EPCOT Update: Crowd Contrasts, Construction & Fun New Food
We’re back at the Walt Disney World theme park we visit most frequently, with another EPCOT crowd and construction update. In this photo report, we cover wait times, project progress, new food, and strategy for extending your day post-sunset in World Showcase.
It’s been over two weeks since our last EPCOT update, but it feels like an eternity to us (and possibly much less time for those of you who don’t care about this park). This delay fulfills our virtual handshake agreement with readers to avoid ‘all EPCOT, all the time’ and there’s actually a lot to cover since we last visited.
This report actually encompasses two days–last Thursday and Friday. We could claim that this was research on our part, wanting to observe in-park crowd patterns because wait times clearly are not telling the full story with EPCOT. That would be false. The crowd component of this report is more a happy accident, incidentally discovered while visiting for our true motivation: food.
EPCOT had two new food “releases” this past week. Between those items being in our favorite culinary categories and the relative ease of scoring last-minute Disney Park Pass reservations at EPCOT, it only made sense to venture to the park.
Here’s a look at the first new release…
First, L’Artisan des Glaces in the France pavilion released its Pumpkin Spice ice cream.
You can read our updated L’Artisan des Glaces Ice Cream Review for thoughts on each. Suffice to say, this is our favorite ice cream shop at Walt Disney World and we’re suckers for all things pumpkin…
The following day, the Flavors from Fire booth finally opened at the 2020 Taste of EPCOT Food & Wine Festival.
Similar deal here–full rundown and photos of all items on our updated Flavors from Fire Booth Review & Menu page. There’s a reason this booth has been our #1 pick the last four years running.
Flavors from Fire is located on the quiet pathway between Test Track and the main artery of EPCOT that leads between Future World and World Showcase.
That photo also provides a nice segue into our next topic: crowds.
Both days featured low wait times, with the above screenshot being pretty consistent with what we observed. The only anomaly is Test Track, which was often higher.
Other than that, pretty representative of posted wait times throughout the day both Thursday and Friday.
If you don’t take our (anecdotal observation) word for it, here are the stats via Thrill-Data.com. (If you want an attraction by attraction breakdown of Thursday v. Saturday crowds, enemy of the site easyWDW.com offers a good look at that.)
The purple and green lines are Thursday and Friday; the red line is Saturday and the blue line is Sunday. However, the lower two clumped-together lines do not tell the full story when it comes to crowds…
On both days, Future World was mostly quiet.
About what you’d expect with posted wait times in the 10-15 minute range.
Even Test Track, which is unquestionably the busiest attraction in Future World these days, didn’t really have heavy crowds around it.
This is all fairly normal for weekdays during ‘festival season’ at EPCOT.
We did a few Future World attractions on Friday, and our actual waits were far less than the posted wait times.
For example, the posted wait time for Soarin’ Around the World was 15 minutes, but the actual wait was however long it took to walk through the empty queue.
Living with the Land had a 10 minute posted wait, but our actual wait was the boat dispatch time. (Which has been slowed down due to the lower crowds.)
Everything aside from Test Track was a walk-on (or close to it), regardless of posted wait times. It was a pleasant experience.
On Thursday, World Showcase was a similar story.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take photos earlier in the afternoon, as the visit’s primary purpose was to eat ice cream and then walk a few laps of World Showcase.
In my defense, there was no compelling reason to take photos earlier in the afternoon.
Crowds were modest, physical distancing and mask compliance were fine–it was basically just a normal, totally unremarkable weekday.
Friday was a different story entirely. Walkways were much more crowded, more on par with what we’ve experienced on recent weekends.
If we had to give a ballpark estimate, we’d peg the ‘feels like’ crowd level on Friday afternoon as about double that of Thursday afternoon. What’s notable here is that wait times for World Showcase attractions (basically, Frozen Ever After) were about the same between the two days.
The key difference was the lines at Taste of EPCOT Food & Wine Festival booths.
Just about every global marketplace had multiple guests in line at all times we walked past, which was definitely not the case on Thursday. There were also more people at the tables throughout World Showcase, and more guests appeared to be eating and drinking.
We don’t want to extrapolate too much from this since it could be a blip or one-off.
However, our preliminary working theory is that locals and/or Annual Passholders are likely to visit EPCOT on Friday, taking the afternoon off work, leaving early, or simply coming for the last couple hours to eat.
This would reconcile the higher ‘feels like’ crowd levels with the fairly flat wait times. Annual Passholders who visit EPCOT regularly are more likely to prioritize eating and drinking, and less likely to do attractions.
This is a dynamic that can be observed every normal year during EPCOT’s Food & Wine Festival. Higher congestion can be observed and felt in World Showcase, but wait times reflect what should be low crowd levels.
Accordingly, our recommendation shifts from ‘avoid EPCOT on Saturday and Sunday’ to ‘avoid Fridays through Sundays at EPCOT.’
Friday is unlikely to be nearly as bad in terms of wait times, so choose that if you only have an option between one of those three days–but you’re better off going Monday through Thursday.
Regardless of which day you choose, we’d strongly recommend lingering in EPCOT and enjoying sunset. You can easily stay the ~30 minutes after closing to see and experience it. (We hung around until around 8 pm both nights, and were not even close to being the last guests out.)
With global marketplaces open right up until park closing, consider grabbing some snacks right before closing, and extend your day with those.
Another option is grabbing an Advance Dining Reservation shortly before official park closing time (don’t choose Coral Reef since it’s at the front of the park).
We’ve noticed less availability in My Disney Experience for this, so if you’re unable to score something for 6:30 pm or later, try walking up to the restaurant. We’re big fans of doing Spice Road Table right now, which offers both outdoor seating and beautiful sunset views. Enjoy a nice meal and slow stroll out of EPCOT at dusk.
Totally switching gears now to wrap up the post, we have some construction progress on the EPCOT Central Spine project.
Previously, we’ve speculated that Walt Disney World hit pause on this so Imagineering could go back to the drawing board and figure out how this would be reworked, likely without the multi-story festival center.
It’s still unclear what the ultimate outcome will be with that, but we noticed work across the core of the park at what was previously Electric Umbrella.
Walt Disney World never officially announced what would become of this. Our expectation was–and still is–that it will be remodeled and reopen as a new counter service restaurant concept. Electric Umbrella did a lot of business thanks to its high traffic location, and it makes sense to reopen something here with a crowd-pleasing menu.
Panning to the right a bit, here’s a look at work on MouseGear, which has been totally gutted. From the other side (near Flavors from Fire) you can literally see through the building from the ground.
A lot of work remains to be done before the new restaurant and retail locations can reopen here. Not only to the interior of the locations, but to the core of Future World that provides access to these areas. That’ll maybe/hopefully happen by sometime in late 2021. That wraps up our look at EPCOT.
Ultimately, we think the crowd trends at EPCOT are pretty interesting. With more last-minute Disney Park Pass availability and fewer Cast Member blockouts, it makes sense that EPCOT trends are skewing towards what they’d be during a normal festival season. Back in July or August, it would’ve been irrational for a local to use a theme park reservation on only a few hours at EPCOT, as availability was in short supply. Disney Park Pass picks needed to be carefully rationed and their use maximized.
Now, that’s no longer the case. Unlike the end result of more Disney Park Pass availability on weekends, resulting in both higher crowd levels and wait times, there’s much better balance here. In our latest Walt Disney World park hours update, we called this ‘win-win-win.’ Locals win because they can enter EPCOT to eat. Tourists win because attraction wait times (at least on weekdays) are still relatively low. Disney wins because park profitability increases—that also ends up being a win for guests, as it reverses the cost-cutting spiral we all derided when fall hours were reduced. To that end, we’d love to see Walt Disney World do more to encourage locals to visit on weeknights, which in turn would help normalize crowds on the weekends.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What are your thoughts on EPCOT’s crowd patterns, construction progress, wait times, etc? Glad to see more fun food to try at EPCOT? Are you excited for all of the coming additions to EPCOT? 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!
Any recommendations for which park to do when during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Right now we booked AK on Wednesday, MK on Thanksgiving, DHS on Friday, Epcot on Saturday. Wondering if we should switch our reservations around based on the advice above or if all bets are off around holidays? We’ve never been to WDW before and now ending up going at a weird time and trying to make the best of it. Thanks!
I am really starting to get excited about my trip. The way things have been going for last 6 months I wasn’t sure if there would be a trip..,. Now I can’t wait to read your posts. You always seem to just tell it like it is so I never have to worry if you are over or under playing something. Have to tell you love seeing your pictures of you and Sarah. You are the cutest couple..
We are AP holders and this was our first trip back since Covid. MK today. While it was so nice to actually be able to walk through the park, like we could years ago on a weekday in mid-Sept, I was surprised at the wait times. I thought they would be lower. Most people were being respectful and wearing their masks, but enough had them below their noses to make me uncomfortable. Why can’t people just do what Disney is asking us to do? And while the distancing on the lines was pretty good, exiting the rides, the whole eating process, and exiting the park itself was NOT good. I think that Disney is allowing too many people in right now. We were excited to give it a try, but not sure we will be back after this trip. AK tomorrow and HS Wednesday. Will see how it goes. Right now we have reservations at Caribbean Beach for October, but I may rethink that. I do appreciate that the FP system isn’t being used. I loved the old system where everyone arrived at the park with NO fast passes, all on equal footing. The system worked great and we rarely waited in a line. Since the new system has been implemented, FP hasn’t been all that beneficial to us. All in all I think Disney is doing really well in their efforts with distancing and mask enforcement, but they may be allowing in to many people to really provide safety.
Tom, thanks for updates. We love your blog. I find crowd levels interesting. Sometimes people get frustrated with a 20-30 minute wait for rides. OMG we’ve been going Christmas week for 25 years. I have watched attendance grow and during that week most rides are easily an hour wait and fast passes sold out early. I would love to have 20-30 minute wait times.
What’s going on for the 50th anniversary? My grandson’s birthday is October 1 and we wanna be there but can’t book after September 26.
I want to book November 2021 FOr a family reunion. I am also checking daily to see if they open up reservations
Thanks for the kind words, and agree that it’s all a matter of perspective.
Still no indication from Walt Disney World as to what’s happening for the 50th Anniversary. I’ve heard some rumors, but I wouldn’t expect any official word until early next year–a lot will be dependent upon what capacity and physical distancing limitations (if any) still exist.
Hi! Random question, but can my kids get autographs from the characters? Im assuming no, but if they can I will buy an autograph book for our trip in October. Thanks!
Not as of right now.
Thanks for the update- we are coming to EPCOT Friday and concerned about the seeming lack of capacity restriction. How are visitors doing with COVID-19 precaution adherence? Space between folks in line? Those eating away from others? Proper masking on rides? Thank you again!
Tom recently wrote an updated article about park capacity, mask compliance, etc. I don’t have a direct link, but you might be able to search on here for it.
It’s not great. We saw a woman slip her mask off for the duration of Haunted Mansion. I have to believe it’s happening on other dark rides. The hotter it gets the less mask compliance there is in line. I would say one person in the group in fort or behind us had their mask off all day. But most people kept their distance at least so outside it isn’t a huge deal. If we saw people inside without a mask we didn’t move. Walking and eating is still a big problem.
Most of these are more annoying than dangerous but if more people or an entire group did them there would be some risk.
Yes thanks, I’ve been reading all with interest. As crowds grow, I was looking to see if things were still as compliant as in July.. It sounds like not, we will just have to pick and choose our pursuits according to what we see 🙂
We were at MK today and I agree with Maria that it’s not great. Lines themselves are pretty good, but eating is a bit of a nightmare and there are just a lot of people in the park. Way way less than normal, obviously, but still it’s a lot of people. And many are pushing the limits. MK was crowded enough today that you couldn’t really keep 6 feet apart while walking around.
Any more on possible openings for the Food Kitchens? I keep hoping for Belgium with the berry waffle.
All of the booths that have opened have been up since the beginning and are not newly-added.
There’s one more booth that has yet to debut, but I highly doubt it’s Belgium since it’s in Future World’s “Culinary Corridor” and not the normal spot near Morocco. It’s always possible they’ll install more, but I doubt it at this point.
We were in EPCOT twice September 8-15, on the 8th (Tuesday) and 12th (Saturday). Saturday seemed like and the old days of Epcot. World Showcase was very busy and all the kiosks had at least 20 min. lines. This was on top of it raining…which didn’t seem to dampen attendance. 😉
Thank you for the update and photos of the central spine project! We have been wondering about that! We were there Christmas week and it was like a maze! Epcot is one of our favorite parks, and we can’t wait for the re-imagining to be completed!
Can we talk about DHS??? Its huge crowds & LONG wait times are bonkers! Got here (Monday, 9/21) shortly before 10am and lines were already snaking around for Slinky Dog Dash and the new Mickey & Minnie ride. Boarding groups for RotR went away after a few seconds! Still hard to believe so many families are here in late September. Had to cut the day short at 12:30 as a 70-90 minute wait for other rides here just isn’t worth it, imo. Oh, well. I finally had a chance to experience both the rides I came for. Not sure if it was worth all the money I spent on flights, hotel & rideshares? I really think if DHS is gonna be packed like this, they need to offer park shows again to thin out the herds of people. Just my thoughts.
Thanks for sharing your experience, but sorry to hear it has been so poor.
We had a partial update on this last week: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/disney-world-news-hollywood-havoc-hours-extension-dvc-discount/
We’re planning another day at DHS this week and I’m sort of dreading it. I suspect entertainment will return or be ramped up there sooner rather than later, as guests need more to do and the guest satisfaction numbers coming out of DHS have to be pretty bad.
Had a similar experience last Wednesday. Huge lines in the morning to enter the park. They opened the gates at 9:15 and Slinky Dog started operating at 9:30 even though official park open time was 10 which was nice. Smugglers Run never dropped below 60 minutes and Mickey and Minnie’s RR hovered at 70 minutes most of the day. I can confirm this was the actual wait time and not inflated because we decided to stand in it since we hadn’t been on before. Still a good day as we got boarding group 29 for ROtR and made it on, but definitely the most crowded of the three parks we visited.
Late September is prime time for families with younger kids and it has been for several years. It’s an age when kids either don’t have school or can skip school easily without being behind. It’s invasion of the strollers.
Does anyone know if it’s just Slinky that’s opening early? We’re trying to decide which ride to hit first and we will be getting there long before opening. TIA.
Your articles are the absolute best for planning! We made Epcot reservations for a Wednesday, thanks to your advice. If you’re at any of the parks October 4-10, I feel like I owe you a drink (or a pumpkin ice cream)!
Thanks for the kind words–maybe we’ll run into you during your visit. If not, hope you have a great trip!
What did they do with the huge “monoliths” with the pictures on them? Are they completely removed? Can you get the picture that was on there? Going in November and we always like to stop by and see our now 20yo son at 4 years old. 🙂
They are long gone.
The pictures are supposedly going to be moved to the front outside of the Park, but hasn’t happened yet.
Hey Tom – if you had to choose a park for Sunday – which would it be?
Disney’s Hollywood Studios–but that park has been pretty rough every day for the past couple of weeks.
I was at Epcot last Wednesday and wait times were exactly like your screenshot. Soarin was basically walk on. Frozen Ever After said 30 minutes but was definitely much shorter. We arrived at 2pm and the park felt eerily empty and I never really felt like any part was at all crowded at any point.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
Why do you say ‘don’t choose Coral Reef since it’s at the front of the park‘ ? I have dinner reservations there at 6pm. We have scooters due to disability and have to make it back to Skyliner by 8:30pm. Any reason this won’t work?
I think his point was that you won’t get to experience World Showcase after park closing, because you’re near the entrance.
He’s suggesting guests choose a restaurant not in the front of the park for those who aren’t using the Skyliner. If you’re coming in from the main entrance eating at a restaurant farther back in the park will allow you to enjoy the ambiance of an empty park at dusk/dark while you walk to the main exit.
For you, since you’re taking the Skyliner, you’ll have the same experience of seeing a mostly empty park at almost dark–you’ll just be going in the opposite direction of those who ate in World Showcase and are now heading the main exit.
I was wondering how crowded do you think the parks will be the week of Christmas this year. We are planning a trip but hope the capacity does not increase anymore. What are your thoughts?
Lovely! I was beginning to question my decision to do HS on Friday and considered switching with Epcot, but will keep it there. So thankful for your insights!
Thanks for the info, Tom! Great photos and great weather it looks like. We’re headed there from Friday – Tuesday and the forecast shows rain pretty much the whole time. Would you mind playing amateur meteorologist for a minute? Not being from the area, when the forecast shows as 50% thunderstorms for four days straight, is the expectation that it’ll dump for 30 minute showers here and there, or can it actually rain all day? Any info on September “rainy” season weather is appreciated! Thanks.
earlier in the summer is typically tropical 30 minute showers here and there… September can be a crap shoot, maybe all day, maybe not. Look for the proximity of Gulf storms that is typically the worst and longest rain.
I’m not the person to ask for weather forecasts–that’s far from my area of expertise and I routinely guess wrong about rain despite living here. To my (limited) knowledge, Randy is right.
Hi Tom! I’ll be there with my husband this weekend / next week:
Saturday 26th- Tuesday 29th.
We are doing each park once, plus an extra morning at MK on Wednesday before our flight home. Our original plan was:
Saturday -MK (since we will have extra time Wednesday)
Sunday -AK
Monday- Epcot
Tuesday -HS
After tracking wait times on the app this weekend & seeing Epcot hours change for Saturdays, I switched the days:
Sat- epcot
Sun- MK
Mon – AK
Tues- HS
After reading this post I’m wondering if I have all of this wrong! What do you suggest???
I’d do MK and DHS on Saturday and Sunday, and AK and EPCOT on weekdays.
Went to EPCOT this past Sunday. The crowd in World Showcase was HIGH. Felt like there was no crowd limit. Frozen Ever-after was 70 min wait.
Here at Hollywood Studios and so far HTT is 60 min and so is Rockin Roller Coaster. Smugglers Run is 50 min and Slinky Dog Dash is 90 min.
How long after park close does the skyliner run? I’d hate to grab a closing-time reservation at Spice Road Table or somewhere else in the back of the World Showcase, then find I need to walk all the way to the buses at the front (or go out the IG and find the skyliner not running). Though in either case, an Uber from Beach Club wouldn’t be the end of the world.
I was just there and if I remember right it was about 1.5 hours after the park closed.
That’s correct–the Skyliner runs until 8:30 pm right now. Always be sure to ask if it’s up before exiting through International Gateway.
Yep 90 min. after closure
Many thanks to all of you.
Thanks, Tom. Any updates on when the Ratatouille attraction will open in EPCOT? I’m heading back to WDW the first week of November.
Nothing official or even rumored, but I’d be surprised if it opens before Spring 2021.
Tom, does the opening of the Beauty and the Beast land in Tokyo (owned by OLC) this month influence change your thinking about when The Walt Disney Company will open Ratatouille?
No difference whatsoever.
Of course, that’s just a guess on my part–I also did not expect OLC to open BatB this year.