EPCOT favorites

World Showcase has remained the anchor and most recognizable part of the park where you can tour “around the world” taking in the architecture, food and culture from 11 different countries. What makes this experience so authentic are the cultural representatives from each of those countries that work in the coordinating pavilions. Restaurants, shops, attractions and character meet and greets provide fully immersive moments within each country that make you feel like you truly traveled outside Central Florida.

transportation

Of all the parks, Epcot has the best transportation options with monorail, Skyliner, or busses. We are big fans of the Skyliner! With all of these ways to get to Epcot, it also makes it one of the easiest parks to park hop to and from. One thing to note is that you will arrive at different entrances depending on how you travel to Epcot. Arriving by bus or monorail, you will enter through the main entrance. This is where you will find themed topiaries and displays celebrating current festivals and events with the iconic Spaceship Earth backdrop. An excellent photo opportunity with no shortage of Photopass photographers at the ready! If you arrive by Skyliner, you will enter at the International Gateway immediately next to the France pavilion within World Showcase. This is a great location to enter if you are trying to beat the crowds to World Showcase rides, such as Remy’s or Frozen. That said, you may want to find time in the day to travel up to the main entrance if that is not something you have seen before OR if you want that feature photo.

dining

Epcot, without a doubt, is the park for dining! There are just so many options between the various areas of the park. In World Nature you can dine under the ocean in Coral Reef. In World Discovery you can head to space in Space 220. There are also plenty of other eateries with your more traditional Disney Park offerings that are perfect for the pickier eaters in your group.

That said, when you think about Epcot dining, you are definitely thinking about World Showcase! The opportunity to savor flavors from your choice of the countries represented is a truly unique experience. Most of the pavilions have both quick service and table service options, including character dining. The best way to determine what is best for your travel crew is to review all restaurants and menus on either the Disney World website or through the Disney World app. Just make sure that if you find a must-do restaurant for you, be ready to make reservations at your 60-day booking window!

We have also been lucky enough to visit Epcot during each of the seasonal festivals including Flower & Garden, Festival of the Arts, Food and Wine Festival and Festival of the Holidays. During these times, various booths pop up throughout the countries of the World Showcase offering a variety of themed small plates and unique beverages. It would feel almost wrong to be in Epcot during these times and not take advantage of this experience! We LOVE to follow Disney Food Blog to learn about all things related to these festivals. You can always watch their YouTube videos on previous festivals to get a better idea of what to expect. If you are about to head out to a specific festival, just give a few days after the first day of that festival for AJ and her team to put out their reviews of all booths and Best of the Fest.

Outside of festival booths, we have a couple of favorite stops for our family throughout the park.

1. Les halles boulangerie-patisserie

This traditional French bakery has become our go-to breakfast option within Epcot. Though much of the World Showcase won’t open first thing in the morning, this delightful eatery does. They have a little bit of everything from sweet to savory that can easily be enjoyed throughout the day. My order is always the Jambon Beurre (ham, cheese, dijon mustard butter on a demi baguette) with a mimosa. While there is plenty of indoor seating, I recommend heading outdoor to sit around the fountain or other little corner of France to enjoy. Bon appetit!

2. Garden Grill

Don’t come at me about choosing a restaurant outside of World Showcase while at Epcot! If just my husband and I were touring around the world, maybe we would pick something else. However, we still have young kids with picky palates who like seeing the characters. This table-service restaurant offers family style comfort food including cornbread, salad, steak, roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, seasonal vegetables, mac and cheese, and a variety of desserts. Enjoy all you care to eat in this revolving restaurant offering views of Living with Land. In my opinion, it is one of the most underrated character dining experiences on property! You will get to meet Farmer Mickey, Pluto and Chip & Dale. Literally one of our favorites and I recommend it to everyone who asks me where they should eat with kiddos!

3. Via Napoli Ristorante e Pizzeria

If you are looking for an authentic Italian pizzeria, this is it! While they offer a variety of small plates, salads and pasta, what you are really coming for is one of the wood-fired specialty pizzas. Traveling with kids or picky eaters? You can easily customize with their Build Your Own pizza option. A large dessert and specialty drink menu help you feel like you are having a date night experience, even with littles in tow. For a family friendly World Showcase dinner, this would be my recommendation.

Epcot definitely is a park that delivers on the dining front! While these are our favorites for this stage of life, I would recommend jumping on the Disney World app to explore the menus at all the restaurants. As with all dining, you definitely want a good plan in place at least 60 days prior to your arrival when your reservation booking window opens!

rides

For anyone that has been going to Epcot for a while, you know that this park has definitely upped its ride game in the past several years! What used to be an “adults” park with a few kid-friendly rides has easily become one of our family favorites. Our experience definitely changed last year when Ty became old enough to ride some of the more thrilling rides. Visit the Disney World Website to view all the attractions available at Epcot. Here are some of our favorites:

RIDES FOR ALL AGES

MORE ThrillING Rides

Test Track

Soarin’

Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind

Mission Space

This is a quick warning about these more thrilling rides. Many of them can leave you feeling motion sickness, particularly Mission Space and Cosmic Rewind. Plan accordingly! Our oldest gets a chewable children’s Dramamine at least an hour before riding. These may also be good rides to use Rider Swap on if you don’t think your kiddos are quite ready. Speaking from experience, Mission Space Orange is a bold choice!!

other experiences

PASSPORT & KIDCOT FUN STOPS

This is one of my most favorite souvenirs ever from Disney World! During one of our trips for Food and Wine Festival we knew that the adults would want to spend some extended time sampling food and drinks from the various booths around World Showcase. The question became how to keep four littles happy and occupied while we did that? We stopped by the main gift shop right under Spaceship Earth and picked up Passports for each of the kids. The Passport kit included traditional looking blue book, as well as sticker sheets for each of the countries in World Showcase. All of this was in a waterproof clear bag. As we made our way around World Showcase, one parent would take the kiddos to the Kidcot Fun Stop in each pavilion where the cultural representatives for that pavilion would provide them a complimentary Kidcot card that included facts about that country. The kids also received a stamp from that country in their Passport. Several of the cultural representatives also wrote or illustrated something unique in each of the passports. It was such a cool experience!! While this was happening, the other parent went to the Food and Wine booth in that country to grab the items we wanted to sample. We all met up and the adults were able to eat and drink while the kids put the stickers for that country into their passport. Then we moved on to the next country. It really made for one of my favorite ever days at Epcot. We still have our Passport along with all the Kidcot cards collected that day and enjoy looking at them and reminiscing.

SCAVENger hunts

Pretty much every one of the seasonal festivals will have a themed scavenger hunt opportunity through the World Showcase. Spike the Bee for Flower and Garden, Olaf’s Holiday Tradition for Festival of the Holidays, and Remy’s Hide and Squeak for Food and Wine. All of these will follow a similar premise where you will follow self-guided clues to located themed characters in each of the World Showcase countries. You can pick up your card at stickers for around $10 at any of the Epcot gift shops. Once you have found all of your clues, return to any gift shop to collect your prize. Just like the Passport mentioned above, these scavenger hunts are a great way to keep little ones engaged throughout the World Showcase while you are able to enjoy all these seasonal festivals have to offer.

JOURNEY OF WATER – INSPIRED BY MOANA

One of the newest attractions here at the time of writing is Journey of Water – Inspired by Moana. This self-paced walkthrough attraction allows guests to experience and interact water in a playful way. The various areas throughout the exhibit allow for the flow of water to be changed and controlled with your movement. It was really like nothing I have seen! It certainly would be a great place to cool off in the summer but was just as enjoyable for us in December. There are wet and dry path options so you can definitely choose your experience.

characters

Though my oldest is at the age where meeting characters isn’t important enough to him to wait in a line, he still loves when he gets to. That is one of the things I love about how Epcot character meetings are spread out! A brand-new meet and greet area next to CommuniCore Hall opened in June 2024 where you will be able to meet members of the Fab 5, similar to the Character Spot we were used to from years ago. Currently Minnie, Mickey and Goofy can be found here. Especially for little ones, this is a great way to meet these favorite characters! One of our most recent highlights was meeting Figment within ImageWorks in World Celebration. Moana has been seen meeting near Journey of Water.

As you move to World Showcase, you can find a variety of characters, some more rare, scattered throughout the countries from where their stories are told.

• Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins and Alice in Wonderland in United Kingdom
• Anna and Elsa in Norway
• Mulan in China
• Snow White in Germany
• Aurora and Belle in France
• Jasmine in Morocco
• Donald Duck in his Three Caballeros outfit in Mexico

Epcot is also home to two great character dining options that allow you to get those autographs and pictures, all while enjoying a meal and taking a break from the Florida weather. Garden Grill located in World Nature is home to Farmer Mickey, Pluto and Chip & Dale. As mentioned above, it is a favorite of ours since the kids were tiny! For the little princess in your life, consider booking breakfast, lunch or dinner at Akershus in Norway. It packs a punch with visits from Aurora, Belle, Tiana, Ariel and Snow White.

the round up

Epcot is a huge park with such a wide variety of experiences. Of all the parks, it really is built for all ages and stages. We’ve enjoyed going without kids, when our kids were tiny, and now as they grow and are looking for more thrilling experiences. While I’ve highlighted what some of our favorites are at this stage, it doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of all Epcot has to offer. Again, my go to for all things Disney is Disney Food Blog. We can spend hours watching her videos on YouTube!! You can search by park, event, topic, or just scroll through the hundreds of videos she has. I also always keep the Disney World app on my phone, even when we don’t have a trip booked. I can easily access menus, information on new attractions and experiences, and keep up with park details any time.