Here's a little New Years Eve recap with pics from Epcot from yours truly.
I got to the park just after a lovely 7am EST. Ran like the dickens from the International Gateway over to Soarin to get a ride before the crowds made it impossible and found the park pretty-much empty.
Whoo hoo, resort guest perks like the Extra Magic Hours at 7am do come in handy! That wouldn't last though. After a short flight on Soarin' we trekked over to Test Track and since it was playing the "This vehicle testing facility is currently experiencing technical difficulties..." speil we decided to grab a few FP's and just wander until our time came around.
So, wander we did...
Things got nastey over at Spaceship Earth pretty quickly once the park actually opened to day guests at 8am. Crowds just started to flow into the park. On a normal day Epcot does not use it's parking lot beyond a few sections - today it filled the entire parking lot (using both trams lines) and closed it.
So plentiful numbers of guests streamed in past Spaceship Earth all through the morning and afternoon until the parking lot went kaput.
From what I saw, Spaceship Earth peaked at around a 75min wait. The ride moves around 2,200 guests an hour. The queue used the entire hard queue, a soft switchback running the length of the east side of the building and then another soft extension along the west length that was exceeded and the line began to back up into Innoventions plaza.
This photo shows the "Your wait is ... from here." sign at the end of the west extension. It says 60mins, but there's about 15mins beyond it.
In other Spaceship Earth news - pieces and parts for the new postshow (and possibly other work on the attraction) could be seen backstage when guests were detoured into backstage during and after the 7:30pm showing of Illuminations. The walkway connected a walkway by China's bridge and one near Mexico to the service road that runs around Epcot, past the Cast Services building (and the backside of Norway and Mexico), the old SSE's trellis metal statue at the CM bus loop, then under Test Track's outer-loop (right past TT's vehicle repair shop) to re-enter the park between Test Track and M:S.
Nothing amazingly special was on display, just lots of metal and sheet goods, but they were interestingly enough labeled "Starship Earth."
Oh, and in Epcot's Entertainment services warehouse there was a big interesting shiny metal gold looking swirly something or another. Just think big brushed metal swirlies and you get the idea. Probably just decor for events and such.
Back during daylight hours and in the park.. It got crowded. Someone told me that even though Epcot only closed parking and didn't reach physical capacity like MK, it still had more people for NYE. I wonder if that's true. Certainly felt like tons of people.
I made a loop around World Showcase to escape the crowds at one point - without much luck. The American Adventure was completely full. The Voices of Liberty were inviting guests to scoot as far in to them as possible on the rotunda floor to allow room for other people in the preshow area.
Over in France, Impressions de France ran to a full house. I've never seen the preshow completely full of people wall-to-wall standing room only. More like wiggle room only actually, could barely breath in there. They were running around try to find seats for people in the last seconds before the film started.
Then we went to cross the bridge from France in the UK...
Run away! Run away!
Too many people. That's the path from the UK leading to Canada. I kinda decided it was at that point I wasn't really going to get to enjoy very many attractions in the park. Even the films in World Showcase were starting to become difficult to get into.
Back in Future World, we slept on the floor of "southern" Innoventions West. It's the empty hallway behind the Fountainview Espresso and Bakery (which was open all day! Whoo hoo!) that is sometimes used for special events shopping places. It's air conditioned, large, and has carpeting. Better then camping outside in the heat on the grass like hundreds of others. One girl I saw got the best spot - she crashed out on the giant easy chair in the Pooh meet/greet in the UK.
After being awakened a few times by the people unloading into our peaceful hallway from Character Connection (the character meet/greet in what used to be an Italian Restaurant next to the Foutainview) we wandered out to see how the world was doing. Nemo was getting ugly.
There in the distance is The seas with Nemo and Friends - note the large line extending from the building and across the bridge toward me as I take the photo...
And then notice the line curving around the side entrance to Innoventions West..
Oh, and look, there is it, smack dab in the middle of the West breezeway with its little uniformed CM's trying to keep the kaos at a minimum. Look, you can see the window-dressings for the Character Connection on the right and if you look really hard, you can probably see someone sleeping on the floor in the hallway back there.
I hope DL's subs have lots and lots of extra stantion poles ready to be setup for they open their ride. And speaking of long lines... El Rio del Tiempo. Who knew?
You'd think they were giving away free tortillas or something. I wonder if after the makeover to 3 Cabs the line will always be this long. The pretty woman in the dress is directing people to the queue on the left side of the temple - rather then through the doors into the plaza where the shops and restaurant and normal entrance to the ride are.
The line switchbacks a few times right there infront of the temple, then goes around the side, into a side entrance of the foyer, past the mexican wood carvers, down the ramp, along the left side of the pavilion past the shops, then into more switchbacks erected infront of the San Angel restaurant, before going into the hard queue switchbacks that lead down to the loading area.
Wow.. folks deserve a free tortilla for going through all that just to see El Rio del Tiempo. Can't wait to see Donald on the ride come April.
Long lines abounded. At once point you couldn't tell which line was for HISTA and which line was for Journey into Imaignation as they became a mess infront of the Imagination building. Journey got up to like 45minutes.
Over in East Future World, Universe of Energy wrapped around the fountain and started creeping up the ramp into the Wonder of Life. At it's peak, it held a 3-show wait (roughly 30mins.)
Inside Wonders of Life, decent sized crowds formed midday, though they waned at times and were gone by the evening. Body Wars held a queue midday and managed to extend beyond the 2 dermatropic decontamination chambers which is roughly 30-45 minutes. A lot of that is probably a direct result of Energy's line and unload (which tends to point people right into Wonders).
I got to the park just after a lovely 7am EST. Ran like the dickens from the International Gateway over to Soarin to get a ride before the crowds made it impossible and found the park pretty-much empty.
Whoo hoo, resort guest perks like the Extra Magic Hours at 7am do come in handy! That wouldn't last though. After a short flight on Soarin' we trekked over to Test Track and since it was playing the "This vehicle testing facility is currently experiencing technical difficulties..." speil we decided to grab a few FP's and just wander until our time came around.
So, wander we did...
Things got nastey over at Spaceship Earth pretty quickly once the park actually opened to day guests at 8am. Crowds just started to flow into the park. On a normal day Epcot does not use it's parking lot beyond a few sections - today it filled the entire parking lot (using both trams lines) and closed it.
So plentiful numbers of guests streamed in past Spaceship Earth all through the morning and afternoon until the parking lot went kaput.
From what I saw, Spaceship Earth peaked at around a 75min wait. The ride moves around 2,200 guests an hour. The queue used the entire hard queue, a soft switchback running the length of the east side of the building and then another soft extension along the west length that was exceeded and the line began to back up into Innoventions plaza.
This photo shows the "Your wait is ... from here." sign at the end of the west extension. It says 60mins, but there's about 15mins beyond it.
In other Spaceship Earth news - pieces and parts for the new postshow (and possibly other work on the attraction) could be seen backstage when guests were detoured into backstage during and after the 7:30pm showing of Illuminations. The walkway connected a walkway by China's bridge and one near Mexico to the service road that runs around Epcot, past the Cast Services building (and the backside of Norway and Mexico), the old SSE's trellis metal statue at the CM bus loop, then under Test Track's outer-loop (right past TT's vehicle repair shop) to re-enter the park between Test Track and M:S.
Nothing amazingly special was on display, just lots of metal and sheet goods, but they were interestingly enough labeled "Starship Earth."
Oh, and in Epcot's Entertainment services warehouse there was a big interesting shiny metal gold looking swirly something or another. Just think big brushed metal swirlies and you get the idea. Probably just decor for events and such.
Back during daylight hours and in the park.. It got crowded. Someone told me that even though Epcot only closed parking and didn't reach physical capacity like MK, it still had more people for NYE. I wonder if that's true. Certainly felt like tons of people.
I made a loop around World Showcase to escape the crowds at one point - without much luck. The American Adventure was completely full. The Voices of Liberty were inviting guests to scoot as far in to them as possible on the rotunda floor to allow room for other people in the preshow area.
Over in France, Impressions de France ran to a full house. I've never seen the preshow completely full of people wall-to-wall standing room only. More like wiggle room only actually, could barely breath in there. They were running around try to find seats for people in the last seconds before the film started.
Then we went to cross the bridge from France in the UK...
Run away! Run away!
Too many people. That's the path from the UK leading to Canada. I kinda decided it was at that point I wasn't really going to get to enjoy very many attractions in the park. Even the films in World Showcase were starting to become difficult to get into.
Back in Future World, we slept on the floor of "southern" Innoventions West. It's the empty hallway behind the Fountainview Espresso and Bakery (which was open all day! Whoo hoo!) that is sometimes used for special events shopping places. It's air conditioned, large, and has carpeting. Better then camping outside in the heat on the grass like hundreds of others. One girl I saw got the best spot - she crashed out on the giant easy chair in the Pooh meet/greet in the UK.
After being awakened a few times by the people unloading into our peaceful hallway from Character Connection (the character meet/greet in what used to be an Italian Restaurant next to the Foutainview) we wandered out to see how the world was doing. Nemo was getting ugly.
There in the distance is The seas with Nemo and Friends - note the large line extending from the building and across the bridge toward me as I take the photo...
And then notice the line curving around the side entrance to Innoventions West..
Oh, and look, there is it, smack dab in the middle of the West breezeway with its little uniformed CM's trying to keep the kaos at a minimum. Look, you can see the window-dressings for the Character Connection on the right and if you look really hard, you can probably see someone sleeping on the floor in the hallway back there.
I hope DL's subs have lots and lots of extra stantion poles ready to be setup for they open their ride. And speaking of long lines... El Rio del Tiempo. Who knew?
You'd think they were giving away free tortillas or something. I wonder if after the makeover to 3 Cabs the line will always be this long. The pretty woman in the dress is directing people to the queue on the left side of the temple - rather then through the doors into the plaza where the shops and restaurant and normal entrance to the ride are.
The line switchbacks a few times right there infront of the temple, then goes around the side, into a side entrance of the foyer, past the mexican wood carvers, down the ramp, along the left side of the pavilion past the shops, then into more switchbacks erected infront of the San Angel restaurant, before going into the hard queue switchbacks that lead down to the loading area.
Wow.. folks deserve a free tortilla for going through all that just to see El Rio del Tiempo. Can't wait to see Donald on the ride come April.
Long lines abounded. At once point you couldn't tell which line was for HISTA and which line was for Journey into Imaignation as they became a mess infront of the Imagination building. Journey got up to like 45minutes.
Over in East Future World, Universe of Energy wrapped around the fountain and started creeping up the ramp into the Wonder of Life. At it's peak, it held a 3-show wait (roughly 30mins.)
Inside Wonders of Life, decent sized crowds formed midday, though they waned at times and were gone by the evening. Body Wars held a queue midday and managed to extend beyond the 2 dermatropic decontamination chambers which is roughly 30-45 minutes. A lot of that is probably a direct result of Energy's line and unload (which tends to point people right into Wonders).
holy crowds!! Thanks for the pics!!
