Strolling Epcot with the Crew: Festival Crowds, Pin Trading, and the First-Ever Emoji Battle!

What’s up, everyone! If you missed our live stroll through Epcot, you missed some top-tier park chaos, fun chat moments, and the debut of a brand-new live feature we’ve been working on.

I had all three kids with me for the morning—my oldest co-hosting, my middle girl mic’d up and ready to chat, and the little man holding down the fort (until he turned into a pumpkin at the end, of course).

Here’s a recap of how our morning went, how the crowds are shaping up, and who took home the crown in our first 4-park battle.

Testing out the new 4-park emoji battle

The big project for this stream was testing out our brand-new interactive emoji battle overlay. We put the four Walt Disney World parks head-to-head to let viewers tap and vote for their favorite:

• ❤️ Epcot (heartbeat from Luminous)
• 🎉 Hollywood Studios (the ultimate party park)
• 💯 Animal Kingdom (keeping it 100 with the animals)
• 😁 Magic Kingdom (the smile you get walking down Main Street)

Hollywood Studios came out swinging early—probably because crowd levels over there were completely off the charts with an early park close scheduled. But with that home-field advantage on our side, the Epcotians pulled through in the final stretch to take the win! Huge shoutout to everyone in chat tapping along and keeping it neck-and-neck the entire morning.

Dodging holiday weekend crowds & food lines

If you’re visiting Disney World right around the start of the holiday season, prepare for lines! With Christmas party season kicking off, wait times spiked across the board right around 10:30 AM.

We had big ambitions to hit the Food & Wine Festival booths. We stopped by the cheese booth hoping to grab that steak mac and cheese, but the line stretched way out.

Pro tip when you’re doing the parks with kids: sometimes you just have to pivot!

Instead of waiting 35+ minutes out in the heat for festival bites, we ducked into Connections Eatery for a quick mobile order of chicken tenders and fries (which the girls promptly stole). We did promise the kids we’d venture over toward Canada and France for poutine and artisan ice cream later, but when lines are long, indoor AC and quick snacks save the day every time.

Microphones, pin trading, and kid logic

Having the kids mic’d up is always an adventure. Between pop-it toys making mystery sound effects next to the mic and spontaneous debates about whether trading pins counts as “wasting money,” there was never a dull moment.

We showed off a few favorites from the pin collection—classic Maleficent, Sorcerer Mickey, and even a golden Donald—talked about our all-time favorite Disney coasters (Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind still takes top honors in our house!), and caught a gorgeous shot of the gold monorail gliding past Spaceship Earth.

Wrapping it up & what’s next

By the two-hour mark, little man’s battery hit zero, which meant dad duty called and it was time to pack it up.

Huge welcome to all the new rs who joined our Disney crew during the stream, and a massive thank you to our moderators for holding down the chat!

Until next time, old friends and new: go forth, be brilliant, and we’ll see you in the parks real soon!