Mom Street USA | One Day Park Strategy Epcot

Planning just one day at EPCOT? We’ve got you covered! In this episode, we break down exactly how to maximize your day at Walt Disney World’s most unique park — whether you’re using Lightning Lane Multi Pass or touring without it.

We’ll walk you through:
🌐 The best rope drop strategy for BOTH entrances — the front gate and International Gateway
⚡ How to prioritize Lightning Lanes (plus when to buy Cosmic Rewind’s ILL)
🗺️ A step-by-step ride order that avoids unnecessary walking across the park
🍴 Food options — from Festival booths to quick-service stops
🎢 Tips for tackling Frozen, Remy, and Test Track with minimal waits
🎨 Hidden gems in World Showcase including shows, characters, and kid-friendly activities
✨ The best way to end your night and grab one last ride before fireworks

Whether you’re a family, thrill seeker, or EPCOT foodie, this one-day strategy will help you see and do more with less stress.

🎧 Listen now to learn how to make the most of your EPCOT day — from rope drop to 9pm fireworks!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome everybody to Mom Street, USA. My name is Jackie
aka Vicious Mama, And on today's episode, we are continuing
our one day park strategies that we have been working
our way through both Universal and Disney Parks down in Orlando.
So if you've missed it so far, we have covered USF,
we have covered Magic Kingdom, we have covered Animal Kingdom,

(00:27):
and we have done Islands of Adventure. So we are
four out of seven of the total parks that we
are going to be covering in this series. And today
we are going to be talking about Epcot. So we
are back at Disney today to discuss our one day
park strategy for Epcot. Now here's the thing about this series,
and you've heard us say this before if you've heard

(00:47):
these other episodes in this series, is we are going
to go over what is kind of the best general
plan for anybody visiting the park. That being said, there
may be things on this list that you're like, Nope,
my group doesn't want to do that. Especially some of
these attractions at Epcot can be a little bit polarizing

(01:08):
just because there are some bigger thrill rides that you
can potentially get on over at this park. So keep
that in mind as you are listening today and as
you are looking through the list of attractions here, because
it is really split. There are quite a few bigger
thrill rides and then there are a lot of more
dark ride experiences as well, so keep that in mind.

(01:30):
Something else to note is we are going to continue
with the policy or not policy, what's the word I'm
looking for. We are going to continue with the trend
of doing kind of a two different approach method. So
we're going to first talk about doing it with lightning
lanes and what you should book and how that breakdown
may look for you, and then we are going to

(01:51):
swap and talk about it. If you are just planning
to do stand by what is your best course of
action to try to get as much done as possible.
So all that being said, let's go ahead and jump
into our plans for Epcot. A couple of general notes
about Epcot. You definitely want to arrive thirty to forty
minutes before you can gain access to the park. So

(02:11):
again remember Disney Parks do offer that thirty minute early
entry to any resort guests that are staying at Disney,
So if you are staying on Disney property, you can
get in thirty minutes before park open. Epcot almost always
almost because everything could change, you never know, but almost
always has a nine o'clock am opening, which means your

(02:34):
early entry for resort guests is going to be eight thirty.
You are going to want to get there thirty to
forty minutes before that time. And the reasoning behind that
is you really need to position yourself well for rope
drop to be able to get to the most attractions
as you possibly can. That being said, also, rope drop

(02:58):
happens at two different locations in this park, and this
is the only park that has this kind of happen
at Disney. So there are two entrances to Epcot if
you're unfamiliar. The main entrance that happens to be right
by the front of the park by Spaceship Earth, which
is the big iconic golf ball type attraction. And then

(03:22):
the second entrance is called the International Gateway and that
happens out in World Showcase. It is between the UK
pavilion and the France pavilion. So if you are someone
that is taking the Skyliner or you are staying at
boardwalk or beach club or yacht Club, Swan and Dolphin

(03:46):
some of those kind of in that general area. That
would be the entrance that you're coming to. If you're
someone that is taking the monorail, or you're driving, or
you are taking a resort bus, you are all going
to enter through the front of the park by Spaceship Earth,
So two different entrances. It all really depends on the
way that you're going. Oh and ride Share, Sorry I
should mention that lift Uber and the mini van that

(04:09):
is operated through Lyft as well will come to the
front of the park. So where you enter can greatly
impact what you do. So you'll hear me say that
a few times as we talk about kind of your
initial first plans when you get to Epcot, because it
really truly just geographically on the map does matter because

(04:30):
Epcot is a very large park. It initially brief History
was supposed to be two different It was two different
concepts for two different parks, and they kind of ended
up putting them together. So you have the whole front
section of the park. So that is the World, Discovery, World,
Nature and World. I can't remember the other one, but

(04:51):
whatever those ones are called, they just renamed them, and
those names I'm not stuck in my head yet. But
then the back part of the park kind of the
further you go into the park is World Showcase, and
that is a very large mile loop that has all
of the different countries and their pavilions, so kind of
two different halves to the park. So again that's really

(05:12):
why your entry point makes a big difference. When we
talk about rope drop. Here in a minute, you'll hear
me give you kind of a couple different options for that.
So let's talk about lightning lanes because the first thing
that we are going to the first plan of action
that we are going to talk about, is if you're
utilizing lightning lanes. Now, I do think that lightning lanes

(05:35):
are very beneficial at Epcot. Can you get on a
lot without them and without waiting for an hour for attractions? Yes? Absolutely. However,
now that Test Track has reopened, it really does benefit
you and give you more flexibility and freedom to enjoy

(05:55):
Epcot if you've got lightning lanes. Now, I understand that's
not in everyone's budget. We are going to talk about
not using lightning lanes later, but I really do think
they're beneficial for Epcot. So a couple reminders about lightning lanes.
You can pre book ahead of your trip. If you
are on property, it's seven days out from your check
in date at your resort. If you are off property,

(06:17):
it is three days before your first park day, So
that is when you'll be able to jump online at
seven am Eastern on your mobile app, your Midsney Experience
app and pre book your selections, so ahead of time.
Here is my suggestion for what I would say you
should book. Now, there are tiers at this park, so

(06:38):
we've talked about that briefly, and we did talk about
that at Magic Kingdom as well. So some of the
top rides are in Tier one and some other rides
are in Tier two. When you pre book, you can
do one Tier one and two Tier two's, so you'll
hear me mention that here just a second, your Tier
one is going to be. My suggestion is Remy's Ratitude
Adventure as your Tier one. Now, there are several other

(07:00):
options that are great as well. Frozen is another great
option for your Tier one, as is Test Track, But
I would suggest Remy it tends to be the hardest
one to find a lightning lane for later in the day,
so that is why I suggest that one. The other
reason I suggest that one is because then you can
plan more accordingly when you make the trek out to

(07:24):
the France Pavilion. So we talked about that. Epcot is
kind of two parks squished to one. Well, where Remy
is located in the park, in the France Pavilion is
pretty far into the back. So it's one of those
things where once you commit to going out there, you
commit to World Showcase. So you really want to have

(07:45):
a little bit more control over when it is that
you head out to the France Pavilion so that you're
not needlessly making that mile loop around World Showcase Lagoon
more than you have to do. So I would suggest
booking that for your Tier one. Now, if your family
doesn't want to do Remy, I would suggest one of

(08:07):
the other ones. Any of them are great options for
Tier one. For Tier two, I would select Soorin And
then my third option would be the Seas with Nemo
and Friends, because that ride tends to get a really
long wait. It's very very cute, very very enjoyable dark

(08:29):
ride that is finding Nemo themed, and because it is
accessible for all ages, and because of where it's located
at the park, it does tend to get a longer wait,
so I would suggest booking that for your third pre selection. Now. Ideally,
what I would suggest is starting those lightning lanes about
an hour after park open, maybe even an hour and

(08:51):
a half after park open. So I would book something
like Soarin around ten and the Seas with Nemo and
Friends around ten forty five if you're able to manipulate
your times that way. The other thing is your time
for Remy. Just get it as early as you can.

(09:14):
That one's going to have less flexibility for going in
and modifying it because it is such a popular attraction
for lightning lanes that you just want to get it
as early as the app will let you and call
it good. Now, if you've got kiddos that need to
take a nap or things like that, you can plan
your lightning lanes around that. But again we're talking you've
got one day in Epcot. We're trying to make the

(09:34):
most of your time, so just get it as early
as you possibly can. Please remember that you can always
hold three multi pass lightning lianes at a time, so
as soon as you use your first one, then you
can go onto the app and book your next one,
so keep that in mind. As well as far as
single pass lightning lanes at Epcot, we're just looking at

(09:55):
cosmic Rewind. Definitely beneficial for you to be able to
purchase them just to save yourself the hour plus weight
that it typically is. So you want to book cosmic
Rewind based on when you think you're going to venture
over to that side of the park. So I didn't
exactly give a time for that one, just because it
may depend on what you do with the additional information

(10:19):
that I'm about to give you for what order to
do your different other attractions at the park. So keep
that in mind. With when you're booking your time for
cosmic Rewind, you want to kind of see where you
think you'll be at what time and kind of go
from there. For when you're creating your plan before you

(10:39):
book your lightning lanes ahead of time. All of that
being said, let's talk about what you're going to do
at rope Drop. So with your itinerary, I'm going to
go based on the fact that you booked Remys so
we don't have to worry about rope dropping that. So
that's kind of what I'm going to go off of
with this itinerary, so you can substitute these first rides

(11:02):
depending on what you booked for your Tier one and
what is left out of Tier one. But whatever your
Tier one attractions are that your group wants to do,
that is what you're going to head to first. So
if it were me and I knew I had a
Remy booked, and I knew I had a Guardians of
the Galaxy booked, I would do either Frozen or Test

(11:25):
Track for my rope drop. If you're entering at the
front of the park, I would go to test Track.
If you are entering at World Showcase at International Gateway,
I would go to Frozen. So that would be my
suggestion for that. And again, getting there thirty to forty
minutes early is going to set you up in a

(11:47):
really great place for those attractions to be in and
out within about twenty minutes. Ideally you would be able
to hit maybe both of those before the lines get
too long and before or your first lightning lane time right,
because I said our first lightning lane is not going
to be until about ten o'clock, So if we're early entry,

(12:08):
that gives us from eight thirty to ten to do
both Frozen and Test Track or Again, this is where
you kind of just have to know what your top
choices are at Epcot, because if you're a big Guardians
of the Galaxy fan and you love Cosmic Rewinder, that's
like your top attraction at Epcot that you want to do,
then go ahead and rope drop that. So it really

(12:28):
just depends on whatever your top choice ride is for
your party, and don't be afraid to split up for
this rope drop time. Your lightning lanes for your group
will likely be booked together if you're doing it all
together on your app, So if you've got a group
that really wants to hit Frozen or if you really
want to do Guardians of the Galaxy, then that is

(12:49):
what you know. You can divide and conquer that way
when it comes to that. So that would be my suggestion.
Go to either your top ride and then your second ride,
ideally getting them both in before that ten am lightning
lanes start. So like we mentioned earlier, ten am will
be your sorein time, So after you tap in for sorein,

(13:09):
you're going to want to book Test Track or Frozen
if you weren't able to do them stand by, So
whatever your next big ride is that you weren't able
to hit already in the morning, that's going to be
the first one that you try to book for your
lightning lanes. Now, chances are good that something like Frozen
or Test Track may be sold out or maybe later

(13:30):
in the day that's where you're modifying comes into place.
And if you need more information on how to modify,
then you need to go back to our episode that
we did on Lightning Lanes and Genie Plus to get
my step by step directions on how it is that
you are going to work to modify that and what
the little tricks are to be able to do that.

(13:52):
And if it is available, then go ahead and grab
it and you can always still modify it for an
earlier time as well. So by around eleven you should
have gone through probably three to four attractions. If you're
already in the building with soorin, go ahead and do
Living with the Land while you're in the Land building
because that will save you the trek of having to
go back into the land later on throughout your day,

(14:16):
and then after that will be your next lightning lane time.
Because like we said, ideally you're booking Nemo for around
eleven or so, and then you will be able to
redeem that. And as soon as you have done that,
you can do one of two things. You can either
book a journey into the Imagination with Figment if it's
like almost in immediate time, just to save a little

(14:38):
bit on that weight, or you can do that stand
by and still achieve the you know, still have the
abilities to get on that ride, and then book mission space.
So those would be my next two options. Whenever it
comes to booking your after you have tapped in for
your Nemo Lightning Lane, So at that point in time
it may be a little bit close to lunch, you

(14:59):
may be able to get on one more attraction before lunch.
Ideally the goal would be to kind of finish off
that World Nature side of the front part of the
park before your lunch break. As far as lunch goes,
lots of options. It really just depends on where in
the parks you are. I typically like to do festival booths. Now,

(15:25):
the tricky thing about festival booths is they are all
out in World Showcase, or at least close to World Showcase.
For the most part, you have a few that are
scattered in throughout the other parts of the park, but
ultimately most of them are out in World Showcase, so
you really have to kind of plan accordingly. Now, if
you're on that side of the park where Figment and
the Land are, there is a cluster of festival booths

(15:48):
that are just past Figment as you're going towards the
Canada Pavilion, there's a cluster of about three of them
right there that you may be able to just grab aqua.
You can also eat inside of the Land pavilion downstairs,
they have just a little cafeteria style kind of quick
service Sunshine Seasons that is in there that you can

(16:12):
grab lunch at. So those would be your options if
you are on that part of the park. You can
also hop to the center of the park and visit
the main kind of quick service eatery that is right
by the center of the park that is called Connections Eatery.
So that is also an option that you have that's

(16:32):
not too far and kind of on your way towards
your next attractions anyway at that point in time, so
that kind of takes you up to your lunch period. Now, again,
if there are things on that list that you're like, nope,
we don't want to do it, great, skip it and
move on to the next one, and continue on throughout
your process of working your way through Epcot. But then

(16:54):
in theory, after you have enjoyed a lunch, you won't
have as many rides to do because you will have
gone on almost all of them. So after lunch you
will have Mission Space if that is something you want
to do. I know a lot of people feel some
type of way about that ride, but Mission Space is

(17:15):
an option that you can book. After you have tapped
into Mission Space, you are going to just look to
book anything that's left, So at that point in time,
you're not going to have too many rides left. You
will have Spaceship Earth as an attraction that you can book,
and then you can always go back and book things
that you did via standby in the morning if they're
still available. They may or may not be available at

(17:36):
that time, or you may or may not have to
work a little bit of Lightning Lane magic and use
your app to kind of try to see if you
can get a time to pop up for those. So
Mission Space. Then from Mission Space I would head out
into You have one of two things that you can do.
You can either circle back to the front of the
park and go on Spaceship Earth. I would highly suggest

(17:58):
if you're going to try to plan to do Spaceship
Earth after Mission Space, that you have a lightning lane
for it, because it is right at the front of
the park and it is kind of a slower moving
and slower loading attraction. There are people that just go
there because, oh, this is a ride, let's go ahead
and ride that right when you walk in the front

(18:20):
of the park. So it does get a long weight
time because of that reason. So I would go ahead
and book a lightning lane if it's available, and if
it's somewhat near the time you need it to be,
just to save you a little bit, because it could
be like a twenty to thirty minute wait for Spaceship
Earth in that time of night or afternoon. I guess
it would be at that point in time, So keep

(18:41):
that in mind. So after Mission Space, you can circle
back to Spaceship Earth, or you can leave Spaceship Earth
until a little bit later in the day, closer maybe
to around dinner time. But it really just depends on
what your plans are for the evening and if you
plan to be out in World Showcase wandering around. So
after you have made a decision mission Space Spaceship Earth,

(19:01):
and then you're going to head out into World Showcase.
Whenever you go through the Mexico Pavilion, make sure you
hit Three Cabyuros that is in there, the Grand what
is it, Grand Fiesta Tour starring the Three Cabauros I
think is the official title of that attraction, which I love. Cute,
super cute boat ride in the Mexico Pavilion. And then
from there you will just have your time for Remy

(19:24):
that you have booked already. You've been kind of holding
in your back pocket since you pre booked your lightning
lanes ahead of your trip, and so whenever that time
becomes available you can utilize that. So your time for
Remy will determine potentially which direction you go when you
get to World Showcase. If you don't have a Remy
time until closer to dinner, you can go either left

(19:45):
or right. When you get out into World Showcase. If
you've got a time that's like two o'clock or so,
three o'clock or so, then you may want to kind
of head directly towards France first to make sure that
you are not having to double or like zoom through
some of the countries to get to France to get
to Ratitui. So keep that in mind when you're looking

(20:07):
at which direction you want to go when you get
out into World Showcase. So after you have written REMI,
that will pretty much take care of all of the
attractions that you've got over at Epcot. So with Lightning Lanes,
very very achievable, to the point where about three four
o'clock in the afternoon, you could potentially be done with

(20:28):
the majority of the attractions at the park, which is
wonderful because Epcot has so many other things to see
outside of just the attractions to do. There are so
many amazing pavilions out in the World Showcase. There are
live performances and all sorts of other things. So let's
talk about some other things that you can enjoy in

(20:48):
your afternoon at Epcot. Like I mentioned, there are several
shows that happen out in World Showcase. If you are
someone who enjoys either live entertainment or they have a
lot of what Disney has called in the past edge utainment,
so it's like you know, educating entertainment type attractions as well.

(21:09):
So things like the American Adventure Canada, Far and Wide,
Reflections of China. Those are all really great videos that
you can go and view. There is the also in
the France pavilion. It rotates with another video, but there's
a Beauty and the Beast sing along that is really
super fun that you can do as well. There are

(21:30):
tons of character meet and greets, especially during the morning
and into the early afternoon out in World Showcase. Almost
every country has like a specialty character that meets out there,
so they're going to be located in the area in
which their stories take place. So one of my all
time favorite meet and greets is the Pooh and Friends

(21:51):
meet and greet in the UK Pavilion where you can
meet Wunnie the Pooh inside Christopher Robbins's bedroom, which is
just so much fun. I love that meat and greet.
Over in France you'll find Bell, You'll find Aurora sleeping
Beauty over there. In China you'll find Mulan meeting. In

(22:11):
Germany you can find snow White meeting. So lots of
different princesses and characters that you can find out there
as well. Also, of course, don't forget about the festival
offerings the festival food is so much fun to walk
around and see all the additional booths that they add
because during the festivals there are not only eleven countries
that you can visit, but then there are all these

(22:31):
little pop up food kiosks that are typically representatives of
other countries that you may find. You may find something
like Greece, or you may find Hawaii even or just
other different palettes that you can taste and they give
you a smaller portion size, so it's nice to kind
of snack your way through and try some different things

(22:53):
that maybe you wouldn't normally try if you had to
order a full entree of it. So that is super
fun and also got tons of activities that are typically
associated with those Epcot festivals as well. If you hop
back several episodes on our mom Street feed, you will
find that one of the first hub episodes we did
with Duck and Jess, we did a whole deep dive

(23:15):
on festivals at Epcot. So take a look at that
if you want to know more information about what those
festivals are and like what they have to offer. So
but that is definitely a huge draw at Epcot and
a great thing that you want to take advantage of
whenever you're visiting there, so shows, characters, festivals. We talked
about the attractions a couple other things that are just

(23:36):
fun at Epcot that you can fill your afternoon time with.
Because your lightning lanes are all achieved and accomplished. There's
a really fun DuckTales World Showcase Adventure game that you
can play, and all you need to do is download
the play Disney app on your phone and you can
go through the different countries and kind of get some
storytelling little adventures on your phone, and there are things

(23:59):
that will react in the different countries to the story
that you're being told, so that is a super fun
way to experience World Showcase. There are the aquariums in
the seas and the play places inside of Nemo as
well that you can experience and have fun with. There's
always a playground outside of Creations, so we talked about
Creations earlier. As you're exiting through the side door, there's

(24:23):
always a play area right there for kiddos. There's also
the Image Works play area at the exit of Figment
as well, and then if you are out in the
World Showcase, they do have something called Kidcot that you
can have your kiddo's take participate in as you're going
through the different countries. They have little books or like

(24:44):
little coloring that they can do, and they can talk
to the cast members that are out in those country
pavilions because almost all of them that work in the
pavilions are from the country of the pavilion that you're visiting.
So when you go to Morocco, you're going to have
people that come from Morocco that are working there, so

(25:04):
they are always willing to share information and cultural facts
about their area, which is super fun, especially if you've
got kiddos that are like really into that, like mine are.
Mine have a really fun time doing that over at Epcot,
So that is again another super fun thing that you
can do to kind of fill in some time in
your afternoon. Now you're not gonna have time to do

(25:25):
all of that. You're gonna have to kind of pick
and choose what sounds the most entertaining and it appeals
best to the group that you're traveling in. But those
are all really great options at Epcot that you can
do again with food that will take you kind of
up to and probably through dinner. But I do just
want to mention that typically if you're following this for dinner,

(25:48):
you're gonna end up being out in World Showcase, so
festival booths or any of the quick service options that
they have. There are also a ton of great table service.
So if you think that you're going to have time
to do a table service restaurant, then by all means,
go ahead and book that with Lightning Lanes. I do
think that that is totally possible. Like I said that
you could have the majority of your attractions done before

(26:11):
about four pm, So that could be something that you
do to kind of enjoy the evening after running around
like crazy doing Epcot all throughout the day, and then
anything after dinner that you weren't able to do, or
things that you did by stand by that you want
to do Lightning Lane, or things that you did lightningly

(26:31):
that you want to do, stand by to do it
again because the weights have dropped, that's your time to
do that. That's that clean up time that we have
talked about in all of these episodes. That's kind of
universally the best thing to do after dinner is that
kind of last hurrah. Look at our list and make
sure that we've done everything that we're able to do,
and then do keep in mind that at Epcot, the

(26:54):
nighttime fireworks show that happens over there always happens at
part all almost always. I shouldn't say always, because there
are a few times that it doesn't, but almost always
happens at park close. So park close is for the
majority of the year is nine pm, and that is
when that fireworks show will go off. So you may
have to decide if you want to be in a

(27:16):
line at eight fifty eight pm to try to get
on one last attraction and miss the fireworks show, or
if you're okay with not doing a last attraction and
finding a spot around the World Showcase lagoon for right now,
the show is called Luminous, So depending on your preference

(27:38):
in what your group wants to do, you can kind
of plan your evening accordingly. Do also keep in mind
that in the evening times, especially when they're I think
only when they're a festivals running right now, but I
could be wrong, but especially when they're a festivals running.
There is also a really cute little led light show
with a song that happens on Spaceship Earth, and it's

(27:58):
typically themed to do whatever the current festival is that
they're doing. They've done a couple of different shows on there,
so if that's something that you really like. I really
like those shows. I think they're super fun, but they're
a little tricky to get to if you're all the
way out in the World Showcase, because it is such
a long haul to get to the very front of
the park. So keep that in mind as well. But
if you're already going to be in the front of

(28:19):
the park because you're not planning to watch the fireworks,
then definitely catch that little show on Spaceship Earth because
I think it's a super fun, fun little thing that
they brought these led lights on Spaceship Earth for the
fiftieth anniversary that they did and they've just stuck around
and I love that we still have those on Spaceship Earth.

(28:40):
So that is something that I always like to try
to do when I'm at Epcot, for sure. Okay, so
all of that being said, I think that takes place
of your day with lightning lanes. But now let's talk
about what should we do if we are not using
lightning lanes. So if you are headed to Epcot with
out lightning lanes, A couple things to consider. First of all,

(29:04):
I mentioned this a little bit at Animal Kingdom as well,
But if you are able to scrape just a little
bit of money per person, maybe you don't have enough
to do multi pass for everybody, but maybe you have
enough just to do a single pass and to grab
a Guardians of the Galaxy single pass. That would be

(29:24):
greatly beneficial. If you're someone that has a long list
of rides that you want to accomplish at Epcot, just
because there are so many top tier attractions that people
want to go on that do get lengthy weights, being
able to cut at least one of them will be
a big benefit of your day. Now, if not, totally
understand not everybody's budgets allow them to be able to

(29:48):
do that. Totally understandable. Disney is not cheap, but just
keep that in mind that you're going to hear me
kind of talk about, Okay, you could do this, or
you could do this, or you could do this, because
it really it just depends on that. So again, you're
gonna want to arrive forty five minutes before park open
for rope drop. Remember there are two different entrances. All

(30:11):
of that that we talked about a little bit ago
is going to still apply whether you're using lightning LANs
or not. Right, So a couple options. If you are
entering at International Gateway, which is the Skyliner, Yacht and
Beach and Boardwalk, Swana, Dolphin, those resorts over that direction,
you are going to want to rope drop Remy along

(30:33):
with everyone else, unfortunately, but that is going to be
your best bet for getting on that ride. Now, Remy
does have a single rider line, and most of the
time it's a pretty decent single rider line. So if
your group is someone that is able to utilize single rider,
definitely keep that in mind and do not rope drop
Remy because you do not need to wait in that

(30:55):
line and they may not have single rider open that
early in the day. Do that later, hit it on
your way back around World Showcase. So if you're gonna
do single rider, don't worry about going to Remy first.
So if that's you, then I would maybe do something
like Frozen or Test Track instead. If you are planning
to single rider Remy, if you're entering at the front

(31:16):
of the park by Spaceship Earth, you really have to
decide what is your top option. Three choices that you
have that are all equally great choices and will all
depend on what your group wants the most. But front
of the park rope drop options would be either Guardians

(31:37):
or the Galaxy, Cosmic Rewind Frozen, or Test Track. So
any of those three, whichever one is the top choice
for your group, that's what you're gonna want to rope
drop first. Again, getting there early so you position yourself
in the front of the mass crowd that's going to
be there at rope drop. Going to those same attractions,

(31:59):
you want to make sure that you have to kind
of position yourself accordingly for that, which is why that
forty five minutes at least is super important, so that
you can position yourself because they will kind of let
you in in stages. So at Epcot, at both entrances,
they do have a spot where people are checking for

(32:19):
early entry. So if you've got early entry, you can
tap in earlier than the park officially opens for early
entry and go to those attractions. So I didn't mention
this earlier, but I definitely want to mention it now.
So for example, the last trip that I was on,
we stayed at Ourt of Animation. We entered through the
Skyliner we got there early. We tapped in a little

(32:41):
bit inside of the gate after we like scanned in,
and then once we were cleared that we had early entry,
we went and queued up for Frozen before the queue
even opened. Once the queue opened, we literally walked right
through it and got on the ride. So they will
let you queue up outside of those different tress which
is why it's so important to get there early and

(33:03):
set yourself up for success being in the right positioning.
So you're going to have to choose between again, Cosmic Rewind,
Frozen or Test Track. Now, Test Track also has a
single rider line, and it's a pretty good single rider
line as well, So again same with Remy, if you're
planning the single rider, save it until a little bit
later in the probably late morning, depending on where you're

(33:27):
going to be on and when you're going to be
on that side of the park. So you really just
have to make your decision after that. The earlier you
arrive and the quicker you can get your first ride
done at Rope Drop, the better chance you have at
making it to a second ride without as long of
a line. All of those attractions Remy, Cosmic Rewind, Frozen,

(33:47):
Test Track, are all going to have an hour wait
by eleven o'clock eleven thirty, so you really want to
try to get in and get those done as quickly
as you possibly can and know the order that you
want to do them. So again, Remy is kind of
on an island back in France, so that is something

(34:08):
you really have to plan accordingly for. But if you
look at Test Track and Guardians of the Galaxy, they're
fairly close to each other, so those are pretty easy
to pair together. And then from Test Track, if you
cut by the Odyssey Pavilion to get to Norway, it's
not terrible. It's not great, but it's not terrible. So

(34:31):
Test Track and Frozen would be two ones that I
would group together as my top two rides in for
early entry time. But again, the earlier you get there,
the quicker you get through the queue for your first ride,
the better chance you have at getting in a second
line before those hourweights pop up. So I'm going to

(34:52):
give you kind of a generic ride order for what
I think well you'll probably be able to do with
out using lightning lanes. Keep in mind that you're just
going to have to plan accordingly for when your lunch
and dinner breaks are going to be kind of like
we mentioned earlier, so you're not going to hear me
say well, after this you should break for lunch, because

(35:13):
it's really just going to depend on what time it
is and how quickly you get through these different attractions.
So first, like we said, you're going to choose between
Cosmic Rewind, Frozen, Test Track, Remy and kind of figure
out the best course of action and attack for those
four attractions, because again, those are your top tier, top

(35:37):
e ticket attractions at Epcot. Now, if you don't get
through all of those in the morning, a couple of
different things that you can do, they will about four
to six o'clock typically for that dinner time, even all
the way maybe till seven. Some of those rides do
dip down closer to like a thirty thirty five minute wait.

(35:59):
If you see one of those four rides that I've
been talking about under a forty minute wait, go ride
it because it may not be under that again for
the rest of the night and you don't have lightning
lanes to help you with that. So if you see
it under forty minutes, that is your queue to go
ride it. If you can't wait for forty minutes or
your kiddos can't. You're gonna have to make some tough

(36:22):
decisions and tough choices with that, for sure. So again,
those four are kind of your first ones to tackle.
If you don't have them done in the morning, that's okay,
wait until closer to dinner time or end of the
night to circle back to do any of those top
four ones that you didn't get to in the morning.

(36:42):
After your morning little swoop, I would head to Soorin. Now.
The thing with Sorin is again, depending on the day,
it can sometimes pop up to like a forty five
minute wait by eleven o'clock. Just like those other ones,
it will come back down, so be patient with it.
If Sorin is showing like a forty forty five, just

(37:04):
wait until that four five o'clock in the afternoon and
come back to that. So skip it and move on.
And then I would after that hit Mission Space followed
by Spaceship Earth again. Keep an eye on this weight
time because it is the front of the park. People
like to go there right away. If it's longer than
twenty come back and circle back again. So I know

(37:25):
that sounds like a lot of circling back that I'm
telling you guys to do, But that's just where your
app is going to be your best friend. Unfortunately, it
is what it is. I know a lot of people
don't enjoy the fact that we all have to live
on our phones when we're at Disney, But even if
you're not using lightning lanes, you're still having to check
those weight times on your phone. So sore in Mission Space,
Spaceship Earth. After that, the rest of your list that's

(37:48):
left really easy to get into because that's the Seas
with Nemo and Friends and Turtle Talk, Figment, Living with
the Land, three Cabairos, and then you've got your Meat
and shows that we talked about before as well. So
Epcot is really tricky for half of the park and

(38:09):
really easy for the other half of the park, which
is a little frustrating when it comes to the way
that they do their lightning lanes and things like that
that we talked about earlier. But really, if you can
have a good course of attack for those top four
rides that we talked about, the rest of it will
all fall into place because you'll be able to get
on almost everything else. Within twenty twenty five most days now,

(38:34):
if you're someone that's visiting peak season holidays, you know,
busy weekends, run Disney events, you know, I said holidays,
but like long weekend holidays, right, You're gonna need to
do something with lightning lanes at that point in time. Again,
especially now with test Track being reopen again after the

(38:57):
referb when it was down, was way easier to navigate
without lightning lanes because it was really just remy and frozen,
and at that point in time, Cosmic Rewind was on
a virtual queue. So it's a little frustrating, but I
really do suggest using lightning lanes if you're able to.

(39:18):
Because that list that I just gave you for the
non lightning lanes, you're probably gonna have to skip some
things and make some choices based on your group and
what the wants and needs are for the group that
you're traveling with. So again, like I said, lunch and dinner,
you're just gonna have to find kind of times within
that segment to figure out what makes the most sense

(39:43):
and where you are in the park to grab something
to eat. So after dinner, you may or may not
have a ton of time, depending on what you've done
throughout the day and when you've eaten Again, we always
suggest trying to eat a little before a little after
those peak times. But if there's anything that you haven't done,
or if you're still missing one of those big four

(40:03):
from earlier in the day, your best bet at that
point in time. If it's after dinner and you still
have a top attraction that you want to try to do,
chances are you're not going to be able to do
the fireworks show unless you're willing to wait at whatever
time is posted for that top tier attraction after dinner,

(40:24):
So you really just have to decide after that point
in time. Again, the part closes at the same time
as the nighttime firework show happens, so nine pm closure
would be nine pm Fireworks, which means at eight fifty
nine you are still eligible to get in line, but
once it turns to nine o'clock, those lines are closed
for all of the attractions, So keep that in mind.

(40:46):
Hopefully that at least gave you some framework. You know,
these these itineraries are really tricky because it really does
depend on your particular group and what your top options
are that you're wanting to do. All of that being said,
if you have an upcoming trip and you need help,
and you're like, this is overwhelming, I don't know what

(41:07):
to do. Please reach out to us. Please send us
an email. We would love to hear from you, even
if you don't need help and you just want to
say hi. We would love to hear from all of
our extended mom Street community. We are so thankful for
you guys, so we would love to hear from you.
But if you truly do need help, send me an
email Momstreet USA at gmail dot com. Because I love
helping people with itineraries for their trips, so I would

(41:30):
be more than happy to take a look at your
group figure out what your course of action is, whether
it's lightning lanes or no lightning lanes. I would love
to be able to help you do that, so please
reach out if you need assistance with any of those
types of things. So that pretty much wraps up our
one day at Epcot. Again, this is in the middle

(41:50):
of our one day park series that we are working on.
We are just a few parks away from kind of
wrapping this up for this year, and then come twenty
twenty six we are going to have something else. Who
knows we'll have to wait and see, but do keep
in mind you can always find us on our platforms

(42:11):
wherever you listen to podcasts, and on our YouTube as well.
We are mom street USA on all of the places
that you would want look to find us, so please
be sure that you're following us there so you don't
ever miss anything. There have been a few exclusive youtubes
that have been posted that have not really been run
anywhere else. The whole conversation that we had about Epic

(42:31):
Universe just a few weeks ago whenever I got back
from my trip there is on our YouTube and exists
only there, so if you want to check that out,
be sure to pop over to our YouTube channel for that,
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(42:51):
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we typically will post a little bit of exclusive content
over there, hoping to really start to utilize that a
lot more even in the new year of twenty twenty six,

(43:13):
as we look forward to Continuing on with our journey
of helping families make their trips to Disney even easier
is the overall goal. So thank you guys all so
much for being here for this episode of Mom Street USA.
I really appreciate you all tuning in and I hope
to hear from some of you soon and I will

(43:34):
catch you on the next episode of Mom Street USA. Bye. Everyone,