I’m in the “week to go, start rethinking things” mode…
Trying to decide what to do about plans on my Saturday.
Initially it was the 8-9 Play Time slot at TSL, then over to Epcot with brunch either at Cape May on the way or Garden Grill. Then wandering Epcot all day, ending with Illuminations at 10pm.
I’m really iffy on the Play Time since it’s not clear what they’re doing with the 7-8 people, and I don’t want to be stuck there all day (or even ALL morning). Plus I’ll be honest, the stories of locals at Epcot on weekend evenings and nights during Food and Wine kinda turns me WAY off.
Then I realized I only have an afternoon and evening at AK since I’m doing Keys to the Kingdom on Monday (and multiple people have told me to do that tour and not cancel it) - and I LOVE Animal Kingdom. (Yes, I already have FOP FP+ for Monday afternoon.)
So I’m thinking I might skip Play Time and go to Animal Kingdom for the day. Since Illuminations is at 10 that night, and I’m seeing ROL on Monday night, I was thinking maybe I could hop over to Epcot for that - possibly snag a FP+ for it after using my last one at AK, but at any rate stand on the NOT-WS side of the lagoon.
My Na’vi FP+ window on Saturday is 6:50-7:50 - and I know I can enter the line at 6:45.
Is it feasible to do that, then catch a bus (I’d rather not waste money on Lyft or Minnie Vans) and make it to Epcot in time for a 10pm Illuminations? (I’m not sure if the park-to-park buses run on the roughly every 20 minute schedule or not.)
Or should I just pick one park or the other?
And how bad is Epcot REALLY on a Saturday afternoon/evening during F&W? (We’re talking 9/8 if that makes any difference.) Am I being silly to worry about it?
Yes. NRJ is not a super long experience, and I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t be able to make the transit in 2.5 hours. If you’re dicey, you can also keep your eyes open to see if a bus headed for BC/YC is arriving, and go in via International Gateway. But on the question of making the transit, I think you’re worrying over nothing.
When we were there, crowds at Epcot during the F&W were okay until about noon or so (can’t remember exactly, but I remember it was about the time we were eating lunch). Within the timespan of an hour, the crowds went from great, to tolerable, to “everyone, hold each other’s hand as we weave through this crowd so that no one gets lost!” Seriously.
It become shoulder-to-shoulder and we decided to leave. It took us about 20 minutes* to get from England back to Futureworld due to fighting with the crowds.
This was early October, not September, so I can’t speak to the difference. But IF you decide to do Epcot World Showcase during F&W, I highly recommend you do it FIRST THING in the morning as early as possible.
The nice thing was that once we got out of World Showcase, Futureworld was actually relatively dead.
At least, it felt like 20 minutes. I wasn’t actually timing it.
Thanks. Since Future World is pretty much what I do in Epcot, I think I’m just going to skip it this time and do Animal Kingdom. If I’m feeling up to trying to make Illuminations, I’ll do that.
