attractions Archives • diy mama

EPCOT is my second favorite place to hang out when we go to Disney. It’s the first place I recommend other people to go if they don’t have small children. It’s AMAZING and you can easily spend open to close there and still not see everything (especially if it’s busy season.) The main reason I recommend EPCOT is for the World Showcase but I’m going to go over my favorite attractions in all of EPCOT.

If you need some music to get you in the mood, here ya go! 47 minutes of the wonderful sounds of EPCOT! Just a warning…it gets pretty…interesting at minute 20.

Now I’m ready to sprint through the gates! I don’t know about you, but I always feel like running once I get through the gates of the parks. No? Ok, just me then. First stop, once we get to EPCOT, is Spaceship Earth! I like it more since they did the update a few years back. It’s a classic that sets the tone and gets us excited to be in this park!

Next, we head to The Land to get a Fastpass for Soarin’. They can sell out and we don’t want to be forced into waiting in that line but it’s so worth it to smell those orange groves! I always have to go on Living with the Land. It’s different every time we go because they’re always growing a variety of fruits and vegetables. I’d love to go on the behind the scenes tour of their facility someday. After getting inspired to grow a garden, we head to chat it up with Crush at Turtle Talk in The Seas with Nemo and Friends. We also always stop there to learn about sharks with Bruce and feed the manatees. Now is a good time to remind you that I never go with kids. This is fun as an adult!

We stop at Soarin’ before we head over to Test Track. Test Track is the only other ride that you’d really need to get a Fastpass for in EPCOT if you wanted to plan ahead. At this point I’d recommend to go to Mission: SPACE but I got motion sickness from it so I don’t go on it anymore. I know a lot of people that like it though! We usually walk through one of the Innovations buildings just to see if anything is new but it’s mostly for kids. Every few years we’ll go to the Smart Home that they have to show the latest technology for your home. If you’re a Michael Jackson fan or had gone to Disney growing up, you have to stop at Captain EO!

NOW for my second favorite part of Disney World (after the Castle). World Showcase!!! I can, and do, spend an entire day just at the showcase. Every single country has something interesting to do, see or eat and it’s nice to take it slow to take it all in. We usually start in Mexico and work our way around the world watching shows and eating…everything. 😉 I’ll save the food suggestions for another post. This area is also where you can meet some of the Prince and Princesses who aren’t in Magic Kingdom.

The Gran Fiesta Tour in Mexico is pretty cute but I’d recommend just going into the pyramid. It’s set up like a bazaar and they often have a mariachi band playing inside. Norway is next where you HAVE to go on the Maelstrom. It still scares me and I don’t think it’s supposed to be scary. China is next where we always watch the Jeweled Dragon Acrobats.

The Biergarten restaurant in Germany has a very fun Oktoberfest Musikantan but you have to eat in the restaurant to see the show (which we do every time we go). Italy has a super awesome juggler named Sergio who is super talented and funny! Italy also has some great shopping. If you like a cappella singing, you should definitely stop in America to see Voices of Liberty. The acoustics in the room they sing in are amazing.

Japan has super huge, loud Taiko drummers that are a must see! They also have a fun store where you can choose a clam and buy the pearl to be put into jewelry! My favorite part of Japan is Miyuki who molds liquid candy into animals. We dance into Morocco to see MoRockin and the belly dancer. She actually encouraged me to take two belly dancing courses in town because I loved watching her dance and I wanted to get a skirt like hers (as well as her stomach). 😉 We head over to France for some fragrance and jewelry shopping.

I really enjoy the UK and Canada, which is why I leave them for last. I’ve always loved the bands in the UK. Brittish Invasion first and now Brittish Revolution. The music is always so happy and I usually know all the songs. They encourage singing and dancing and it’s always a good time. This last time we were there it started pouring so we stepped into the Rose & Crown for a drink. The Hat Lady was performing and was hilarious. Unfortunately, she stopped performing there last year and I’m not sure what is there now. Off Kilter is in Canada and they’re my very favorite thing to see in the World Showcase. I even have their CDs. They’ve been performing there since I worked there in 06′ and are super nice guys and great performers.

Last, but certainly not least, you must stay for Illuminations: Reflections of Earth. It’s an awesome nighttime show with fireworks, great music and lasers! You can see it from any country but will want to get a spot against the lake early if you’ve never seen it. Everything at EPCOT is worth seeing if you have enough time. The things I’ve mentioned are my favorite things to see and do! What’s your favorite attraction at EPCOT? Anything you love that I left out? Have you seen the show that’s replaced The Hat Lady? I’m going to go watch Illuminations on YouTube now… who’s with me?!

Sorry if the title was misleading, this is not a risque version of Disney attractions. You can stop reading now if that’s what you were looking for. This is the first post of my 8 week Disney Attractions series! Each series I’ll discuss one of my most asked about topics regarding Disney World. The first 8 weeks I’m going to go over the top adult and kid attractions at each park in Disney World. If you’d like to know more about a topic or have different questions to ask, please don’t be shy!

I feel that I’m able to give my two cents regarding Disney World because I went there as a child, worked there in college and have been back nearly every year since. Some people may call it a problem but I call it a ~~obsession~~ passion. I am extremely passionate about very few things and Disney is one of my top 3. Everything about Disney makes me get butterflies in my stomach. Writing this series will never seem complete to me because Disney is always changing and there’s always so much to discover, but I will do my best!

**Biggest tip I have for getting to see the attractions you are most interested in: get the Disney Mobile App to check on wait times for rides as well as make reservations for ANYTHING!**

I will break this down by park and REALLY try not to get too wordy! The first park we’ll visit is Magic Kingdom because that’s where I worked and feel most sentimental about. 😉 I worked in Fantasyland as a ride operator (best job in my opinion) for Snow White’s Scary Adventure (no longer there), The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups. *Proof that I wore that ridiculous costume (they call them costumes instead of uniforms because we’re ‘on stage’ when we’re in front of guests.)

On to the rides! I’m going to go through them as if I was going through the park, rather than in order of my favorites, because there are different categories of ‘favorites.’ Whenever we go to the park we stroll straight up Main Street, get a few pictures with ~~my home~~ the castle and turn left to knock out Adventureland and Frontierland. Those are my least favorite lands because there are only a couple of attractions and good food places (in my opinion.) First, we get a Fastpass for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and get in line for Splash Mountain so we can air dry through the day. We only visit the parks in September and October when it’s still warm and the longest wait time is 20 minutes. I understand they have an MagicBand system now that you can get your Fastpass times before you arrive at the park but I haven’t been there since they started using it (earlier this year.) After Thunder Mountain we head for Pirates of the Caribbean where we usually end up getting a little wet.

The next must-do attraction is the only attraction we like in Liberty Square- Haunted Mansion. Going through the ‘fun que’ will actually put you behind by a couple people but we always go through it anyway! By this time we’ve already technically seen almost half of the park! Every few years we go back to see some of the attractions we skipped like Tom Sawyer Island, Jungle Cruise and Swiss Family Treehouse but we never stop to see them until we’ve been through the entire park and enjoyed our favorite attractions. By the way, I still get scared during the Haunted Mansion and have to close my eyes at certain parts. Some day I’ll grow up.

Since the Haunted Mansion is right next to Fantasyland, we head on over to Peter Pan’s Flight to get a Fastpass and go ride It’s a Small World while we wait. I know. NO ONE likes Small World but it has air conditioning, has small lines, is full of glitter and lets you rest your feet!! All great things in my book. Once we wave adios at Small World we hit up Peter Pan (ALWAYS get a Fastpass for this ride or you WILL be let down. The line is deceptive because it swirls all over the place.) After Pan we go watch Mickey’s PhilharMagic which is one of my FAVORITE attractions in all of Magic Kingdom. I just really love singing, seeing all my favorite characters and smelling that apple pie!

After the fun at Philhar we go see THE Castle. *sigh* It’s just so wonderful! There’s really not a ton to do other than look at the mosaic, take pictures and make a wish at the wishing well but it’s really my favorite part of the entire park. Actually, I’m going to go ahead and say of the entire World. These are pictures from the past few times we visited. First picture was our first time together, second picture was our engagement, third picture was a surprise trip and fourth was our anniversary.

Once I’m done daydreaming that the Castle is my home, we ride Prince Charming Regal Carousel because there’s never a line, I like running around until I find the perfect horse and I love the music. We always take a ride in Pooh’s honey pot and the Tea Cups because I worked there, but they’re not rides I usually suggest to people until they’ve been on their favorite rides. Don’t get me wrong, they’re AWESOME rides, I just know it’s hard to fit everything in during busy season.

New Fantasyland is REALLY cool and has some awesome attractions but most of them are for younger kids. The Seven Dwarfs Mine ride will be open sometime in the next few months though, so I’d add that to the list once it’s open. Tomorrowland is our final land before taking it easy and leisurely seeing the remaining attractions we skipped over. First off we get a Fastpass for Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin and head over to Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. After major laughs with Mike, we go ride Space Mountain. My favorite seat is in the front row. Never be afraid to ask for a certain seat. The grouper will put you to the side until the next car but it’s totally worth it once you get to sit where you want. On some rides it makes all the difference!

We’ve now experienced the BEST of the BEST in the way of attractions for adults at the most Magic(al) Kingdom. Once we go through this order of attractions we go back and visit whichever ones we missed…or just people watch…or eat a lot of food. 😉 Did I miss any? Any that you detest or can’t get enough of, even as an adult?! Can you believe I was going to put all 4 parks together for this post?! WHEW. That would have been outrageous. Man I’m feeling homesick.

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