Disney New Year: New Year's Eve at Epcot

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.   

Disney New Year: New Year's Eve Eve at Magic Kingdom

On New Year's Eve there are big fireworks shows at Magic Kingdom and at Epcot.  But Magic Kingdom also does the same show on December 30.   So we decided to hit both by doing Magic Kingdom on the 30th and Epcot on the 31st.   Additionally, Magic Kingdom does their show twice each of those nights:  6:30 and 11:50!  So we actually got to see it twice on our night, which was great.

Knowing that staying up until midnight is not a normal thing for me, we certainly could not treat this like a normal theme park day where we were there 30 minutes before the park opened.   Instead, I enjoyed coffee in my New Year's pajamas (instead of matching Christmas jammies this year, we did these!) and watched my giraffe and other animal friends.   

I tried to warn my family that by arriving so late - and being here on the holiday - we were going to be in HUGE crowds.   We needed to plan ahead for snacks, plan ahead for bathroom breaks, in addition to ride lines, of course.  But we were planning on mostly lower popularity attractions so figured the bathroom lines would be our real problem.   It turned out not to be a big deal.  There was certainly a big crowd in the hub at early fireworks time.  But other than that it was certainly manageable.  Again, I'm sure it was about going in with the right frame of mind and knowing that we didn't have any particular must-dos besides the fireworks, watching the parade, riding Jingle Cruise and riding Space Mountain (both of which have special holiday overlays).   

We got eggrolls and churros before getting into the Jingle Cruise line and the hour-ish passed easily enough.    I feel like we rode another ride after that (Pirate maybe) but my next photo is eating hot dogs and fries in the Hub before the parade, so maybe we just kept snacking our way through the park!

Next up was Tom Sawyer Island, an attraction we have never done in 10 years and dozens of visits.   It's really more of a self-guided park/playground than a ride, and it's usually only open a few hours in the middle of the day.   So it doesn't lend itself to our early morning and late night with mid-day break - or our hide from the Florida heat or rain - strategy.  It was fun and had more shade than I was expecting, which might be a nice hangout for families looking to let kids run when they can't in otherwise close quarters in the main park.  William liked the room of cannons.  My favorite was the unique views of Big Thunder Mountain and Haunted Mansion.

Oh, yes, those crowds did materialize for the fireworks.  Or there was a time when everyone was in one spot.   We took that opportunity to head over to Tomorrowland to watch from there.  It was an obstructed view, but we stood right in front of the Space Mountain entrance and jumped on the ride for a short wait as soon as it was over.   The holiday overlay for Space has red and green strobe lights and punk rock Deck the Halls playing.  With those lights flashing, we could see the ride track and that makes Space extra scary and cool!  We rode it Christmas Day 2019 like this, so we were thinking it might be happening, but it didn't run during our COVID Christmas 2020 trip, so we were delighted to get to experience it this year!

We got to see "snow" on Main Street and the castle projection show on our way to dinner.   Our favorite holiday dinner at Disney is Liberty Tree Tavern, which serves family style platters of traditional favorites (beef roast, turkey, pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, cranberries, and an amazingly good salad).   It's actually very good tasting, too, as we normally avoid buffet type foods outside of brunch.  But this has become our holiday tradition and we stuffed ourselves full  before the dessert came and then found room for the dessert anyway!  Especially William.  After years of us cleaning his plate, now he is cleaning ours.  Not too many more photos until he is taller than us!

A little more shopping and another attraction or two and we found our spot for the evening fireworks finale.  The crowds were much more bearable than earlier, and we got a great view in front of the castle.  This show is advertised as being 360 degrees, which we couldn't see from Tomorrowland.  From our spot on Main Street we could.   There were fireworks going off behind the castle and behind the train station.  I wonder what they looked like from the Polynesian or Grand Floridian across the lagoon?!

I tried not to take too many pictures because I wanted to enjoy the show.   I did take a video which will be too long to post.   But I'll say that this was the best fireworks show I've ever seen.  It was better (to me) than the one we saw at Epcot the next evening.   John liked the Epcot fireworks more than I did, but I never got a clear answer on if he liked them more than Magic Kingdom's!  We made a speedy exit after the show and were back to our resort in less than 20 minutes thanks to luck or more of my being wrong about the crowds.  Whatever it was, I'll be thankful for it!