Epcot at Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL | The Adventuring Abbeys Vlog

Visiting Florida has become an annual thing for us and in 2022, we visited Walt Disney World. We had limited time on our vacation though (because we still wanted to visit Sea World and Busch Gardens as well), so we made the decision to only visit 3 of the 4 Disney Parks – and Epcot is the park that got cut.

So when we planned our Florida trip for 2023, Derrick and I each sat down and made a list of “what would make us happy” during our visit – and Epcot was at the top of my list.

Epcot ended up making “the cut” and it was the only Disney Park we visited this year (Derrick has a video running through the numbers of what it cost us to visit Epcot for one day – yikes!) but it was completely worth it.

Knowing that Epcot is a MASSIVE park, we did a TON of research on how to best “attack” the park and get the most out of our day. We watched a bunch of YouTube videos, refreshing and catching up on the latest Lightning Lane and Virtual Queue policies (since we’d be using both of those features). And we ended up pretty much following this video’s “ideal day strategy” to “plan” out our day – and it ended up working FANTASTIC!

We were able to hit up all the major attractions and we skipped the longest lines by utilizing the Virtual Queue system for Guardians of the Galaxy and Lightning Lanes for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Test Track, and Soarin’. We had lunch at the Garden Grill Restaurant and met Mickey, Chip and Dale, and Pluto. We happened to walk by the Elsa and Anna meet and greet when the line was short, so we were able to visit the princesses (which was a huge highlight of our day). We stuffed ourselves full of delicious food and stayed until the very end of the night to watch the fireworks.

It was a FULL but FUN day. And it flew by faster than ever.

And because – what’s a blog post without photos? Here are “a few” (these are a mix of iPhone snaps & photos taken with my “big” camera) – Epcot is such a gorgeous park that there might be more than just “a few” here – oh well.

Oh man, I could definitely go for one of these MASSIVE cookies and a Viking Coffee right now!

I’ve been to Epcot during the Flower and Garden festival before, but it’s been so long – the flowers and displays really knocked our socks off!

Lunch at the Garden Grill Restaurant and meeting Mickey, Chip and Dale, and Pluto was a HUGE highlight of the entire day – what an amazing experience!

As much as I, personally, loved meeting the classic characters, I think my kids loved meeting Elsa and Anna just a little bit more. I’ll never forget the look in Leander’s eyes when he saw them – he was completely star-struck!