How We Did Every Attraction in Epcot (with the help of Genie)

 

We recently returned from another successful trip to Walt Disney World.  I've had a lot of thoughts over the years on how best to "beat" each park and we had some opportunities to test out these various theories over the course of a week.  I'm going to be talking about some of these here, and the first one today will be about Epcot.  This is going to challenge or perhaps revise an old opinion of mine related to Genie+ and talk about some options whether you choose to purchase it or not.

The day that I'm going to focus on here today was our first day in the parks.  We had an incredibly early flight to Orlando, and were therefore at our resort by mid-morning.  After leaving our bags and reorganizing things we'd need to take with us, we walked from the Boardwalk over to Epcot, arriving right around 11:00 a.m.

Crowd Report - New York Week (Boots on the Ground Style)

 

Even when I'm not in the parks, I like to look at wait time data.  That information can help be predictive, and can also show where we (and Disney) were right and wrong, once the actual crowds play out over the course of a week (or more).  I tend to post about these things here, since it doesn't necessarily need me to be at the parks in order to analyze trends.  I most recently discussed this here, if you were curious.

So even though the week of 4/20-4/26 wasn't a "big" week by most measures, I wanted to do an analysis of the crowds here since I can not only look at the data but supplement it with my own personal observations since we were there.  We can look at how our week was compared to those around it, and what factors may have contributed to these levels.  As always, the data here comes from Thrill Data.  

Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind Review

 

This may be old news to some of you, but Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind opened at Epcot about a month after we had visited in 2022.  Just recently we had our first opportunities to ride this attraction, so I wanted to post my thoughts on this.  We'll talk about how to ride, how it stacks up to other recent additions and address some of the questions and concerns that have been talked about since the ride opened.

For some background, Guardians is the first ever coaster at Epcot (which is an impressive feat, given that Epcot has now been open for more than 40 years).  The pavilion that houses the coaster replaced the Universe of Energy pavilion, which closed in 2017.  Originally announced as opening in 2021, this attraction, like so many things, was delayed by Covid and eventually opened on May 27, 2022.

Boardwalk Inn & Villas Review

 

 We recently had a chance to stay at Disney's Boardwalk Villas, which is the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) side of Disney's Boardwalk Inn.  In this post, we'll share some thoughts about this deluxe resort, most notably how it compares to a couple of other ones where we've stayed in recent years.  

The Boardwalk (as I'll refer to it from here on in this post - too many names for what amounts to the same thing) is a resort on Crescent Lake.  It shares the lake with the Yacht Club and Beach Club, as well as being in proximity to the Swan and Dolphin.  That makes this area rather unique, as you can easily see and visit multiple resorts in a small area.  I wouldn't say that all of these resorts blend together (certainly not the Swan and Dolphin!) but many of the things I have to say about Boardwalk will apply to Beach and Yacht Club as well, given their close proximity to each other.

Progress on Disney World Expansion Projects

 

For months - years, in some cases - Disney has been talking a good game about new and upcoming major changes to the parks.  Bob Iger and Josh D'Amaro have reiterated their stance, at every opportunity, that major parks investments were coming in the next decade, to the tune of $60 billion.  This was exciting news for Disney fans!  Disney (the corporation) has been focusing most of its attention on streaming and other related media, including how to handle Hulu and ESPN.  But it always remained true that parks was its most profitable sector, and things seemed to be turning back in that direction.

The question was more about "when" than "if", though even that had some caveats.  Disney has officially announced things in the past that end up not happening.  So you'll forgive those of us who were in "wait and see" mode when some of these blue sky concepts were being thrown around at the last couple of D23 events.  Looking back at what we wrote then, so much of this seems very speculative, perhaps as a way to keep fans engaged and looking to the future while Universal charged ahead with Epic Universe.  

Spring Break 2024 - A Tale of Two Crowds

 

I haven't done a crowd report in a while, so I thought this was as good a time as any.  I made a couple of different posts about this last year, so I wanted to see how things compared from year to year.  We'll take a look at that here, including what I THOUGHT would happen, versus would ACTUALLY happened, and see if we can make any predictions for the rest of this spring, as there are plenty of vacations still to come (including our own!).

I usually focus a lot on crowds at this time of year since this is often the time that we take trips to Disney World.  Spring Break is an interesting time, as it's not the same as other busy/holiday weeks, since it's more spread out over a month or more, depending on how school breaks and Easter fall.  That was actually one of the most interesting things leading up to the start of the season in earnest this year, as there was no consensus week for school breaks.

Walt Disney World News Round Up - March 2024

 

Picture courtesy of Disney Parks Blog

There have been a few pieces of Disney parks news that has dropped in the last week or so.  Every time I saw something pop up, I considered writing a blog post about it, but I didn't know if it was in itself worthy enough of a whole post.  But now that we have a few things that have been collected, I figured I'd write a quick post that encompasses all of them, along with some of my commentary that you've come to love.  So let's get started:

CommuniCore Hall Open Date & Encanto Live Show:

Epcot has been undergoing its most recent transformation for what feels like forever.  Most everything has been completed and has already opened.  The one exception to that was the completion of CommuniCore Hall, which is going to be used as the "home to the iconic Epcot festivals and other celebrations" (Disney's words).  This is simply a building (and similar to what was there before) but it will represent the final stage of the Epcot overhaul.

Construction on this building had been going on for a while, but in recent months, progress had slowed to a crawl.  If you compare timed photos from CommuniCore Hall and Tiana's Bayou Adventure in Magic Kingdom, you can tell where the company's priority has been (and probably with good reason, if we're being honest).