Our travels around the France Pavilion at Epcot continue with a better look at Les Halles Boulangerie Patisserie, the French bakery located in the back left of the Pavilion.

You’ll find the current iteration in the very back of this area that also functions as the exit from Impressions de France next door. If you missed the post showcasing a lot of the merchandise available here and elsewhere in France, you can pull up that post here. The overview post, which includes current menus, construction updates, and some pretty(?) pictures around the Pavilion, can be accessed here.

Continue reading “Review: Epcot France Bakery Les Halles Boulangerie Patisserie”

Our look around the France Pavilion at Epcot continues with an inspection of the kinds of merchandise that are available in the little shops that dot the area. We previously took a walk around to enjoy the sights and sounds, in addition to catching up on current menus, in this post.

Most of the Disney-related merchandise is situated in the back left of the Pavilion in the same area as the Boulangerie & Patisserie. (Not) Coincidentally, this also functions as the exit from Impressions de France.

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Our walk around World Showcase continues with the France Pavilion. We’re fresh off our visit to Morocco and Restaurant Marrakesh, which is home to what might be Epcot’s best dining value in their 3-course lunch for $20.

There’s more work going on in France than any of the other Pavilions with continuing construction of what should be a clone of the Ratatouille dark ride from Disneyland Paris. You can sort of see the show building for said attraction rising above the tree line in between Morocco and France in this picture from five days ago.

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We head out to Epcot on a Tuesday with evening Extra Magic Hours.

Above is a chart showing the overall average wait time for each day so far in June across ten Epcot attractions. The Park hosts evening Extra Magic Hours on Tuesdays and those days are highlighted in orange. Thursdays with  a morning Extra Magic Hour attached are highlighted in a color that seems to resemble yellow. For years, the advice was to avoid the Park hosting Extra Magic Hours because Disney resort guests just couldn’t help themselves from heading there in droves because they felt like it was Disney’s way of telling them where to go each day, even if they had no intention of taking advantage of the EMH.

In the FastPass+ era, it has become far less important to choose which day you visit a specific Park based on whether it’s hosting Extra Magic Hours or because it’s a certain day of the week that’s “always less busy.” When you have 100% of the available FastPass+ experiences being distributed for the majority of the attractions during each time slot every day, the same small amount of capacity is given to standby regardless of whether you’re visiting Epcot when there’s 28,000 people in the Park or 33,000 people in the Park.

Complicating things further, when Disney is expecting higher attendance, they ramp up staffing and capacity, which can actually decrease wait times and increase FastPass+ availability. We’ve all been to the grocery store during a peak time when it’s busy, but the wait to check out is nominal because eight registers are operating. We’ve probably all been to that same grocery store when it’s less busy during an off-peak time, only to wait longer to check out because only two registers are operating. Your day at a Disney theme park isn’t that much different. If you’re the 1,000th person in line at Space Mountain and both sides of the ride are operating, then you’re going to wait less than if you’re the 750th person in line and only one side is operating. So even if you could somehow guarantee that you’re visiting on a day with lower attendance, it could very well slow you down more than visiting on a day with much higher attendance. The trick is to visit on a day with lower-than-expected attendance, when capacity is ramped up, but the people don’t materialize. Of course, you can’t really do that until you know what staffing is going to look like, which isn’t typically available more than two weeks out.

Continue reading “A Look at Epcot During Evening Extra Magic Hours”

Larger: Here.

We drop by Disney Springs on the morning of June 17, 2018 for something that isn’t a 2,500 word French Toast review.

Though if you did miss said review, you might want to check out Maria & Enzo’s brunch, which I think will prove to be the best of the Sunday morning meals at Disney Springs. Endless Mimosas and Bellinis for $15 plus all the large shrimp you can eat. Say no more. Okay, please, 2,500 more words about French Toast would be great.

Continue reading “A Brief Disney Springs Construction Update”