Best strategy for Epcot Early Entry

[busy mom]

Which attractions should we head to first to try and beat the crowds?

 

[Skippyboo]

What entrance are you using for Epcot? The International gateway people are going to have a head start to Ratatouille over the front gate people. Most people are going to Ratatouille, Frozen or Test Track.

 

[busy mom]

We'll be entering from the Main entrance (bus from Disney Springs resort).

 

[Skippyboo]

You might just want to see what the wait times are when you get and then go to the shortest of the headliners. You already will be behind all the onsite people who can get in 30 minutes early.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to your question. It depends what your personal priorities are.
What rides do you want to do?
Are you going on a slower week? Easter?
Are you buying G+?
Are you in the park all day, or just part of the day?
How much walking do you want to do?
Did you get a BG for GoG?
Do you have any dining booked? What time do you want to eat?

If you have G+, then you should get passes for some rides, and use the passes in the order you are able to book them. Remy is probably a priority, Frozen is also a good choice if you are willing to walk to the back of the park in the morning/can't get a good Remy time. Test Track is another good option for your first G+ pass. (or ride of the day if you do not have G+.) They are only priorities though if those rides appeal to your group.

You can try heading to Remy first thing, but the line will already be there if you are not able to do early entry. Even with Early Entry, you might not be first.

Another strategy is to accept that you will wait for Remy, but use morning to cover as many shorter-wait attractions as possible. If you head right for Remy, you will, in essence be following the crowd.

Another valid strategy is to skip one or more rides, and ONLY do rides with shorter waits. Epcot has many things to do that are not rides.

Since many people have G+ though, they will head to other top attractions (listed above), so you won't really see short waits, just not as long as mid-day.

Easter and other holidays will see longer waits everywhere. Other weeks though, many Epcot attractions have reasonable waits most of the day. My Disney Experience on your phone will give you wait times, so you can use it to steer your choices.

One common pattern- avoid Living with the Land at lunch time. The Land gets busy mid-day, but then is not very busy much of the day.

If you know your priorities, use MDE now to study/learn the patterns of Epcot (and all the parks). Which attractions do have long waits mid-day, and which ones do not. For 1 or 2 days, check MDE every 60 min or so to glean a rough idea of what to expect, and what you are interested in riding.

 

[Lewisc]

We'll be entering from the Main entrance (bus from Disney Springs resort).

Find how the time of the earliest bus. Consider ride share.

then go to the shortest of the headliners. You already will be behind all the onsite people who can get in 30 minutes early.

DS hotels participate with early entry

 

[The Foolish Mortal]

Folks have already mentioned the three rides that really get the longest waits at RD and throughout the day. If you are using Genie+, then obviously incorporate that into your strategy. Without Genie+, I would just go with whichever of those three rides is most important to you. They will all have lines quickly

 

[tinkerjo]

We got genie + for Remy (1-2pm) and a boarding group for GotG (called our group at 8:50am!!) using 2 different phones at 7am and entered through the main gate for early entry about 1/2 hour early. Our group split up and me and DD walked right on Frozen and DH and the rest of the crew went to Test track and also got right on and had time to do mission space before doing GotG about 9:20. We had to do a rider swap so it took some time here but we got a snack, went to club cool and headed over and did figment, Nemo( including some aquarium time) soaring and living with the land, all before lunch. Ate, did Remy, ate some more, did spaceship earth and out by 4. Probably one of our most productive days. We used genie+ in the land. Saved us some time. (It was close to lunch time)

 

[Orsino]

We happened to do epcot early entry today that worked out quite well for us. Better than I expected.
We took a bus to Hollywood studios and walked to the international gateway. We got to IG at about 8am. Probably just after 8. I think they had just released those eating at IG because we could see a bunch of people walking into France. We went right to france and got in line. It seemed long at first, but they were holding people and not letting the line all the way to Remy yet. Turns out it was a really short line and they started boating Remy before 8:30 am. We were off the ride before 8:30 and headed to Norway for frozen. We took our time though and enjoyed looking at and taking pics of the countries with no people in them.
Frozen was a 30 minute wait when we got there.
Easy morning and low stress.

Warning: Last time we tried this, Remy was down at open and that was that for Early entry for us.

Basically roll the dice and see what you get.

 

[JodyK]

I know it no longer gets the longest waits with all the new attractions, but Soarin is still high on my list of potential RD rides just because I love the ride and find the queue pretty unbearable.

 

[ghtx]

We went in September and had a near-perfect day at Epcot. Here's my post describing it: https://www.disboards.com/threads/h...g-park-hopping.3807247/page-906#post-64283548

Enjoy!

 

[Beer Me]

This isn’t a recommended strategy but we were at Epcot on a Saturday in February last year. It was just my wife and I and we decided we didn’t care at all what rides we did. We had never done remy before but had no desire to strategize or fight through crowds. It was to be a stress free day. To that end we arrived right at early entry time at the main gate and headed to Soarin.

After soarin we noticed Test Track was only a 20 minute wait so hopped on. After TT noticed Remy was 40 minutes and thought what the heck. It ended up being an hour which was probably too long to wait but I’m glad we did it.

So anyway, probably totally backwards from how it should be done but we knocked off 3 big attractions in the first 90 minutes or so with no real planning.