Until January 6th, guests at Epcot can enjoy El Mariachi Coco de Santa Cecilia in Mexico at Epcot. The group is performing songs from Coco including the beautiful ‘Remember Me’ and the heartwarming ‘The World Es Mi Familia’ at the outdoor character greeting location.
Each night, a celebrity narrator tells the biblical tale of a savior born to a virgin in Bethlehem at the Epcot Candlelight Processional. All the while, gorgeous choral pieces are woven into the production as an orchestra and choir provide an inspirational backdrop with songs of hope and joy. While the event is always quite special, it was extra so special this weekend as Disney Legend Kurt Russell narrated the amazing offering. Russell has appeared in films such as Sky High and Stargate (as well as some live-action Disney classics) and recent features including The Hateful Eight, Fast and Furious 8, and Guardians of the Galaxy 2. You can enjoy Sunday’s 5pm show in its entirety (with multiple angles) below:
The 2018 Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival will feature seven new and 17 total artists for the Garden Rocks concert series.
This is the 25th year of the Garden Rocks series and will feature rock, pop, country, R&B and dance artists from the 1960s through the 2000s.
Popular acts in the upcoming lineup include Smash Mouth, Rick Springfield, Lonestar, Village People, and STARSHIP starring Mickey Thomas.
Here’s the full lineup for the 2018 Garden Rocks series (subject to change without notice):
Performances begin at 5:30, 6:45 and 8 p.m. and are located at America Gardens Theatre every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday at the Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival.
All concerts are included with Epcot admission.
We continue our series of reviews of the booths for the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays this year by visiting the Alsace Holiday Kitchen today. This marketplace can be found in the France pavilion in World Showcase.
Here’s the menu:
This is a nice departure from other festival items since it is served cold, and it delivers in the flavor department. The brioche is really nice and the salmon quite flavorful with the cream having a taste akin to a cream cheese.
It looks like cat food, which is a little off putting, but it tasted good. In fairness, it’s hard to go wrong with turkey, mushrooms, and sweet potato.
This was a huge disappointment. It has a chocolate cake flavor and that’s really all you can say about it. If you want a chocolate dessert, I again refer you to Les Halles (the France bakery) which has a pretty amazing Yule Log for sale right now.
The wine slush that is so popular at other festivals is back here with a twist. Sadly, that twist makes it less memorable than the similar offerings at other Epcot events. If you want “rum juice” then you should get this, but otherwise I would skip it.
On a side note, they gave us a cup that was pretty much not completely assembled and then refused to make us a new drink in a new cup (and yes, we were going to give this one back). I can’t begin to tell you the anxiety had during this photo shoot that the slush was just going to fall off of the base.
You can do much better elsewhere at Epcot if you like sparkling wine, this one just tastes very syrupy.
Since it was announced at the D23 Expo 2017, very little has been said about the Guardians of the Galaxy attraction coming to Epcot, other than that it will be a roller coaster ride. Well, thanks to some internal documents, we now have a better idea of what this attraction will be like…
Guests will enter where they once did, but this doorway will now take them into the Welcome Gallery. This area consists of ramps leading upwards towards the next part of the queue. The building appears to be on multiple levels, with guests climbing upwards as the queue progresses to reach the elevated load platform for the roller coaster.
The second queue room is the Xandar Gallery, likely to feature relics from the Xandarian culture (prominently featured in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie). This then leads the the merge point and the first pre-show, labeled in documents as “singularity”. You may recall that the Infinity Stones are referred to as singularities by The Collector in the first Guardians film. They are also a source of energy (wink, nudge). Regardless, we’re just speculating that the Infinity Stones will be the connection here, but something completely different could be happening in this room.
The “transformation room” in the Guardians of the Galaxy ride at Epcot
The secondary pre-show, the transformation room, is what you see above. There will be two of these for added capacity. Inside, some sort of transformation will take place for guests involving the red cannon-like device above Rocket Raccoon and Groot. The characters and the Milano ship will be projections. The attraction does not appear to have any audio-animatronic characters.
After this, guests then head down a hallway and upstairs to the load area. The attractions features a dual-load and unload, meaning two trains at a time. Coaster trains for the ride feature 5 cars that hold four guests each with a two-by-two seating configuration. In case you don’t want to do math, that means a train can hold 20 guests.
A rough idea of the layout for the Guardians fo the Galaxy attraction at Epcot
After loading and being dispatched, the trains take a quick trip around the load area and head into the launch tunnel, where they are then shot into the added building behind the old Universe of Energy. This building is 133 feet tall, so 12.2 stories in height. To our surprise, the coaster itself has no inversions and appears to be fairly family friendly. Think of it as a modern take on Space Mountain. The track layout consists of many tight turns and long straightaways that will likely be accented with projection effects. It’s hard to tell in the documents if there will be any physical show scenes, but there really doesn’t appear to be, other than some abstract lighted walls that the trains pass through at a few points in the ride. After the lengthy coaster ride, the trains travel back to the old building and unload station, allowing guests to go downstairs and exit through a store and out the right side of the facade.
Details of the storyline and what exactly is going on in this attraction are scarce, but the layout and ride specifications shared above are confirmed to be accurate.
Disney has still not set an opening date for the Guardians of the Galaxy roller coaster at Epcot.
We continue our series of reviews of the booths for the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays this year by visiting the Tarabaki Holiday Kitchen today. This marketplace can be found next door to the Morocco Pavilion, as you might imagine.
Here’s the menu
And the award for the smallest dish ever served at an Epcot Festival goes to… this.
It was good, but look at the size of it. I can’t in good conscience tell you to pay $7.00 for this, no matter how it tastes. End of story.
Again, $7 is a lot for a chicken drum, but this was quite good. I can’t recommend it, but I don’t think you would be unhappy with it if you were to have it. The Brussels Sprouts were quite good, but not Polite Pig good.
These were just about the driest food item I have ever eaten. They were so dry that I can’t even discern what flavor there was supposed to be.
This is light and easy to drink, so it’s highly recommended for sparkling wine lovers out there.
I love alcoholic coffee drinks and this was one of my favorites that I’ve had at Walt Disney World. It’s a sizable pour and the flavors are mixed perfectly, offering a bitter coffee offset nicely with walnut and cinnamon flavors, as well as the sweet whipped cream. Probably my favorite drink at the entire event. You may want to pick a nice, cool day to enjoy this though…
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The new SpectacuLAB show recently debuted inside of (what’s left of) Innoventions in Future World at Epcot, right across the way from the Colortopia exhibit. Check out a full recording of the show below:
SpectacuLAB is saved by a pretty interesting final third of the show, but otherwise is a fairly boring and poorly put together offering. The seating arrangement is terrible as well, with a seemingly endless number of even rows in the space, making it near impossible for anyone not in a middle-aisle seat to see any of it. Well, at least kids can sit on the floor, so they may end up taking something away from this thing.
SpectacuLAB is now performing daily at Epcot, but Innoventions is slated for demolition in the not-too-distant future.
Sure, the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival has been giving guest floral and topiary displays for over 20 years now, but what if it was something you could experience daily at the park?
As part of the ongoing expansion project for Epcot, an idea being kicked around is the “Gardens of Wonder”, which would be a series of displays at each pavilion that would capture the essence of that pavilion (Future World and World Showcase alike) and feature a Disney character or characters connected to the theme. These floral and topiary displays would welcome guests to each experience.
For example, Wall-E and Eve in topiary form would welcome guests to Mission: Space, while Anna and Elsa would do so in Norway. The idea is that every pavilion in World Showcase and Future World would receive one of these small gardens. It does make some sense based on the amount of green we see in concept art for the further development of Future World, so natural displays like these will be a big part of the park going forward. However, it would be intriguing to see how these would be maintained all year long, as opposed to just during a 3-month festival.
Concept art of the new look for Future World at Epcot
This idea has not been approved as of yet, and some recent shakeups in the new creative direction of Epcot may lead to this idea getting scrapped, but only time will tell.
Our next review of the marketplaces at the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays is the American Holiday table, located just outside of The American Adventure pavilion in World Showcase.
Here’s the menu:
OK let’s try some of these items…
This was really, really good. The turkey was cooked very nicely, the stuffing tasted good, and the mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce blended perfectly with it. The unadvertised strignbeans were a nice touch too, marking the only time I think I have ever enjoyed this side.
I really enjoyed the pork as it was quite well cooked and really tender. I’m not sure that the sides qualify as a casserole, but they are good nonetheless. Highly recommend this if you want something familiar and good.
I also enjoyed the pecan tart quite a bit, but you’re really going to need to love nutty desserts to have this one. The crust was nice and crispy and everything was well accented by the heavy dose of caramel sauce and whipped cream.
Holiday Beer Flight – $9.00, Orange Blossom Brewing Cranberry Kringle Pilsner – $4.25, Shipyard® Eggnog White Porter – $4.25, JDub’s Season’s Greetings Peppermint Milk Stout – $4.25
I was in the minority on this one, but I enjoyed Eggnog White Porter and the Peppermint Milk Stout, but they are both likely “acquired tastes”. As usual with a beer flight, you are using this as an opportunity to try and these are not beers you can get all year long, so it’s at least worth a shot in my opinion.
This was kind of a disappointment, a definite downgrade from the version that was sold last year. I would describe the flavor in depth, but it was honestly very forgettable and I can’t remember a single thing about it.
It is what is says it is, but I like it. Yes, it is more expensive than if you made it yourself at home, but you’re not at home are you? If you’re in the mood for such a thing, this will do the trick, but it is just hot cocoa and Peppermint Schnapps…
A holdover from last year, the firenog was good (the small drink on the left), albeit a little small for $9.50. We would have liked a little more fireball whiskey in here, but maybe it just depends who pours you the drink.
We continue our series of reviews of the booths for the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays this year by visiting the Feast of the Three Kings today. This marketplace can be found next door to the Refreshment Port, just behind the Imagination pavilion on the way to World Showcase.
Here’s the menu:
The shredded beef tamale is good, but the ratio of breading to beef was poor. The Avacado Crema sauce had a really nice flavor paired with both the rice and the tamale. If there was more beef in this, I would highly recommend it, but it’s hard to compete with the pork dish.
This roasted pork dish is one not to be missed. The pork was cooked perfectly and the yucca as well with a nice, buttery flavor. I have eaten a lot of yucca in the last year or so, this was the best portion of the side dish I have ever had. I could do without the pickled green bananas, but they were fine on their own.
Traditional dessert with a rich, white, sugary icing on top over a flaky, soft bread. This was really wonderful in its simplicity and was similar to many Italian baked good I have enjoyed over the holiday seasons in New York, so I may be a little biased in my nostalgic feelings for this dish. I still think you will enjoy it though.
I enjoy a sweet alcoholic beverage so this was right up my alley. Coconut and cinnamon flavoring mixed with rum is pretty delicious, but the portion size is pretty small as you would expect. It’s really delicious, but just not enough of it is in this serving for $9. A non-alcoholic version is also offered.
