Living with the Land Review and Planning Info
Living with the Land opened on: October 1, 1982.
Pull up a list of all Epcot attraction planning reviews here.
Location: Living with the Land is located inside the Land Pavilion on the bottom floor. You’ll see it opposite Sunshine Seasons and near Soarin’ Around the World.
Awesome Planet is located up above and then exits next to Living with the Land’s entrance.
Closes Early: Unless it’s an evening Extra Magic Hours day, Living with the Land closes at 7pm. If Disney has scheduled evening Extra Magic Hours, then the ride operates for everyone until regular Park close, which is typically 9pm. During evening Extra Magic Hours, the ride is available to those who are eligible for EMH. You can pull up the exact operating hours for a given date at DisneyWorld.com here.
Extra Magic Hours: Morning and Evening.
Ride Length: 15 minutes.
Type: Dark ride, slow boat ride.
Similar To: “it’s a small world,” only with plants.
Requirements: None.
Scary Factor: None, unless you have a fear of genetically modified organisms.
The beginning of the ride is on the dark side, but it shouldn’t upset anyone.
What to Expect: Riders board large, slow moving boats. The beginning of the ride is similar to other dark rides like Haunted Mansion as you pass through swamps and farmland.
Those dining at Garden Grill upstairs can actually see inside the bedroom of this house as the restaurant rotates. From down here, we can wave at the dog out front.
While education is the focus, Living With the Land is a fun and interesting exploration of agriculture and the environment. Everything you see in the “living laboratory” is real.
Disney shows off a variety of innovative farming techniques.
Disney’s own site refers to some of these techniques as “jaw-dropping,” which may be overstating things slightly. Disney does constantly switch out the crops, so whatever you saw last time has probably been replaced with another plant.
They’re big on hanging fruits and vegetables.
But you might be surprised by how some fruits and vegetables grow. I always imagined an eggplant being more of a potato or pumpkin situation. Maybe because I’m not very smart.
A short portion on aquaculture and fishing breaks up two of the main greenhouses. We have sturgeon on the left and tilapia on the right.
Integrated Aquaculture closes things out.
And if you’re really lucky, you’ll see somebody working in the lab.
Where to Sit:
Each row seats three to four people. The front row of the first boat in the line offers the best view, especially for pictures up ahead. However, just about every seat provides a great view of the plants and scenery because most everything is raised up and appears off to the sides of the boat.
FastPass+: Yes, low Tier 2 priority. You might be surprised by how limited FastPass+ availability at Epcot is with so many experiences taken in advance, but other attractions see higher wait times and less FastPass+ availability.
What You Miss Using FastPass+:
Just the wait, for the most part.
The standby queue winds around with little to look at other than a mural.
Total Average Experience Time with FastPass+: 20 minutes.
4th FastPass+ Availability: Usually pretty good. You may need to refresh FastPass+ availability to find a return time that isn’t too far in the future, but the attraction should become available without too much effort. On busier days, availability will be much tighter.
Expect to Wait:
The picture of the long standby line above may surprise you. Living with the Land now sees higher wait times earlier in the day with more capacity going to FastPass+.
When To Go: Before 10:30 or after 5pm is usually best, with the importance of arriving early or late higher on busier days. From 10:30am to 2pm, lines are usually longest, because a lot of people head to Sunshine Seasons for lunch, which is located right next door, in addition to the number of people that scoff at the high wait at Soarin’ and visit Living with the Land instead.
There is one other potential consideration. For most of the year, Living with the Land doesn’t operate after dark. On days with evening Extra Magic Hours, and in the winter when it gets dark earlier, the ride continues to operate after the sun goes down. Those who have experienced the ride before may want to seek it out after dark if the opportunity arises. The greenhouse sections are lit up much differently without the natural light coming in from the roof.
Rating: 8/10
Josh’s Take: Living With the Land is more entertaining than it probably sounds, mixing a fun boat ride with dark ride elements followed by the greenhouse and aquaculture sections. It also gets points for being an easy-going, air-conditioned experience that usually sees short waits and plentiful FastPass+ availability.
Not sure what it is but we really like this ride. Myself, my mom-71, and my daughter-12. We always do it at least once per trip and it’s just so nice. I enjoy looking at all the different methods of plant growing. I do miss the live narration.
The Behind the Seeds tour is basically behind the scenes of this ride. My husband and I did the tour a few years back and it was super interesting! (I am a science teacher, so take that into the “super interesting!” factor…
my husband likes to refer to this as the ride “where you watch grass grow”. Something he mentions he can do more enjoyably sitting on back deck of our house overlooking our garden and drinking a cold beer. Needless to say this isn’t his favorite ride.
LWTL is right there with my favorite rides in all of Walt Disney World.
But I’m a WDW fanatic.
The average first-time visitor would probably only find it mildly entertaining/amusing.
I’m planning a trip during Christmas week this year. I’m trying to figure out whether this is worth using up one of my FP+. Do you know what’s the longest wait time for this ride over that period? Unfortunately, given the way our touring is probably going to go, I expect we’ll have to do this ride between the 12 to 2 pm time frame.
I know I’m very late, but why on Earth would you go to Disney World during the week at Christmas?
The week at Christmas and new year is by far the most busy! All rides will have a massive wait time, all day, for the entire visit!
Hello Ben,
I thought I’d reply to you 3 years later since you waited 4 years to reply to Amy. Someone else can reply to me five or six years from now. It will be like our own little time capsule: What were others thinking about Disney way back when?
While you are correct that Disney is very crowded during the last week of December, this does not equate to longer lines, as Josh has spoken about on this blog. During this week, attractions are at full capacity. If crowds are up 60% from the week before, but Disney is now running BOTH side of Pirates, the 100% increase in capacity is going to equate to a shorter wait for Pirates during Christmas week.
We have been burned many times at theme parks by going during the “off” season, only to find that only 1 quick service register was open instead of three, that only one employee was checking the seatbelts on a kiddie ride instead of 2, or that 6 rides were down for maintenance, leading to longer lines everywhere.
We ONLY go to Disney during Christmas week, and with a good touring plan and smart use of fastpasses, we rarely wait more than 20 minutes for any attraction. This Christmas, we did most of the attractions in all four parks over 7 days, and with the exception of the newly opened Star Wars land, our longest wait for any attraction was 30 minutes for Alien Swirling Saucers.
Just got back from Disney, had never been on this one before. It was wonderful!