Epcot's New Years Eve all inclusive information

[gshumaker]

Absolutely fantastic time. We're headed back next year now too. Got there at around 7:30 AM, long security line, but in line for turnstiles before 8:00. Got through turnstiles around 8:10 or so, headed straight to Norway. In line there around 30 minutes. Headed to Soarin. They said it was an 80 minute wait, but we waited around 40 at that point. Then we just took our time the rest of the day for things that didn't have lines, plus the 3 Fastpasses we had. We did the Pixar films, which we had never done, Ellen, sat and people watched, Turtle Talk with Fastpass, and then late lunch/early dinner at Coral Reef at 2:45. Fastpass for Test Track. Walked around World Showcase. Saw first showing of Illuminations in Germany. Continued walking around World Showcase. Caught countdown to midnight at 7:00 PM in England. Fastpass for Spaceship Earth. Back to Worldshowcase for a little, then the DJ at the Fountain for rest of the night and fireworks. My boys absolutely loved it (they are 21 and 17 years old). Only bad part was leaving the park of course. Sat in parking lot until 3:00 AM. I knew that going in, but must not have conveyed that completely to my husband. He was quite upset. Told him next year we would stay at the Dolphin so we wouldn't have to do that. Any questions, please ask.

What are everyones suggestions for leaving EPCOT on NYE? We were stuck in the parking lots forever. Are the busses a better option? Monorail to TTC?

 

[yulilin3]

What are everyones suggestions for leaving EPCOT on NYE? We were stuck in the parking lots forever. Are the busses a better option? Monorail to TTC?

I always wait inside the park until around 2am. No point waiting in the car or on a bus when you can be sitting in the park. Some people have great success with leaving right after.
Disney transportation is faster because they leave roads open to only disney buses.

 

[MaleficentRN]

What are everyones suggestions for leaving EPCOT on NYE? We were stuck in the parking lots forever. Are the busses a better option? Monorail to TTC?

We made the march out at about 12:30 (we just couldn't hang any longer) Got to the monorail station at 1am and there were only a handful of people in line and a monorail came right away. I didn't notice the parking lot at TTC, but wow! That EPCOT lot! I would have just slept in my car for a couple of hours!

 

[soniam]

We made the march out at about 12:30 (we just couldn't hang any longer) Got to the monorail station at 1am and there were only a handful of people in line and a monorail came right away. I didn't notice the parking lot at TTC, but wow! That EPCOT lot! I would have just slept in my car for a couple of hours!

Makes me really glad that we did a split stay and stayed at Beach Club on the NYE. I can't imagine what the lines were like. We lucked out on the 30th at MK. I think a lot of people left early due to the cold weather.

 

[MaleficentRN]

Anymore reviews of NYE in EPCOT? Going this year (Dec 2017) so very interested in what this year was like

We arrived at 5pm-ish(we were at MK until almost 2am the night before) Security was a little chaotic. We had no bags and there was a mob of overflow from the bag line as there was no separating barrier. People with bags were trying to get through and getting turned away and would just stand there trying to figure out how to get in the bag line. It only took a few minutes to get through once you got around them.
People were already staking out spots for Illuminations and midnight fireworks. Blankets on the ground, strollers and EVC positioned around the lagoon railing with no occupants and such.
We started in Mexico and were going to go into Cava del Tequila but the line was well out the door. We did ride Gran Fiesta as there was no line there. Maybe because they didn't serve drinks.
Went back to Future World to use our FPs. Did Spaceship Earth first, Maybe 15 minute wait. Standby was 70 minutes! Used our Nemo FP, don't remember the wait for that. Got some Starbucks, (20 minute wait) and just hung out before diving back into World Showcase. We used the bathroom at Odyssey Center and it wasn't that bad a wait. Five minutes? Basically whenever we saw a restroom with a short line, we got in it whether we had to go or not.
Same for drinks. Waited 10 minutes for a margarita in Mexico at the outside stand, there was a short line in Morocco for frozen drinks there because the drinks were not frozen as they couldn't keep up. :\ There was also a stand with just champagne inside France. No wait.
It was shoulder to shoulder people all through WS. We just went with the flow. A big factor was that dance parties took up a good deal of room. We hung out for a bit at each one. We really wanted to do the silent party in Japan, but there was an hour wait to get headphones! We used our last FP at Frozen at around 9:00. Standby was 300 minutes. Yes, 300. We waited about 20.
We got to Spice Road Table at 10:30 for our ADR. Bar inside was 3 people deep. We had a good seat, but it didn't matter because when the fireworks started everyone got up and stood behind the people sitting at the railing tables. We stretched out our meal ordering small plates and drinks until then. Staff was very good. Food pretty good.Fireworks were amazing! I think my face melted at the finale! I'll never see better.
We were going to wait for the everyone to disperse and then try for Test Track, but we were exhausted and just followed the crowd out the back entrance before Mexico. Wasn't crazy about that route. It was like an 8 lane freeway merged into a two lane country road. I was hit with two different strollers.
I was very surprised that there was no line for the monorail. I really felt for everyone in the parking lot. No way would I try and drive out of there. But all and all, we were so tired I wished we were at Boardwalk or Beach Club.

 

[TeresaWen]

Absolutely fantastic time. We're headed back next year now too. Got there at around 7:30 AM, long security line, but in line for turnstiles before 8:00. Got through turnstiles around 8:10 or so, headed straight to Norway. In line there around 30 minutes. Headed to Soarin. They said it was an 80 minute wait, but we waited around 40 at that point. Then we just took our time the rest of the day for things that didn't have lines, plus the 3 Fastpasses we had. We did the Pixar films, which we had never done, Ellen, sat and people watched, Turtle Talk with Fastpass, and then late lunch/early dinner at Coral Reef at 2:45. Fastpass for Test Track. Walked around World Showcase. Saw first showing of Illuminations in Germany. Continued walking around World Showcase. Caught countdown to midnight at 7:00 PM in England. Fastpass for Spaceship Earth. Back to Worldshowcase for a little, then the DJ at the Fountain for rest of the night and fireworks. My boys absolutely loved it (they are 21 and 17 years old). Only bad part was leaving the park of course. Sat in parking lot until 3:00 AM. I knew that going in, but must not have conveyed that completely to my husband. He was quite upset. Told him next year we would stay at the Dolphin so we wouldn't have to do that. Any questions, please ask.

Great review! Thank you! I booked the dolphin a few months ago. Just cannot beat the price. We got a deluxe room, resort view with a balcony.

 

[MaleficentRN]

Makes me really glad that we did a split stay and stayed at Beach Club on the NYE. I can't imagine what the lines were like. We lucked out on the 30th at MK. I think a lot of people left early due to the cold weather.

I toyed with staying there. I really wished we were there after midnight at EPCOT. But given that we were late at MK on the 30th and then had an 8am BOG ADR on the 1st, I think it was a good choice to stay at Poly.

 

[soniam]

I toyed with staying there. I really wished we were there after midnight at EPCOT. But given that we were late at MK on the 30th and then had an 8am BOG ADR on the 1st, I think it was a good choice to stay at Poly.

I knew we wouldn't be up early on the 1st. We hit AK a little after 11am. This was one of the few trips where we didn't do rope drop everyday. We decided to get to MK later on the 30th, since we were staying until the late fireworks.

 

[soniam]

We went to Epcot on NYE for the first time this year. It was just my husband and I. We were staying at Beach Club. We were at MK late on the 30th to watch their NYE fireworks, so we didn't get to rope drop at Epcot. Plus, we knew we wanted to stay all day. We arrived at the International Gateway at about 10am. The line wasn't bad at all. We used the passholder line and didn't have to go through the metal detectors. We stopped at Agent P on the way to Mission Space but never ended up playing. We had an FP+ for Mission Space Orange. The line wasn't too bad.

We decided to check out some food stuff before our next FP+. La Cava wasn't open yet; the sign said 11:30am. We found some awesome food in Norway just for NYE. We got the beer cheese soup with cheese bread and a glass of champagne. That beer cheese soup was really good and had bacon and scallions on top. The cheese bread was round and small and reminded me of the Brazilian cheese bread called pao de quiejo. It was almost like a cheese dumpling; it was so cheesy. I wish they would have the soup and bread all year. It was way better than Le Cellier's cheese soup. They also had meatballs, beer, and some other meat dish. We ate at some high tables set up outside the Mexico pyramid. As we were finishing, I saw people walking about with margaritas, and it wasn't even 11:30am yet. We shared a blood orange margarita.

We headed back to Future World to do our 11:15am Spaceship Earth FP+. The line looked nuts. It wasn't marked well, and I had to go up to the scanner to even tell that it was for FP. The line before the scanner was wrapped back toward guest relations. A lot of people, more than usual, were confused and didn't realize it was for FP or didn't even have an FP. Even after the scanner, the line was wrapped around the guest relations side all the way to the back of those queues. CMs near the ramp couldn't figure out what was going on with the FP line. I explained how people were getting in the wrong line. We finally got on the ride. There was some images on the ceiling at the beginning that I didn't remember. DH said we were usually busy looking at wait times or FP on our phones at that point

It was starting to get warm, so DH went to put our coats in the lockers at the International Gateway. It had been chilly in the morning, and our cores were still a little cold from the cold day at MK on the 30th. I headed for the line at Les Halles for our second lunch. DH texted me while I was in line that the last locker was rented out by the people before him, so he put the coats in the room at Beach Club. I probably would have just kept mine, because I was uncertain how bad lines would be later. I ordered, in my poor French, croque monsieur for DH, pissaladiere for me, and Perriers for both of us. The line at Les Halles was fairly long, but it was about the same during the entire trip. I luckily found a small high table, and DH met me. It was interesting to watch people. I really don't like it when people grab a table at crowded places before they have their food. It leaves people wandering around with a tray full of food and nowhere to go. I saw people watching and hovering around occupied tables like they were wounded prey. I even saw someone pull a chair out from under someone who was just about to sit down. Luckily, the woman didn't fall. That was probably the rudest behavior we saw all day, except for some drunks later in the night.

We headed for our 1:30pm Soarin' FP+. I was going to use the bathroom in the Land pavilion near Garden Grill, but a CM out front suggested the one behind the Starbucks across from the Land. She also told us that the Soarin' lines were outside. There was a sign out front too. The restroom line wasn't too bad. During the whole trip, I was worried about how bad the bathroom lines would be. I saw some bad ones but was always able to find a better one without much or any line nearby at all of the parks. I guess due to crowding in the Land pavilion, they were routing the Soarin' standby and FP queues outside between the Land and the Imagination pavilions. It seemed like the FP line was really long, but it moved fast. The lines dumped you inside in the middle of the queues, so they weren't horribly long. It was great as usual.

We had time to kill before our 3pm Behind the Seeds tour, so we headed to the Seas. We had some cookies from earlier in the trip and decided to have a snack while looking at the tanks. There were a decent amount of people in the Seas, but we could still easily see the tanks from the wall. We also found some nice foam cushions for the fireworks later. We headed back to the Land for our tour. We got into what we thought was a line, but turned out to be people standing around who didn't know what they were doing. We were a little early, so we waited on the benches at the Soarin' exit. After exiting Soarin' and while waiting for the tour, we kept seeing people that were confused about where the Soarin' line was. When we entered the Land, it was hard not to be told or read that the line was outside. The tour was great. It was such a nice break from the crowds and noise outside.

We had a couple of hours before dinner, so we decided to find the NYE hats and horns that were being distributed. It didn't take long. We just had to follow the sounds of dying ducks There were people blowing those things everywhere, even in your ears. There was also a big line, but it moved really fast. They had long tables for the hats, so there were multiple points to grab them. The horns were coming out of barrels, and they only had a few of them. Some people were asking for 20 hats and horns The novelty wore off some, and people quit constantly blowing the horns the further we got from the distribution tables.

We decided to get more margaritas at La Cava. There was a line outside the pyramid and down the stairs. Luckily, that was the Gran Fiesta line. I have never seen it that long. The line for La Cava was still inside and only up the ramp. It took about 20 minutes. I got guava, and DH got pineapple. We are trying to get them all at some point. We wanted to get one of the glow necklaces, but we couldn't find the one we wanted. We knew Mouse Gears had a bunch, so we headed back up to Future World. I saw one at the booths on the side before the fountain. One of the girls was commenting on our margaritas. We noticed she was from Peru, and the other girl was from Brazil. We started talking about South America; my FIL is from Chile. We walked back to France from the Mexico side. We wanted to check out the booths and parties on the way to dinner.

We got to Monsieur Paul a little early for our 5:45pm ADR but were seated pretty quickly. We had a small table that looked onto the fountain in France, instead of the front of the restaurant facing the lake. It was a pretty view, but we couldn't see the early Illuminations show. The restaurant wasn't completely full, so I guess it didn't book up. The meal was fabulous. The food and service were excellent. We will be back, probably in July. We got a bottle of champagne, so that we would have some for toasting at midnight. They let us take the opened bottle with us. The sommelier must have liked us or thought we were lushes, because he offered us a shot of what he called "French moonshine". It was actually Pere William, a very strong pear brandy with a whole pear inside the bottle. I am glad we shared the shot. I didn't see him bring the bottle to anyone else's table. The table next to us was funny and sad. They were really high maintenance and wanted to use dining credits for the meal, even though their credit card had already been charged. They also weren't happy with the prix fixe menu and kept asking if they could just get a steak or just get an entree salad I think being seated next to them let us get good service, because we were so low maintenance and easy going compared to them. DH and I dressed up a bit the whole day at the park, so that we would look nice for dinner. DH wore a nice Hawaiian shirt and slacks, and I wore a skirt and really shiny shell with a thin jacket. It wasn't that difficult to do, especially since it wasn't hot. I saw a lot of people in shorts and t-shirts, which they do allow. I don't mind what other people wear, but I can't pay that kind of money for a meal and not feel special. I don't feel special in a t-shirt and Keens, which is what I usually wear.

After dinner, we headed to Japan to buy candy and sake. I love the food in the department store. We got a bunch of gummi stuff and some Japanese cheese puffs. I think I might buy those cheese puffs every time we go now. They were so good We also got a little owl for DS. We tried the yuzu sake from the sake bar. It was excellent, cold, and refreshing. It would be really nice on a hot day. The cashier line was a bit long, and the store was packed. However, checkout went really fast. Next, we headed to America to watch the American Adventure. There wasn't much wait. It was nice to sit. However, the theater was warm and was making us sleepy. Or maybe it was all the food and liquor

We had seen people with these cool glowing sphere drinks that were sold in France. They had chambord and probably vodka in them. We also got a glass of champagne. There was actually a bench near the water, so we sat and ate Japanese cheese puffs and drank our cocktail and champagne. Classy huh We watched this drunk couple who were arguing. They were really the only bad drunks we saw. He was knocking plastic cups off their table and breaking them. A nice mother and daughter asked if they could share the drunk couples table. Luckily, the drunks ran out of alcohol and left to get back in the France booth line. The mother and daughter eventually sat with us on the bench. We talked about the drunk couple. They were originally Venezuelan, and that got us to talking about South America again. It turned out that they had met the Peruvian and Brazilian woman at the kiosk in Future World too. They were very nice.

After devouring my Japanese cheese puffs, we decided to go watch the France movie. Unfortunately, it had just started. We sat in the lobby for a bit bit gave up in search of hot tea. It was starting to get cold, and I wished I had my jacket. I had told DH that I would want it either before or after dinner, and he said he would go back to the room and get it. After dinner, I mentioned wanting it again, and he insisted it wasn't that cold and I would be fine I could see where this was going, and it didn't involve him going back to the room for my coat. I thought I would just tough it out, because I wasn't sure how bad the security lines would be. It was getting closer to 10pm at this point. We got hot tea between UK and Canada. It was so incredibly hot that I could barely hold it. For some reason, they had used a giant, iced tea size tea bag too. By the time it had cooled enough that I could drink it, it was terribly bitter. I think I just threw it away. So now I was getting pretty tired, cold, and grumpy. It was about 11pm. DH said that he would go back and get my jacket, but I didn't think he would make it back in before the show started. I had thought earlier that I would go get it, but my ankle had been hurting all day. I didn't want to try to hustle over there and make it worse.

We found a spot near Morocco and sat on our cushions until the show started. The cushions were nice. We would not have been able to sit on the hard concrete for about an hour otherwise. It wasn't the greatest spot. People squished in at the last minute and blocked any chance of a view that I had. I think DH could see though. I am short, and until we watched Illuminations from the area between France and UK that juts out into the lake, I had never been able to really see the show. I still didn't see all of it that time. We had even done the dessert party once, but my view wasn't the greatest. So, other than the high up stuff, I pretty much didn't see anything. It's fine, and I am used to it now. I just don't think it's worth it to stake out a spot hours in advance. I can usually see fireworks just fine, and we always found a great spot for MSEP.

So, the last part of the night was a little bit of a bummer, but overall the day was great. I would do it again and even bring our son. However, I would not have stayed so much of the day if he had been with us. I might have done the buffet thing too, especially if there was seating. I know it didn't have a view though. The best decisions we made were a leisurely ADR for dinner. I liked snacking at the booths and QS for lunch, because the lines weren't awful yet. Also, the tour was a really nice break. Next time, I would either just keep my coat or go back to the room earlier. We did a bit too much walking back and forth between Future World and World Showcase. Don't expect to get same day FP. I didn't really see anything, not even Figment, when we got there about 10am. Be patient and know that you are there to soak up the atmosphere, not cram in rides. Do one of the movies with seats or the American Adventure to give you a break. Plus, they didn't really have lines. Ellen might have been a good option too. Be friendly to the CMs. They really responded to courteous behavior or when we said happy new year. Stay at a hotel within walking distance of Epcot, if you can, even if it's just for a night or two. Whenever buying food or souvenirs, be sure to buy or get water, so that you don't have to wait in line later. Also, if you both will want a drink or snack, go ahead and buy for each person to avoid lines later.

Wow! That was longer than I though it would be.