Epcot World Showcase

I am trying to figure out how much time I need to allot to the World Showcase at Epcot. I can’t really put it in the touring plan, so I can’t find out that way. There will be 4 adults and 2 kids (4 and 6). I would like to stop at each kidcot station at least briefly. I really am only interested in the American Adventure, the Frozen ride at Norway which I think will be open by the time we go and will probably need a fast pass and the Mexico pavilian boat ride. Otherwise, we just want to walk around country to country just browsing a bit, but not stopping for any other shows or anything. Any idea AT ALL how long that might take?

You actually can put the world pavilions into your touring plan. They are under “Shows, Parades and Diversions.”

But I don’t plan to stop and watch every show or attraction so it wouldn’t be accurate and kidcot is not on the plan.

I would give yourself at least 1/2 a day. There are kid cot activities and an adventure game. Used to be kim possible - now not sure what it is. It is a lot of fun and that takes ~45 I think. Also you never know how long the kids will want to sit and watch the birds, the fountains, whatever. Don’t RUSH through things to get to the next country - enjoy the time your kids are “doing nothing”. Also take advantage of things like the Patisserie at France - get some goodies and just people watch. It is fun to just “mess” in Japan and get a shot or two of Tequilla in Mexico. Don’t RUSH through - experience what is there and just “mess”

We had from 3-5pm scheduled to do Mexico and walk around to France where our reservation was. We weren’t doing the American Adventure.

One thing we noticed was that they raise the drawbridge near China around 4ish to bring in the nightly fireworks. It probably takes around 10-15 minutes, but if you’re running for a show and the bridge is up, you may miss it.

My kids didn’t do the kidcot thing, so they weren’t wanting to stroll around. We didn’t rush, but we didn’t stop in every pavillion, either. We just walked by and I took a few pictures.

Make sure you know which American Adventure show you’re aiming for. I think they’re every half hour and you’d hate to get there just after they’d started a show, so put that in your plan for sure.

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You can get through world showcase pretty quickly. During the January Marathon - you can run from one end to the other in about 5 minutes - I wouldn’t recommend it though. It depends what you want to get out of them. The original intention was to “bring the world” to Orlando. You can just walk by the pavilions or you can have fun in them. As much as I love going ride to ride - some of my favorite memories - especially when the kids were small were trying on hats - or looking at stuffed animals or getting a “sample” - really trying to have some fun. They are MORE than building or shows - they are (can be) an experience. Now we go through them and compare them to our time in the actual country.

The walk around WS is almost exactly a mile; walking speed is one factor. You can “browse” most of the countries in 10-15 minutes, but if you enjoy looking in the shops I would bump that to 20 min. Plan on spending an hour at AA; you’ll want to get there a bit before the show, the show runs 30 min, and then time to exit. If all you plan on doing in Mexico is the boat ride and a quick look-around, then 30 min is probably good (unless the ride has an unusually long line. Can’t really comment on the Kidcot stations as I don’t have any kids, but from what I’ve seen in passing many of them involve coloring or some other craft which could easily be 10-20 min per stop…

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Frozen Ever After is still a huge question mark. FPP will definitely be the way to go on this one, but no one knows which tier it will be (but most are assuming Tier 1). Many are anticipating 2-plus hour SB lines for it pretty much all day - at least for the first 6-12 months that it’s open…

I agree that the time spent can vary widely, depending on what you choose to do. The quickest would be to simply walk past them and only see the outside, but you miss a lot. I like to at least walk into each country, and into the shops so you can see the type of food and merchandise that country is known for. That can be done fairly quickly, as long as you don’t slow down too much looking at all the merchandise - and cheaply, if you don’t buy anything. Kids don’t always like being dragged into stores that seem to be adult stuff (except toy shops in England and Germany), so they could do the children’s activity with one adult while other adults duck into the shops. Some countries have very interesting mixes of architecture as you walk further into them, other than what you see from the main sidewalk as you pass by. I’ve done it various ways, depending on the time I had on that trip.

We are eating dinner in Mexico, so we will start in Canada and make our way around. stopping for sure for the American Adventure show and I guess we will just do what we can in each one as time permits.
Can’t make any for sure plans until this summer when the Frozen info comes out and we grab that fast pass. We’ll probably have to work around that and our ADR.

If your kids are in to character greetings that can add a lot of time. We were touring and accidentally ran into Alice in UK, Aurora in France, and Snow White in Germany, Belle somewhere…Mulan as well…there were others

so if you think you are going to browse through each of the countries and your kids are into characters be prepared to spend a lot of time…

Oh and Agent P is fun for kids…

We went to Epcot in early February and it took us about 3 hours with our kids 6 & 8. We did all the Kidcot spots (sometimes you had to wait a little because of someone in front of you), the TP were pretty accurate with the 10 minute time frame. We did detour at Germany grabbing some goodies at the candy store, Japan Pavilion we had kakigori while listening to the drummers & also did the “pick the pearl” with my DD which took about 20 minutes. If you plan on just the kidcot stations then the 10 minute time frame is pretty accurate but if you do anything else make sure you put it in your TP twice!!! You should get an accurate time that way… Enjoy your time in the world!! :slight_smile:

I have never had enough time at WS.

I know you didn’t ask, but I just want to recommend that you have a stroller for both kids. Because this isn’t an area with lots of rides or the typical things kids might prefer, you’ll want to make sure are fairly comfortable.

If you think they’d like to try Agent P, be prepared to do most of the sleuthing since I think 4 & 6 is a little on the young side and they will need your help.

As far as time allotment goes, as @BackIntoTheFray mentions, there is no such thing as too much time. On our trip 2 years ago, we went to Epcot everyday. If you’ve never been before, I would anticipate being more interested than you think you may be now. I guess it’s always good to flexible.

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I LOVED doing Agent P with my son at 6. YES - you do have to help them a lot - but it is fun to “RUN” around WS. We would hide behind things and then “make a run for it” - you can really have a lot of fun with it if you want to.

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Agreed, we loved it too. As you have described, the younger the child, the more involved the parent should expect to be. If everyone is into it, it’s great fun. You don’t even really have to be a fan of the show to enjoy it.