When I decided on a New Year's versus a Christmas trip, I knew we had to do Epcot for New Year's Eve. I got a few pro tips from co-workers and blogs to know how to pace ourselves, deal with the crowds in the park, and how to make the most efficient exit. Overall, I'm going to say it was a good day by those measures. If there was any expectation of enjoying Epcot rides or attractions....not a chance.
First up was noon brunch at Homecomin' at Disney Springs. Since K-State's bowl game was being played at the same time, William and I both wore our purple. Strangely, John didn't have any Florida appropriate (i.e. not winter gear)! I guess his parents switched to mostly Chiefs gear gifts the last few years. Our food was delicious! John and I shared the deviled eggs (could have used some jalapenos to jazz them up!) and the Hallelujah Biscuit while William devoured PB&J French toast. After carb loading I thought we would do a resort tour to look at the Christmas decorations but we were moving slowly.....so we just hit our own resort and saw the Ginger-affe at Jambo House, the main building! Each of the deluxe resorts has a gingerbread display each holiday. But it can be a bit of a challenge to get to all the resorts to see them because only guests of that hotel or guests with dining reservations for a restaurant in the hotel can park on premises. So it can be time consuming to hit all of the hotels using Disney transportation.
Realizing we didn't have as much time as I had imagined when putting together our schedule, I decided the only must-see gingerbread was the Grand Floridian's gingerbread house. And from there we could take the monorail to Epcot for the evening, since our plan was to leave the car at home for the night to avoid the traffic exiting the parks, and in case we found some great beverages to enjoy. After seeing the tree and house and getting photos, we had a snack at a new lounge called Enchanted Rose, which is themed after Beauty and the Beast. We sat in the beautiful library and had amazing food and drinks. I will definitely have this spot on my list for future trips.
We then rode the monorail to the transportation center and transferred to the Epcot monorail. We arrived just as Harmonious, the usual evening fireworks show, which had been moved up to 6:30 this evening, was beginning. Since we were approaching from the front of the park, we weren't all the way to World Showcase when it began and stopped to watch it from Future World. But I loved the view from there! This is usually a show I do not enjoy. Maybe it was because it wasn't sweltering hot, and I wasn't crowded by people. But I thought it was so pretty off of the other water.
Now it was only around 7 p.m. and we wanted to stay in Future World until we rode Guardians of the Galaxy with our Lightning Lane (purchased....I didn't get the virtual queue on any attempts this trip). After our ride which was super fun but makes me dizzy, we started our wandering around the world. We weren't starving but knew we needed a food plan since lines would be long and crowds thick all night. We settled on Regal Smokehouse in the American Pavilion because it had mobile order and a good selection. We ordered and then meandered our way over there (halfway around World Showcase), taking in all the sight. China had pyro and a dance party lighting up the night. So did Italy and Japan.
We ate dinner then proceeded to France for some ice cream. By now we were close enough to the start of the fireworks show that we needed to find our place. I had read that it should be viewed from the gap between Future World and World Showcase instead of from the countries, so we walked - what felt like swimming upstream - to get the rest of the way around the World Showcase and out toward the rest of the park. We found a pretty good spot. In hindsight, I would have found a spot earlier near Canada in order to have less tree blockage and be a little more elevated, but overall it was a good spot.
The fireworks started about 5 minutes until 12 with a "trip around the world" with scenes from different countries that had already celebrated their New Year. When each country was presented, a quick blast of fireworks went off over that pavilion. Then there was a countdown to midnight and a massive, bright, loud fireworks show. It wasn't incredibly long or choreographed show. More about big. We were close enough that we were brushing falling ash out of our hair and off our clothes after the show!
Afterwards instead of fighting the crowds, we stayed an extra 30 minutes and rode Test Track. We could have stayed longer but were tired and didn't have any other rides that were must dos. Our plan for getting home was to walk to the Beach Club Resort and use the Lyft app to get a Minnie Van. As I had been checking it over the last hour, it had been 10-30 minute wait, which seemed very reasonable.
As we walked out the back entrance of Epcot, the line to the Skyliner stretched to Beach Club. The blue building is one of the villas. When I pulled the Lyft app up inside the hotel, it said 45 minutes, so I ordered it right away while we killed time looking at the gingerbread carousel of princesses. There was no where to sit inside as many people seemed to be waiting similarly, so we went out front. It ended up being a 20 minute wait or less, and while we were there it was just interesting people watching!
The Minnie Van is definitely an upcharge and luxury ride versus a regular Uber and over the free transportation like the bus. But it was so convenient - especially after a long day/night like this. The wait was a fraction of the time of a regular Lyft or Uber. They can use all the Disney transportation express lanes/entrances. And the driver asked us very specifically which part of the resort our room was located in ("Are you Timon? Zazu?) so she could drop us off at the elevator we were going to get on. We only had to take about 3 steps from the car. We joked she'd have delivered us to our beds if she was allowed. All of this after a clean, pleasant ride in a suburban with Mickey cartoon playing.
Overall we all agreed that it was fun to experience NYE at Epcot and say we've done it, but if we are there again for the holiday, we wouldn't go to the park.
