Alarms started going off fairly early…like 5:15 early. We had places to be, things to do, food to eat, crowds to beat, virtual queues to get!
We got ready for the day and headed for the bus stop. Official park opening was at 8:30, which meant resort guest early entry began at 8:00. So we left the room at 6:25 to be at the bus stop at 6:30. The bus stop was basically empty, but by the time a bus came along just a few minutes later, several others were there too. We were ready to get this day started and very excited for a day of feasting around the world!
As the bus rolled into Epcot, we all collectively realized we’d be going for that virtual queue while stepping off the bus. We all joked that it’d be nice if we could just sit on the bus for that minute. But…we pulled up to a stop at 6:59 and unloaded while simultaneously constantly refreshing our screens. It was a true test of early morning coordination, and Jessie passed with flying colors! While literally stepping off the bus I heard “I got it”. She’d snagged us boarding group 3 for Guardians of the Galaxy!
We headed for the entrance on cloud 9, and were stopped quite a ways from security, toes on a line in the concrete. Seems we’d be rope dropping security this morning and they weren’t opening that up for awhile. So be it. The hard work for the day was done.
We hung out and chatted for awhile before they let us up to security. Jessie’s sunscreen required extra screening, so I continued on and she caught up to me just as I got to start a line at the tapstyles. We are killing it today! We waited here for a bit, listening to random jokes and crowd sourced renditions of “happy birthday” before we got the all clear to tap in. Then we led the pack to the next line our toes could not cross, just beyond Spaceship Earth on the Soarin side of the park.
We were kept here until almost exactly 8 am. What happened to letting the various entrances into the park at staggered times that allowed everyone equal opportunity to get to the rides at the same time? Oh well…it was an EARLY early entry by Epcot standards and we had been watching wait times for days, so we knew it wouldn’t be too bad.
When they gave us the all clear we power walked as fast as the short tree stumps I call legs could move to France. I think we waited about 20 minutes to get on Remy’s, so not bad, considering the thousands coming off the skyliner were all ahead of us.
This was my first experience on Remy’s. It was adorable. This one is definitely Disney at its finest and, unlike Frozen, is a terrific addition to World Showcase. Well done Disney. The area surrounding the attraction entrance is great too.
Having conquered France for the time being, we made our way ever so slightly deeper into World Showcase for some breakfast. Disney is getting smarter and has started opening the Belgium Food and Wine Festival booth, you know, the one with the waffles, at park open for breakfast. Now they just need Shimmering Sips with its mimosas to open for breakfast too! But anywho…we got our feasting started early with waffles. I know I got the waffle with berry compote. Jessie got…one of the waffles. Breakfast was delicious!
Then, it was off to save the galaxy! Our boarding group had been called! We headed for Future World with a quick picture stop on the way.
Then we made our way to Cosmic Rewind, tapped in, and headed excitedly inside. Seriously…there was some giddiness! We had virtually no wait and basically walked straight through to the pre-show. OMG, we’re doing this! Yeah, that was us.
This ride is epic. Worth every ounce of hype it gets. Worthy of clapping at the end of the ride. Awesome. Neither of us had any motion sickness issues. The ride is SO smooth. The twisting is very natural…not like teacups or tilt-a-whirls. And no dizzying effects like Space Mountain. I’ll say it again, amazing ride. As an added element of awesome we got the song September for our first ride, a song that one of the vloggers I follow who has ridden dozens of times is still “chasing”. Heh.
As soon as we were off the ride, we got a lightning lane for mid afternoon. That’s right, there were still individual lightning lanes for Cosmic Rewind available around 10 am. They’re lasting a lot longer these days.
Obviously, there had to be some picture taking outside after, because, it’s just an awesome ride. We quickly realized we’re quite the awkward picture posing pair, so we got a few laughs out of the process.
Picture taking complete, we headed for the Land pavilion. Wait times were still LOW. First stop was Soarin, which I think was still posted as a 20 minute wait. We were on in about 15 I think. Unheard of in my world for over an hour after the park opened.
Next up was Living with the Land. Jessie had never been on this one before. I kind of doubted the posted 10 minute wait time, but, if the line moved as it was supposed to, it COULD be accurate. However, I think something happened, and they paused things for a bit, because we didn’t move at all for a solid 10 minutes. Based on the amount of higher-ups around when the line started moving and how many times they told us to stay in the boat, I can’t help but wonder if someone tried to pick another cucumber. Anyway…we were on in less than 20 minutes and had a nice tour of some VERY full greenhouses. I always enjoy seeing all the signage during Food and Wine showing which herbs and vegetables and things are used in which festival dishes. And, ok, I like the random Mickey heads too.
Because of the slow down, by the time we were off Living with the Land, the festival booths were opening. Let the feasting begin!
We started with the Earth Eats booth. We each got a non-alcoholic strawberry freeze and then we split the Impossible Meatball. The strawberry freeze was SO refreshing, and did not taste like tea. It was actually quite flavorful, which tea never is. So good! The Impossible meatball and polenta dish was really flavorful too. Kind of a weird texture on the meatball which makes sense since it’s fake meat, but flavorful and delicious. Perfect portion for sharing. We’re off to a good start here!
Next we bypassed several booths and went straight to Mexico, knowing this one typically gets a long line. We got the tostada and the taco and split both. Both were delicious. Both were small. I think the tostada wins this booth by just a bit, both in flavors and in portion size, but, I’d happily eat either option again.
The goal for the day was to truly tour the World Showcase while feasting our way around it. So our next tour stop was…the Mexican boat ride. I’m still confused by it. They probably should think about Coco-ing it. But it’s good ac, and a good opportunity to work on food booth pacing.
Once the Three Caballeros released us from the confusing cruise of Disney, it was off to China. I got dumplings and the fireworks beverage. Jessie got the bao bun. We both tried everything. The meat on the bao bun was excellent. The dumplings were great dumplings, but the sauce was a little odd. The fireworks beverage was drinkable (and much better after it had been stirred), but (spoiler alert) would not be my favorite beverage of the festival.
Time for more ac! We headed for the Wonders of China movie, which was just opening the theater for the next showing. Perfect timing. The movie was…probably the same we both had seen in the 90s. With China still wrong that Covid will magically disappear, it’ll probably be decades before the country is up and running enough to do so, but might be time to think about upgrading this particular movie.
We poked around the stores for a few minutes and I did a bit of picture taking. It was a beautiful, low crowd day!
We wandered a bit deeper into World Showcase and came to our next stop: the India booth. All the bloggers had been raving about all of the offerings here, so we divided up the menu and got basically everything. We got the samosas, the fried paneer cheese, the chicken tikka masala, and a non-alcoholic mango lassi. The mango lassi was refreshing, but you have to like mango (I do). The chicken was the star of the food dishes. It was delicious, but a massive portion. Like you have to split it if you have any hope of eating anything else while touring the world that day. The flavor of the fried paneer cheese was delicious, but apparently paneer is a really dry cheese, so when coated in bread crumbs, it was a really dry experience. The samosas…I really wanted to like them. The pastry was SO flavorful. The filling started flavorful and then the heat hit. WOAH. Those are REALLY spicy. So overall, India was not a win for us.
We continued on through World Showcase, ruling out booths that had absolutely no appeal and declaring one or two a “maybe if there’s any room left”. When we reached the Alps booth there was no line so I decided to start collecting my cheese crawl stamps. There are 3 or 4 different choices here that are all different variations of a melted cheese dish. I got the dessert one. This was excellent. Sweet, savory, and a really substantial portion. We both liked it.
Ok, time for a food break! We worked our way toward American Adventure, browsing the stores in Italy along the way. Our timing was great and we got to the American Adventure about 15 minutes before Voices of Liberty. We grabbed a bench (they have a lot here now!) and enjoyed the piano music until the Voices of Liberty emerged. They were awesome as usual! They do seem to be singing more Disney music and less Americana, but they still sound fantastic and are very worthy of listening to. The AC here is still great too!
When the Voices of Liberty were done, we headed back the way we came, stopping at the Italy booth for an Italian Margarita for Jessie. She liked this a lot. I don’t have a picture, but just imagine a slushy white-ish frozen drink. Pro trip report writer here, right?
We made our way back to Guardians of the Galaxy, browsing Creations shop on the way. Then it was time to save the galaxy again! Lightning Lane was a non-existent wait and this time we got Disco Inferno I believe. Still an awesome attraction!
By now it looked like a storm was brewing and we were in need of a break, so we bee-lined it to the bus stop, where we found a mass of humanity. But two buses for Port Orleans rolled in at once so we were able to get back to the resort in pretty good time.
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