New Year's Eve at Epcot

[DonaldDuck21]

This will be our first trip to WDW for New Year's Eve and our plan is to spend it at Epcot. I just curious if anyone new how early people started lining up at the gates to get in the park. Any advice would greatly appreciated.

 

[bobbiwoz]

Are you concerned about being locked out? We've entered at 6PM the year before last, and last year, we entered at 11PM. Neither year was EPCOT closed as far as we know.

 

[drusba]

If it is just an issue of getting there early in the morning, the crowds entering in the morning are large, but that is true all week, and often that time of year they open at 8 rather than 9.

Epcot can hold a very large number of people and you usually do not get a closing due to crowd size. What does happen NYE is that the crowd in the evening at the World Showcase gets so large that you can barely move from one nation to another and it can take forever to get someplace you might want to be.

 

[MouseMomx2]

The park never closed the year we were at EPCOT for NYE (2009). We got there at 11 and got some of the last Fastpasses for Soarin'. Other than the initial crowd we thought the park was very manageable. I would suggest finding a spot for the midnight Illuminations as soon as the earlier show is finished. The crowd will be 3-deep along the rail by 10:00-10:30. We brought a deck of cards and many, many glow sticks with us. We spent the time before Illuminations handing out the glowsticks to the kids sitting in our area and playing lots of card games.

Our NYE at EPCOT is the best one we have ever had. I hope we are able to do it again sometime in the future. The midnight fireworks were the definition of breathtaking.

Enjoy!

 

[twinklebug]

What does happen NYE is that the crowd in the evening at the World Showcase gets so large that you can barely move from one nation to another and it can take forever to get someplace you might want to be.

Yes!

We didn't arrive early and were not locked out of the park although it was shoulder to shoulder all the way around the lagoon. I think NYE in EPCOT is something to try... once.

My kids (16 & 12) were sensitive to the fact that there were many intoxicated people in the areas we were attempting to walk through.... Mexico, China ...
And we found that the bathroom lines are longer than the attraction lines.

After dinner in China we debated staying for the fireworks, but it was cold, there were too many people and there was a bonus to hitting the busses before the crowds. We left as they started and watched the fireworks from both EPCOT & MK from our building back at SSR. The kids loved it.

 

[Connears]

We have been to wdw for the last 6 xmas weeks..3 times for NYE and were able to park hop to epcot around 4pm after starting day at DHS with not problem. By 6pm the park is really packed so don't expect to do many attractions..the outdoor venues are great and the hats and noisemakers were given out early. Last time we just hung around the BW area and watched the fireworks at epcot and DHS at midnite then walked back to Swan before the crazies hit the trams!!!!We had moved to Swan just forNYE from 5 nights at OKW..loved the location for that night.

Epcot is the one that handles crowds the best. MK had closed each year by 10am on NYE.

Connears

 

[DonaldDuck21]

Thanks for the feedback. Yes I wasn't sure if Epcot closed due to capacity on NYE.

 

[dianeschlicht]

We love Epcot on NYE. The only time we saw it close was for several hours on Dec. 31, 1999.

 

[mickeysbestfriend]

Diane...I was there for the millenium and it was chaos to put it mildly but fun chaos. I was 'on call' the whole evening but still managed to have fun and ended up sharing lips with more than a few female partiers! It took me over two hours to get from Norway to the exit!

 

[jade1]

Have done NYE at EPCOT at least 3 times recently and always walked in IG no problem around 5PM. Love the 5 min walk back to BCV. But your call how safe you want to play it.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Diane...I was there for the millenium and it was chaos to put it mildly but fun chaos. I was 'on call' the whole evening but still managed to have fun and ended up sharing lips with more than a few female partiers! It took me over two hours to get from Norway to the exit!

Yes, that night was the most crowded situation I have ever been in! We happened to have dinner reservations in Germany at 6:00, which was when Germany was celebrating the new year. We couldn't get our group to the check in stand.

We ended up getting a spot for the fireworks up on the upper reaches of Canada, and when the fireworks were over, our tall son and I lead the way through the crowd with our guests all hanging on to belt loops. I dare say we made excellent time getting out of that mess! You basically had to move within your own little square foot of space. We wound our way through the walkway that goes between the rose gardens, and we were at our bus stop in less than 30 minutes. We only waited about 10 minutes for a bus! All in all, we thought we did well. It is certainly an experience I will never forget!

The last time we did NYE at Epcot, it seemed relatively quiet in comparison!

 

[allshookup]

We were there for the millenium as well! My kids were just 3 & 5 at the time & we had them in a double stoller with Winnie the Pooh fleece blankets wrapped around them. Between 8pm & midnight we strolled between I think Japan and Germany (we couldn't get beyond that due to live stages set up). Around midnight we squeezed into France & hopped onto the fountain to watch the fireworks. I woke the kids up, but DS wouldn't pull his head out from under the blanket.

I remember we got in line at the resort about 8:30am (we didn't have DVC back then so maybe CSR?) anyway we waited & waited but the buses couldn't get through so they finally sent a bus to drop us off at Boardwalk & the line to get in went all the way around the lake. We finally got in sometime after 11am.

Since then we've gone to Epcot for NYE a handful of times & even though the CMs usually insist that you get there early in case the park closes, we learned that after the family fireworks earlier in the evening a lot of people leave so we go around then, have a late dinner & just grab a spot to watch the fireworks from a distance. People put blankets all around the lagoon first thing in the am so forget about being right up front. Last year the park stayed open an hour later & looks like this year as well, which is awesome because the park cleared out. I grabbed a margarita while we strolled around & my kids went on Maelstrom which had an 80 minute wait before midnight & absolutely no wait after midnight! Wish we were going this year!