Best plan of attack for Epcot

[Mom2riley]

We have a 9:40am ressie at Akershus. My daughter desperately wants to ride FEA. I'm trying to logically plan our day, getting to the park at rope drop. We also have to be at Behind the Seeds at 4:30 for a homeschool tour that day. Of course, Soarin and Test Track are on the list as well. What route would maximize park time for us? Use our FP for FEA at 11? Hit Soarin before the ADR?

 

[Ambehnke]

I would do TT first. It tends to have a longer line than Soarin unless you're willing to do single rider.

 

[allsaintsatx]

Does EP open at 9am? If so, hit rope drop and do FEA before your breakfast, and then you're right there for Akershus.
I would not try to do all the E ticket stuff in one day. Pick TT or Soarin with FP+. You don't wanna wear yourself out especially if you're there at least until 5pm. EP is a great park for strolling and looking at stuff, besides eating food that's the best part of World Showcase!
You may want to backtrack and hit TT with FP after breakfast, and maybe SSE and character meet or Mission Space with FP, and then double back to WS and enjoy a nice lunch somewhere. You may be able to get other Fps for later if you use all 3 early. Also, Future World isn't as busy later in the day, so maybe after your tour you could hit up FW or even have dinner first and then hit FW.

Whatever you do you're going to have a blast! Enjoy your day no matter what path you take!

 

[Mom2riley]

Does EP open at 9am? If so, hit rope drop and do FEA before your breakfast, and then you're right there for Akershus.
I would not try to do all the E ticket stuff in one day. Pick TT or Soarin with FP+. You don't wanna wear yourself out especially if you're there at least until 5pm. EP is a great park for strolling and looking at stuff, besides eating food that's the best part of World Showcase!
You may want to backtrack and hit TT with FP after breakfast, and maybe SSE and character meet or Mission Space with FP, and then double back to WS and enjoy a nice lunch somewhere. You may be able to get other Fps for later if you use all 3 early. Also, Future World isn't as busy later in the day, so maybe after your tour you could hit up FW or even have dinner first and then hit FW.

Whatever you do you're going to have a blast! Enjoy your day no matter what path you take!

Yes! Epcot opens at 9 am. We've gone several times but it's been years since I could take my girls due to a divorce. This is a really special trip for my autistic daughter (13)because we had a trip planned when her Dad walked out on us. We had to cancel that trip. Epcot is her favorite for the cultural aspects and FEA is her priority. My adult daughter(23)and my niece(22) are also going and they want to do Soarin and TT. We have park hoppers and are there 8 days so we may end up hitting Epcot twice. Thank you!!

 

[butiflfeet]

With all the things your group wants to do I'd recommend 2 Epcot days or at least 2 Epcot mornings to get it all done without getting too stressed out. One morning you could do FEA at rope drop and then head to your breakfast and then maybe park hop somewhere else with your fastpasses for the rest of the day or just hang out in Epcot and do what you can/are willing to wait for. The other day get a fastpass for TT and rope drop Soarin unless you're willing to do single rider for TT. If you are ok with single rider for TT then you could do all 3 in one day with rope dropping FEA, FP for Soarin and single rider for TT.

 

[jdisnut]

With the 9:40 breakfast time, it'll be difficult to do all three major Epcot attractions without a sizable wait at one of them. I've found that on most days, if you go to Test Track at rope drop and then hustle to Soarin', you could complete both by about 10 a.m. That really doesn't help you. I'd probably still rope drop Test Track and use your Fastpass on Frozen Ever After, preferably at a time shortly after your breakfast. The lines at Soarin' have certainly diminished since the opening of the third theater. I've seen afternoons with standby waits as little as 30 or 35 minutes. So I'd probably check in at Soarin' throughout the day, especially after your tour. Test Track lines tend to be long all day.

 

[Nick6300]

With the 9:40 breakfast time, it'll be difficult to do all three major Epcot attractions without a sizable wait at one of them. I've found that on most days, if you go to Test Track at rope drop and then hustle to Soarin', you could complete both by about 10 a.m. That really doesn't help you. I'd probably still rope drop Test Track and use your Fastpass on Frozen Ever After, preferably at a time shortly after your breakfast. The lines at Soarin' have certainly diminished since the opening of the third theater. I've seen afternoons with standby waits as little as 30 or 35 minutes. So I'd probably check in at Soarin' throughout the day, especially after your tour. Test Track lines tend to be long all day.

Agree with this. Personally we tend to RD Soarin and hustle to TT, but we're perfectly fine w/ single rider, the wait time estimate for single rider tends to overshoot, we're often in same car anyhow as just 2 of us, and we aim to do Soarin couple times (like Soarin much more). But Soarin waits have come down.
TT waits, especially noticeable after RD rush early am, has been longer than Soarin (60 min currently at 1020 today vs 45 min for Soarin). Plus TT (and FEA, can break down a lot, and also get rained out, making wait times even worse when it's back in service). (FEA broken down in am today.)

Given it may be difficult to secure an 11am (or shortly after) FEA FP (conveniently after your BF), as FP to FEA begin at 11am, how about this:

I think you could RD TT and still have time to hit FEA just before breakfast. If you don't have time to squeeze in FEA, aim to SB right after BF, FP Soarin.

You'd be let in EP about 30 min early (but held up until little before park time) so if at gate at around 8am you'd be among the first at TT esp. with the roughly 3-way split between rope droppers for Soarin, TT, and lesser extent FEA. If at TT 8:55, on around 9-905, it's only a 4 min ride, you could go straight to FEA by around 9:15 and be done around 9:40 and be there in Norway for BF.

Not best practice but we've been given 15 min grace period after reservation, and was told they typically give you 15-20 min grace (you could call Askerhaus beforehand to be sure). We had saved numbers to our dining reservations ahead of time, just in case, and had called as we were late and speedwalking around WS to let them know where we were but CM agreed over phone to give us 15min.

So I think you could RD TT, hopefully hit FEA just before your BF, check times for FEA at end of BF to ride a second time (1st time, if I'm off) ... wait times for FEA has been down, and if done with BF before 11am, it would be right before the spike in waits for FEA as Fastpassers are allowed in beginning at 11 (1055am). Seen as low as approx 30 min waits even at close to 11, then jump to nearly double little after 11. You could then have your FP for Soarin waiting for you, go on Living w Land, and proceed from there. FEA wait times have also been low late at night too especially during Illuminations.

 

[lchuck]

As long as you have a FP for FEA you can easily do all 3 in 1 day. A week ago we rope dropped TT, used a 12pm FP for FEA, and picked up a 4th (and 5th) FP around 4 for Soarin.

 

[Hootch]

Our recent experience; we arrived relatively early, but not the 8:15 that I wanted. We headed to TT at a leisurely pace and walked through the line until we hit the design room. After the ride we headed to Soarin' which showed a 20 minute wait. It was that or maybe a bit shorter. When we finished Soarin', the posted wait was 60 minutes.

My wife, son and I did Living With the Land while our daughter tried single rider. The single rider line was showing a 45 minute wait.

We had 11:10 FPs for FEA. The standby wait was 45 minutes at that time.