Attractions We Skipped at Disney World’s Epcot
Our family of 5 vacationed at Disney World this past January. This was our yearly pilgrimage to Disney, as we our Disney Vacation Club members. (They hooked us when we honeymooned here and they treated us like royalty.) Our family includes myself and my husband and our three kids, our 7 year old daughter, our 5 year old son, and our one year old son. During this trip we opted to visit Epcot twice. This was a first for us. Generally we visit Epcot once, but I’ve always found there was so much that was getting missed, so we decided on this trip we would spread out the park to two days. Hoping this would allow us to see more and go at a more relaxed pace. Despite spending two park days at Epcot, we did skip some attractions. 8 in fact. Take a look a which attractions we didn’t take in this vacation and why.
Reflections of China
This is attraction is found in the Chinese pavilion and is a 14 minute film. We’ve seen this before when we’ve visited as a couple but still haven’t found our kids to be old enough to enjoy, let along sit through, this film. It’s a beautiful depiction of the many areas of China, highlighting beautiful landscape and their metropolitan cities. Once the kids are old, probably middle school age, we’ll be sure to include this in our itinerary.
The American Adventure
I am sad to say that we have never, ever done this attraction. It’s got to be one of the only attractions that we have NEVER experienced before. This is a historic retelling of America’s history, featuring many animatronics. The show includes familiar patriotic songs and lasts 30 minutes. We opted not to take this in because with a one year old, there’s no way anyone would have enjoyed themselves.
Gallery of Arts and History
Many of the pavilions have galleries, if we see a lot of people coming and going from them we opt to go in with our three small children, one in a stroller. But on the day we were in the Morocco pavilion, the doors were shut and we didn’t see anyone coming or going which meant we weren’t going to attempt a visit.
Beauty and the Beast Sing-A-Long
We can’t wait to take in this Beauty and the Beast Sing-A-Long film. When we were visiting in January, they were in the middle of creating this new experience so we weren’t able to partake this time but you’d better believe we’ll be seeing it the next visit.
Canada Far and Wide
Just like the film in China, Canada Far and Wide is a film depicting the country. It’s a 14 minute film showing guests many beautiful views of Canada. We haven’t seen this version, it was recently updated from the former O Canada! To ask littles to stand and watch a film for 14 minutes is not going to be a pleaser, so we’ll likely continue to skip this one until the middle school years.
Disney and Pixar Short Film Festival
This is a 3D film experience. Our one year old, will not keep on 3D glasses, understandably. And with so many other things to see and do Epcot, I just didn’t want to spend time inside watching films we could watch at home. If we had been visiting on rainy days, we probably would have spent time doing this attraction but our days were sunny and beautiful. Making it hard to rationalize sitting indoors for 20 minutes.
Awesome Planet
This film is found in The Land, one of our favourite places in Epcot. When we were visiting in January this film had not yet been opened. They were in the middle of changing it over from the previous film that had been here for many years, The Circle of Life. I would expect we’ll check it out on our next trip.
Mission: SPACE
This one’s kind of a cheat, because half of us did this attraction. My husband and our 7 year old daughter went on Mission: SPACE. My 5 year old son and I opted not to. I’ve had terrible motion sickness since having kids, and our son also get car sick. So we thought it was best for everyone that we sat this one out. Instead, Lincoln, our 5 year old, got to sit and enjoy his massive lollipop he’d just purchased. Win all around.
About half of the attractions we skipped were because they weren’t open yet and the others were because they just weren’t appropriate for our kids yet. None of it had to do with time. Spending two days at Epcot was a fantastic idea for our family. We loved taking our time exploring World Showcase by discovering each Kidcot spot. We enjoyed delicious food at Garden Grill and Biergarten. And stopped to watch a few of the pavilion performances. There’s always so much to explore at each of the parks but you’re always bound to miss, or skip something.
For more posts on Epcot, check out these previous posts:
Where to have breakfast at Epcot
