyone visiting in the immediate future is that Labor Day weekend crowds have already arrived at EPCOT. Last night was far and away the busiest we’ve seen the park since reopening; it felt like a normal September evening, attendance-wise. (All of the photos here are from two nights ago–I didn’t take my camera last night.)
We covered this in our Labor Day Weekend Crowds at Walt Disney World, but felt it was worth reiterating here. We didn’t anticipate a spike last night–perhaps EPCOT saw a disproportionate number of guests who arrived later in the day since it was open the latest? Tonight will probably be worse, with crowds peaking Saturday and Sunday.
We have an update on the Taste of EPCOT Food & Wine Festival: the Alps and Spain booths have now opened…on select days. (We haven’t seen them operational on any of our weekday visits.)
In more disappointing news–at least to us–the Tempura Donburi has been removed from the Japan booth’s menu. We raved about this, calling it a tremendous value and “my go-to dinner in World Showcase for the summer!” So of course they changed it. If that’s all it takes to get something removed from a menu, next year I’m going to lavish praise upon whatever abominations the Italy booth concocts. 😉
On a more positive note, we’ve been doing late night snacks at Karamell-Küche.
You really can’t go wrong with anything there.
Backtracking a bit, here’s a look inside the Land pavilion earlier in the afternoon. Not many guests around.
The 10 minute posted wait for Soarin’ Around the World is actually however long it takes you to walk through the queue plus how lucky you get timing the load-unload cycle.
Looking the other direction, where the only people around Living with the Land are Cast Members. It’s a 5-minute posted wait, which is also however long it takes you to walk through the queue.
In the last week-plus, Test Track has been the only Future World attraction with a consistent wait (it’s also been going down with greater frequency than normal).
A look at the empty walkway as we navigate our way over to the other side of Future World.
On the one hand, this maze of walls is still annoying and takes away from the atmosphere of Future World. On the other hand, it’s much more pleasant to navigate these narrow pathways with lower crowds.
I’m not sure if this photo is depressing or inspiring.
Seeing a partially-gutted Innoventions building is not ideal, but there’s something uplifting about the ‘endless possibilities of imagination’ or whatever. Construction still hasn’t resumed in earnest on EPCOT’s Central Spine. I assume the plans are still being overhauled and reworked.
Over on the other side of Future World, we have a photo that kills two birds with one stone, showing the low crowds around Mission Space and also the roof progress on the Play Pavilion.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind is also progressing nicely. I haven’t noticed any changes around Space 220 Restaurant. I’d be shocked if that opens before Spring 2021.
There still hasn’t been any official word as to the status of Moana’s Journey of Water. That’s probably because of the aforementioned overhaul to the plans (and budget).
My guess is that there’s about a 50/50 chance of this happening. The walk-through doesn’t seem particularly costly, so it probably depends more on what Imagineering opts to do with the still-standing Innoventions building. Maybe the “Moana Makeover” of the Poly is our consolation prize?
Finally, let’s take a Skyliner ride to check out the progress on the France expansion and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure.
Not a ton has changed here since we last did this a few weeks ago. Some incremental progress, but nothing major.
There’s no reason to believe this couldn’t be finished by October 2020 if Walt Disney World wanted it done by then. They don’t.
Unlike our criticism of the park hours decision, we wholeheartedly understand and agree with Disney’s decision to delay this project.
There’s no advantage to opening Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in December 2020 (the next logical date from a marketing/guest draw perspective). That’s not going to move the needle on people booking trips, and will only add staffing costs and operational headaches to a reduced capacity park.
Basically, there’s no upside to opening Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure–or anything else major, for that matter–in the near-term future. Add to that the reality that 2021’s major projects are probably delayed and it makes sense to hesitate on this. Open the expansion when it can be fully marketed and have the splashy impact as previously intended. My best guesses as to when that might be able to happen are early March 2021 or Memorial Day Weekend 2021.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What are your thoughts on EPCOT’s reduced operating hours in the evenings? Would you prefer more time in the mornings or at night? Thoughts on crowds, changes, or anything else covered here? Are you excited for all of the coming additions to EPCOT? When do you predict that Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure will open? Do you agree or disagree with any of our thoughts? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I enjoy your blogs bc you write a sensible column without a lot of exclamation marks… those marks are annoying bc it’s in anticipation of some explosive news … which it never is .. thank you fir “just the facts “. Yes I’m old enough to quote “joe Friday “. Lol !
I personally am disappointed in the way Disney is handling a lot of things right now. The hour cuts are the worst so far. We are paying the same amount of money and losing a lot of time at each park. I understand the no fireworks, parades and shows but seriously cutting the hours way back really upset me! I feel we need our tickets discounted for the hour cut alone! Our original trip was planned in March and it was the very week they closed because of Covid. We were told we could not get a refund and if we booked after 12/15/2020 we would owe the difference! We have been going to Disney every year since 1999 and this is the first year I am not jumping with joy about coming.
Are croissant donuts still available anywhere in Epcot? I know they have moved around quite a bit over the last few years. Thanks!
“Basically, there’s no upside to opening Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure—or anything else major, for that matter—in the near-term future.”
I disagree with you on that statement – the upside is increased enjoyment for guests visiting during that period (which even during these reduced #’s days will number in the hundreds of thousands).
I am so disappointed at reading this whole thing. I have been hanging on and praying but now hours going away and hardly any Christmas and no RAT. Our trip is for the last week that they just changed the hours for. I could almost cry because we used DVC points and can’t back out.
The early closing has been something that has swayed us away from taking a trip. We are not pass holders, we are those more profitable vacationers :-). We love to stroll all the parks at night, shop, eat and absorb the after dark atmosphere. We get to the parks early too, but would rather start the day late than end it early.
Personally, I have a hard time believing that a majority of visitors prefer earlier openings and earlier closings as opposed to later hours. Especially when the daytime weather is unpleasant, like it is right now.
However, I can’t “prove” that when it comes to tourists, which is why I confined my analysis to locals. Really wish more of your profitable vacationers would voice your displeasure to Disney! They don’t care what us lowly locals think. 😉
Is it still possible to have dinner (after the parks are closed) at a different resort and take Disney transportation there and back to your resort? Or does transportation stop after the parks are closed? We have a December trip planned and are trying to decide whether to rent a car and pay parking fees ($600ish for the trip) or plan to rely on Disney transportation for everything. Now that Magical Express doesn’t include luggage delivery or resort flight check-in, we aren’t sure what to do.
You might have to take a bus to Disney Springs from the resort you are visiting and then take a bus from there back to your resort.
Tom,
Appreciate the Epcot update! I used a PIN code to book 5 nights Thanksgiving week. Any suggestions on where to eat for Turkey Day?
Liberty Tree! 🙂
If you’re at Epcot, Garden Grill has turkey as part of family style menu
Since more and more research seems to indicate outside activities are extremely low risk, the combination of lower crowds and the recent hotel discounts have made us consider a trip (driving instead of flying) this fall. Shortened hours are a big negative for us though. We’re those people who were out at MK until 3:00 AM, back when that was a thing. Closing before dark just seems bizarre. We often start at one park and end up at world showcase in the evenings, but I suppose that’s not an issue due to the park pass system anyway.
We were at Epcot 3 weeks ago. We will not be back to Epcot for a long while. Spaceship was down. It is a maze and not a good one. Food and Wine very much scaled back. 2 booths had not opened yet. I have 8 tastes on my list. Only could try 6 due to 1 booth closed and the other of my item and was on August 18. Of my 6 trys 2 got a good. The other 4 just made it to OK. We are back in few weeks going to MK & HS. AP ends 9/27. Pre-Covid we would go for 6 plus 3-4 trips. Easy because we are appx 2 hours away. We may go in December hoping for a modified Candlelight.
I have a new email and need to subscribe. Thanks. Enjoy your blog so much!!
Tom – surprised to see a picture of the friendship boat opperating inside EPCOT. Is that a recent picture?
Assume Disney wouldn’t have it opperational because of being so close quarters. They must be cleaning the seats after each trip – correct?
Photo is from two nights ago.
In-park boats have been operating since EPCOT reopened. I’m not really sure what they’re doing in terms of cleaning the seats–I don’t really pay attention to that. Ventilation should be sufficient, though.
We visited Epcot mid-Aug with one item on my list: Tempura Donburi. We were hoping it’s absence was a one-off. Sigh. We’ll return mid-Sept. I did enjoy a slightly different version of the Citrus Chicken.
Thanks for updates.
Sadly, it’s not a one off! 🙁
How did the dining options look at World Showcase? We’ll be arriving October 17th and we’re hoping to at least be able to try one or two things for each country.
It depends upon your perspective. Relative to the World Showcase of February 2020, they’re pretty weak. Relatively to the other Walt Disney World parks of September 2020, they’re excellent.
Hello, love reading your post to keep up with Disney’s progress. Planning to arrive next Thursday sept 10, at POP CENTURY!!! Celebrating our 35th Anniversary on the 14th and husbands birthday on the 12th! Any tips or ideas for dining? Not our first trip either, this is about our 20th trip. Heading from Chicago suburbs ( would love to get a discount for us!). There are many new things to do since we were there last September!!! I don’t see a date on your post, am I missing it somewhere? Keep up the great work!
Kathy
This is the best meal we’ve had since Walt Disney World reopened: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/spice-road-table-restaurant-review/
Lots of good options at Disney Springs, too.
Thanks, Tom. We’ll be in Epcot in October.
You’re welcome–have fun!