Planning Epcot Day -- Meals, etc

Walt Disney World
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I will be making my ADRs in a few days, and so have been playing around with touring plans to try to plan our meals (timing, which park, etc.). We are only planning on 1 day in Epcot, and our Epcot day seems most difficult to plan, since it seems difficult to fit in all we want to do. We are traveling with our two kids, who will be 4 and 7. My original plan was to try to get reservations for Garden Grill at 8 am (pre-park opening), Biergarten for around 12:45, and Teppen Edo at around 6:30. I was planning to take a break and return to our hotel (Polynesian) after lunch, and return to Epcot by 5. Plan was to do as much of Future World as we could in the morning, and in the evening do maybe 1 or 2 Future World attractions we missed in the morning, but otherwise focus on World Showcase in the evening, doing Agent P in at least one or more pavilions. We also will definitely want to do the new Frozen ride, so I expect we’ll have a long wait for at least one ride because we won’t be able to get fast passes for all the hot ticket attractions.

So my questions:
–If we do lunch at Biergarten, we’re going to have to do a lot of walking to leave the park for our mid-day break. Would it be better to skip Biergarten at lunch, and avoid World Showcase until after our mid-day break? How long is the walk back to the monorail from World Showcase Germany? Is that going to break us with small kids in the midday heat?
–Since we have small kids, ideal for us is a combination of entertainment and food at our meals. With that in mind, if we skip our Biergarten lunch, should we do dinner at Biergarten, and skip Teppon Edo entirely?
–Should we just plan to stay in the park all day and take rests in the park? If we do that, what are your thoughts on good places to stay cool and rest with kids?

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A lot of “opinion” to follow…

A complete circuit of WS is almost exactly a mile. Germany is not quite halfway around, so it’s about a 1/2 mile to get back to FW and probably another 1/4 mile out to the mono station (a little further to parking).

BG is probably my favorite restaurant in EP; excellent food and drink, and fun entertainment. I typically waddle out of there totally gorged; I don’t think I would be ready for another big TS meal 4 hours later. Also, you will have had a large breakfast at GG that AM. I would NOT hike all the way from FW to Germany just to eat and then come back to FW; once I go to FW, I’m usually there for the rest of the day. Sounds like you will be there in August. There is no way to describe the brutality of the heat and humidity of EP in Aug to someone who has not experienced it. A mile round-trip for a lunch ADR would probably wipe me out for the day.

I find TE no better than any number of teppanyaki restaurants that I can go to locally, so I don’t typically use limited EP dining opportunities to go there.

What I would do: I would cancel the TE plan and move BG to dinner. For lunch I would grab something light at Capt Cook’s once you were back at the Poly. If you really prefer TS, then you could eat moderately at Kona. I would plan on doing FW in the AM, and then do WS when you go back in the PM and fit in what you can around your ADR.

A note about the new Frozen ride. Disney has not released anything “official” yet, but there are a number of generally accepted premises coming from the “insiders”. It will be a Tier 1 FPP, which will force you to choose between it, TT ,and Soarin’. For at least the first few months, SB lines are expected to build instantly at RD and probably be 2-3 hours for most of the day (the result of extreme popularity and relatively low capacity). The A&E M&G is also expected to have long lines and will also likely have FPPs, but there is no consensus as to which Tier they might be.

As an adult, I pretty much never take long breaks - but I also never go between June and October anymore (“survived” it in my 20s; in my 50s it would kill me). The nice thing about EP is that the FW pavilions are all relatively large, are air conditioned, and have a number of things to do that are not rides. I’m specifically thinking of the Seas, TT, and MS. Ellen’s Energy is a 35 minute sit-down ride. AA is a 30 min show. In WS, there are lots of shops to wander through that have AC, but by the time you go back after 5:00, the outside temps will be more tolerable.

The bottom line is that unless you are VERY aggressive with a TP and take no major breaks other than meals, it is impossible to do ALL of EP in one day.

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My guess is 3 table services in 1 day is too much. I’d do the 8AM at Garden Grill for breakfast and then do an early dinner. Both Biergarten and Teppon Edo are good - Biergarten might be better interactive entertainment for the kids though and is more unique so I’d lean there for dinner.

I’d snack for lunch or go very light depending on the kids hunger. If you do an early dinner you might make it for the full day w/o a break but I’d leave that open depending on how hot it is & how the kids are holding up.

Ellen’s energy is a good rest/cooling off point. Inside & a long ride. Club Cool offers free soda from around the world & has AC. Think there is also a Disney Visa lounge somewhere if you have the card.

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Thank you! This is very helpful. I think we will plan to do dinner at Biergarten, and do a counter-service for lunch in Future World or at our hotel.

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We would struggle to manage 2 table service in a day let alone 3, especially in the heat. We had two 8 -10 hour days in Epcot at a relatively quiet time of year and didn’t see everything, so you’ll have to prioritise.

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EPCOT stands for Every Person Comes Out Tired, and in the August heat and humidity it can become a Bataan Death March. I would not walk all the way out to Germany for lunch only to go back across the park to go back to my resort. @bswan26 has some excellent advice - go back to your resort for lunch, and make an ADR for Biergarten for dinner. Also, make sure that the Biergarten makes sense with the rest of your TP - if you are going to be at Canada right before your ADR then you should consider a closer location for your ADR or moving things around on your TP so that you will be in or near Germany at that time. Usually the TP Optimizer works this out pretty well, but Epcot tends to be the park where I override it and use Evaluate because it comes up with plans that involve more walking than I care to do.

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Biergarten is great, but be aware: the midday show starts at 1:15pm. Don’t book a noon seating, or you’re going to be there far longer than you had probably intended. 12:45pm gives you plenty of time to get seated and acclimated, be served a drink, and grab a couple of plates of food before the show starts, whereupon you can watch confortably without waiting forever.

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If you decide to eat counter-service lunch or snack in the park, Sunshine Seasons in the Land Pavilion has a very good food court with great selections. Their bakery items are also delicious. I think it is a very good counter service option for the money and it has a large air-conditioned seating area. It is right outside Soarin’.

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