Walt Disney World Vacation (2025 Edition) – EPCOT

On our last full day at Walt Disney World this year, based on hours and expected crowd sizes, we chose to spend it at EPCOT. We were not expecting thrill rides on our way out, but a relaxed setting which to enjoy each other’s company, and some great food along the way. After an amazing day at Universal Studios Orlando, including a great dinner and full night’s sleep, we were more than ready for the last park on this year’s vacation.

Although we did not have a rest day this year (simply because rest days at a Walt Disney World [WDW] resort are expensive), the early closing at Universal helped us catch up on our sleep; if you have not done such a theme park vacation before, this is much needed by day four. After conducting our normal morning routine at the resort (including croissants), we took the bus to Magic Kingdom then the Walt Disney World Monorail System to EPCOT. Similar to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind required the virtual queue to ride (or a single-rider Lightning Lane purchase), so I refreshed the virtual queue page right before 7am, getting in group ten this time. We were not able to sync up with the Rowans for any of our Lightning Lanes, but were planning to meet them for lunch.

I feel like a slight disclaimer is needed before I write this post: We had a really fun time at EPCOT. This needs to be said in advanced, because we made a lot of mistakes at the park and definitely got more than frustrated a few times. Because EPCOT is large, with fewer rides, and a giant lake in the center of the World Showcase, it was a little difficult walking around after a while.

Up until this morning, the girls had no desire to go on Frozen Ever After. I think they were partially traumatized from our last trip, when the ride broke down for ten minutes right in front of Elsa blaring portions of “Let it go” on repeat. This led us to choose Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure as our rope-drop ride. About 15 minutes before we started rushing towards it, the girls told me they preferred to go to Frozen, reminding me we already had a Lightning Lane for Remy. While their plan made sense, this is the first they had mentioned this desire in years and I truly believed they would have more fun on Remy, so they relented, and we continued with the plan. This was a blunder that we could not have foreseen at the time.

But rope-drop was not for 30 minutes, so that meant there was plenty of time for the girls to get into each other’s personal space and start fighting about nothing. Never a fun time for conflict resolution, especially when we are trying to outwit and out-cardio all the other families to get to our first ride. As always, we got it worked out, and were ready to start heading to France

And our well-rehearsed plan and execution were crushed by two things for which we were not prepared: The International Gateway and Cosmic Rewind callback. The Intenational Gateway is the back entrance to EPCOT, located between France and England in the World Showcase. So, as we quickly headed towards the France Pavillion, we were not only met by a huge crowd going in the opposite direct, but an equally long line was waiting for us at the ride. It had already swelled to a 40-minute wait by the time we had gotten there, which was really unfortunate; Frozen Ever After would probably have had the same size line by now, but we would have been at the front of it, as it is closer to the rope-drop location than the International Gateway. That is when we were notified of our callback for Cosmic Rewind. Although we had just entered the inside part of the Remy queue, we only had 30 minutes to make our callback window, so we had to decide if we wanted to chance missing our callback window or if we wanted to abandon our rope-drop ride. Disappointed with either choice, we decided to jump out of line and head back to the front of the park for Cosmic Rewind, which was unfortunate, because 30 minutes after early entry, we had gone on exactly zero rides.

But we clearly made the right choice, as Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind did not disappoint. In fact, I think it was my favorite ride of the entire trip, narrowly beating out Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure (by the slimmest of margins); the girls said their favorite ride was either this, Hagrid’s, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, or Space Mountain, so it certainly ranked up with the best. As we were in line, the girls and I debated on what we thought the ride was going to be about (story) and how it was going to go (ride). We threw out words like “backwards,” “time travel,” and “upside down,” but really had no idea what to expect. I would love to describe exactly why it is so awesome, but that would definitely be in spoiler territory, and I do not want to ruin it for you. In fact, we were speaking to a couple on the monorail who asked us if we had been on it before; since we had not, they refused to tell us, simply because they did not want to ruin our experience either. And we were so glad they did not, because it was epic. So get in the virtual queue for this ride, being cognizant of your potential callback time, because you will not be disappointed. Every single part of this attraction, including the queue (more / new Guardians of the Galaxy footage!), story, and ride, were awesome.

With our first Lightning Lane not until 11:30am, we decided to walk back around the World Showcase, taking our time. On the way, we stopped to watch some finished and in-progress chalk drawings as part of the International Festival of the Arts.

All of these featured Disney characters in every style imaginable, including impressionism, modern, and pop. It was fascinating to watch these works of art progress over the course of the day, as artists were working on each creation for several hours.

We initially headed to France to get Elaina’s baguettes, but because of the extremely long line at the patisserie, we opted to keep travelling until we got to the bakeri in Norway. To add to the small amount of rides already at EPCOT, several were being updated and currently closed. Among some of the rides which were being refurbished at WDW while we were there, Gran Fiesta Tour starring The Three Caballeros and Test Track were unfortunately both on the list.

Enroute back to our first Lightning Lane, we continued to take a relaxed stroll and enjoy ourselves, including several refills of the handy popcorn bucket.

One issue which plagued us throughout the day was the sun in our eyes during photo opportunities. It seemed like every time we found a photographer with no line, the sun would creep out from behind the clouds, causing the girls to either squint or simply turn away. The same thing happened to us at Magic Kingdom, where we tried four times throughout the day to get quality pictures in front of the castle.

We did eventually get some great shots, so not complaining, but it was a little inconvenient.

We hit our first Lightning Lane on time with Journey into Imagination with Figment. Even though this ride pales in comparison to its previous iteration, the girls and I still had a great time, especially as Figment is our favorite character at EPCOT. We then headed over to the Japan Pavillion to meet with the Rowans at Teppan Edo, where they had reserved us a table for lunch. It had been a while since the girls had been to a hibachi restaurant, but they loved the chef’s entertainment and ate most of their food, so it was a double win. The Rowans had to head out after lunch to catch their flight back to Indiana, but it was great to see and hang out with them on vacation. Maybe next time we will do a better job of syncing our travel plans to spend more time together (fully acknowledging this is mostly my fault for planning in a vacuum).

We then headed over to Mission: SPACE, which the girls had never been on but had a short wait time. The girls were a little skeptical about going on it though, as they have heard stories about this attraction for years. The ride has two missions, green and orange; the green mission goes around the Earth and is less intense, while the orange mission goes to Mars and is intense. Following our deployment to Afghanistan in 2011, their Mother and I thought we were pretty tough and there was no question we were going to own the orange mission. Up to 2.5 G forces later, we both felt sick and not too tough. So the girls and I opted for the green mission this time, with Elaina playing the role of the pilot, Gabriella the navigator, and I the commander; apparently, we did not really need an engineer. While there was a little intensity, they both managed fine, enjoying their trip around the planet.

Eventually making it back to our Lightning Lane for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, the ride just did not seem as good this time, which made me feel even worse about choosing it for our rope-drop ride (and failing). I think in all the excitement last time for a new attraction, we neglected to realize that almost the entire ride takes place in front of a motion simulator scene, which was unfortunate. This is in comparison to Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, which is the same type of ride but with it having a better and more immersive live-action component.

But at least Elaina finally got the baguette she had been complaining about for the past three years, with Gabriella selecting a triple chocolate cookie, one of the best I have ever had.

The French patisserie was so good, in fact, that we went back later for round two, where Elaina got a fruit tart, Gabriella another croissant (of course), and I chose my favorite French dessert, a Napoleon. Again, we walked enough to burn these off and more, so we earned our sweets for the day.

Throughout the day, the girls also took the time to appreciate some fine art, which made their Mom happy, who majored in Art History in college (I was sending her these pictures of them during the day).

While I had seen these paintings before, I was surprised the girls had, knowing exactly how to act when most of the frames came up. Just surprises me that Elaina is so into Norwegian Proto-Expressionism.

They especially loved the Disney film scenes, which were much more in their preferred genre.

And they were a perfect wind-down from the week of hurrying from one ride to the other. That is partially why I chose EPCOT as our last park, a place where we could just relax, enjoy each other’s company at a leisurely pace, and eating some of the best food at WDW. Nabbing our second to last Lightning Lane, we went on Soarin’ Around the World, a first for the girls and I. They really enjoyed it, especially the thrilling transitions between regions, and it was a good attraction to go out on.

We skipped a lot of attractions at EPCOT, including The Seas with Nemo & Friends (we already did the aquarium thing this trip), Living with the Land (I believe the girls told me “No lame boat rides”), and Canada Far and Wide (“No more shows, Dad!”). We also never got a chance to ride Frozen Ever After due to the wait always being 60 minutes or more, but the girls and I did not think that was much of a loss. We also ended up not going on Spaceship Earth, which was really surprising; we kept pushing back our Lightning Lane for it until early evening, but the girls opted to leave instead of staying the extra 30 minutes to go on it. The gist is we rode almost every attraction we wanted to, and even at the end of the night, we did not press our luck by staying too late and getting exhausted or bored.

Although it was not as thrilling as Hollywood Studios, as fun as Magic Kingdom, or as magical as Universal, our visit to EPCOT was a good end to a great week at the parks. It is always sad to leave a park on your last day, even if it means we get a chance to sleep in the next day. Just one step closer to the magic being over, and eventually having to go back to the real world. But for a vacation that we had been planning for over a year, all three of us were extremely satisfied with the results, and have already started to talk about when we are coming back.

Thanks for checking in on us.

Cheers!