OUR EPCOT TOURING PLANS ARE FIELD-TESTED, step-by-step itineraries for seeing all major attractions at Epcot with a minimum of waiting in line. They’re designed to keep you ahead of the crowds while the park is filling in the morning, and to place you at the less crowded attractions during Epcot’s busier hours. They assume you would be happier doing a little extra walking rather than a lot of extra standing in line.

Touring Epcot is much more strenuous and demanding than touring the other theme parks. Epcot requires about twice as much walking. And, unlike the Magic Kingdom, Epcot has no effective inpark transportation; wherever you want to go, it’s always quicker to walk. Our plans will help you avoid crowds and bottlenecks on days of moderate to heavy attendance, but they can’t shorten the distance you have to walk. (Wear comfortable shoes.) On days of lighter attendance, when crowd conditions aren’t a critical factor, the plans will help you organize your tour.

On days of lighter attendance (see our Best Days calendar), our plans will save you time but won't be as critical to successful touring as on busier days.

Choosing the Appropriate Touring Plan
We offer twenty-two touring plans for Epcot, include one- and two-day plans for adults, parents with small children, and active seniors. Variations on these plans cover partial-day touring, such as when you have a free morning or afternoon on a travel day.

If your party consists of teens or teens and adults, start with the adult touring plans. Teens and adults almost always rate an attraction within one-half a star on our five-star scale, and the touring plans for both groups would be essentially the same.

We also offer specific plans for families with children of all different ages, from pre-school through teens. These "Happy Family" touring plans allow the older children to separate (briefly) from the parents to ride roller coasters, before meeting up with the rest of the family again. We've also got touring plans for Disney Cruise guests, designed to cover the highlights of Epcot in a one-day shore excursion. Finally, if you don't see a plan that covers your needs, drop us a line and make a suggestion.

Traffic Patterns in Epcot
In theMagic Kingdom, Main Street, U.S.A., with its shops and eateries, serves as a huge gathering place when the park opens and

At Epcot, by contrast, Spaceship Earth, the park’s premier landmark and one of its headliner attractions, is just inside the main entrance. When visitors enter the park, they almost irresistibly head for it. Hence, a bottleneck forms less than 75 yards from the turnstiles as soon as the park opens. Early-morning crowds form in Future World because most of the park’s rides and shows are there. Except at Mission: Space, Test Track, and Soarin’, visitors are fairly equally distributed among Future World attractions. Soarin’ and Test Track are the major early-morning magnets. The three biggies so will draw so many guests that the other attractions in Future World will not develop long waits until 11 a.m. or later.

Between 9 and 11 a.m., crowds build in Future World. Even when World Showcase opens (usually 11 a.m. but sometimes noon), more people are entering Future World than are leaving for the Showcase. Attendance continues building in Future World between noon and 2 p.m. World Showcase attendance builds rapidly as lunch approaches. Exhibits at the far end of World Showcase Lagoon report capacity audiences from about noon through 6:30 or 7:30 p.m.

The Magic Kingdom’s premier attractions are situated on the far perimeters of its lands to distribute crowds evenly. Epcot’s cluster of attractions in Future World holds the greater part of the throng in the smaller part of the park. World Showcase has only two major draws (Maelstrom in Norway and The American Adventure), but these are not in the same league as the three Super Headliners in Future World, and consequently there is no compelling reason to rush to see them. The bottom line: crowds build all morning and into early afternoon in Future World. Not until the evening meal approaches do crowds equalize in Future World and World Showcase. Evening crowds in World Showcase, however, don’t compare in size to morning and midday crowds in Future World. Attendance throughout Epcot is normally lighter in the evening.

Some guests leave Epcot in the early evening, but the vast majority exit en masse after IllumiNations. Upwards of 30,000 people head for the parking lot and monorail station at once. Though quite a mob, closing time congestion at Epcot doesn’t compare with the post-fireworks gridlock at the Magic Kingdom. One primary reason for the easier departure from Epcot is that its parking lot is adjacent to the park, not separated from it by a lake as at the Magic Kingdom. At the Magic Kingdom, departing visitors form bottlenecks at the monorail to the Transportation and Ticket Center and main parking lot. At Epcot, they proceed directly to their cars.