Katie and I share a love for travel. In our four years together, we have been to more places than most couples visit in their first decade – maybe even in their entire lives! From the Tri-Cities, Asheville, Nashville, Atlanta and Cincinnati to Houston, Las Vegas, Charleston and Savannah … And from Orlando, Jacksonville and Nassau to Orvieto, Assisi and Rome … We love to see the sights, meet the people, learn the culture and eat the food everywhere we go.

One of our top goals as a couple is seeing as much of the world together as possible, which will be very expensive and take lots of time. We still plan to do that, but who’s to say we can’t also kinda do the same thing at Disney’s Epcot? Is it the same? Not even close. Is it still a blast? Let’s find out! 

We started our second full day at Disney with a quick breakfast at hotel restaurant Café Rix. It’s here that I’ll make another gripe about Disney’s Dining Plan: one of the “perks” is a refillable mug to help you save money on drink refills. I was hyped about this because I knew we’d get mad thirsty throughout the day and I also knew that buying drinks would get expensive. I also didn’t want to waste our snack credits on drinks so it’s win-win-win, right? 

Wrong.

Turns out, the refillable mugs are only good at the resort – a place you’re not spending much time. Could we still take our mugs into the parks? Yes, but we can’t use them there, so they’d just be extra cargo to attach to the day bag. No thanks. Our souvenir refillable mugs mostly just stayed in our rooms. I think Katie’s ended up in a trash can just outside of the security checkpoint at Orlando’s airport.

I mention this because we decided to buy coffee instead of getting a free refill so we wouldn’t have to take the 2,000 extra steps back to our room (not an exaggeration) after breakfast. We hit up Café Rix for a quick breakfast (one quick-service credit each) and scored a pair of Breakfast Empanadas with Hash Browns and coffees. It was pre-made and hella-fried but they were AWESOME! I love a good empanada anyway and these did not disappoint. I failed to grab photos, but I still give Café Rix 4 / 5 Argentinian Fried Pies with Eggs.

Epcot

Our day in Epcot started with a random guy trying to sweep Katie off her feet with an acapella rendition of a song about imagination (neither from the Figment ride nor from “Willy Wonka”) while we waited in line to buy Advil. It didn’t work. We then caught a fun aerials performance in the park’s gardens just beyond Spaceship Earth. We arrived around 11am so after hitting up Living with the Land, Soaring and Journey Into Imagination, we were more than ready to begin our foodie trip around the world.

Our trip started in Mexico at a spot called Choza de Margarita where we picked up two Blood Orange Margaritas and a pair of Cochinita Tacos that were topped with Mexican street corn and pickled red onions. This was served with a side of Mexican street corn as well and 100% of it was dynamite. A solid 4.5 / 5 on the Mayan Pork Tacos scale.

Mexico turned into Norway, which had a very cool Gods of the Vikings exhibit with some fabulous sculptures and architecture. We were hoping for something savory to eat as well as maybe a spot of mead but it was not meant to be. There is a bakery in Norway that we stepped into but exited shortly after since we weren’t in the mood for that yet.

We didn’t eat or drink anything in China.

China then became Germany, which ended up being one of our favorite spots. Germany’s Bavaria Holiday Kitchen is a quaint quick-service spot with an abbreviated but VERY tasty menu. We ordered the Cheese Fondue served in a bread bowl with steamed vegetables and potatoes, and the Pork Schnitzel with mushroom sauce, braised red cabbage and spätzle. We paired these with two Bavarian Beer Flights that included Possmann Pure Hard Cider (Frankfurt), Von Trapp Brewing Trösten Smoked Dark Lager (Stowe, VT) and Köstritzer Schwarzbier (Bad Köstritz). All three beers were beautiful, the schnitzel (Katie’s first) was decadent and the cheese fondue was nearly perfect. To make this better, we were able to nab a lakeside table for this mini-feast. 4.75 / 5 Umlauts.

Another non-photo stop we had was in Italy. Katie was very excited to see a place that claimed to be serving Limoncello Mules so we hopped in line. I was still full from Germany and said I wasn’t going to order a slice of pizza but it looked too good to pass up. We found a table in the square and watched a street performer as we attempted to enjoy. It was fine, but the pizza wasn’t anywhere close to what we’d only recently enjoyed in Italia and Katie is confident the mule was actually a premixed screwdriver. We gave our Italy experience 2 / 5 Street Performers Juggling Rubber Chickens.

Of course we skipped America because BORING. We also didn’t eat or drink anything in Japan.

Next, another non-photo stop was Morocco and we loved it. We stopped at food kiosk Oasis Sweets & Sips and scored a pair of Flogeres as well as both white wine and red wine Sangrias. I’d never had flogeres before and was blown away by how good they were. Katie’s red wine sangria was tasty but my white wine selection was even better. We noshed while dancing to a live band. Morocco earned 4 / 5 Totally Not Super-Hot Belly Dancers.

We spent a bit of time in France and picked out some things we wanted to come back to, so I’ll revisit shortly.

Our tour then took us to the United Kingdom where we found a pub called Rose & Crown. We pushed our way into the crowded bar and picked up two Snake Bites, Half Harp Lager and half Hard Cider. We backed up near a wall and enjoyed our brew while spouting all the British nonsense we could come up with, which was fun. We’d end up coming back here so no rating just yet.

The final destination was Canada and while we enjoyed a short panoramic documentary film about the country and danced along with a Canadian folk band playing Christmas music, we didn’t eat or drink anything here.

Having concluded our tour of the world, we backtracked to the United Kingdom again where we scored another round of Snake Bites, then hit up the restaurant’s quick-service kiosk Yorkshire County Fish Shop for Fish and Chips. Brothers and sisters, let me tell you that you won’t find better fried fish, not in our country at least. We found a lakeside table where we put down that perfectly fried whitefish (doused with vinegar and tartar sauce), the crispy french fries and the perfect beer blend. This is one of the best meals of our entire trip. I give this the coveted 5 / 5 Bloody Hells.

Our final stop in Epcot was one more trip to France where L’Artisan des Glaces is serving up one of the best ice cream creations on the planet. The Croque Glacé is an ice cream sandwich that presses your choice of ice cream and syrup between two halves of homemade brioche and is then sealed in what I can only describe as what happens between a panini press and a waffle maker. The result is a soft, warm brioche bun surrounding perfectly made ice cream. I went with gingerbread ice cream and raspberry sauce. I didn’t take a photo because I couldn’t wait to bite into it. It quickly became a mess on my hands and face (that’s what she said) so photos just weren’t happening. Still, this gets 4.75 / 5 Hot Pressed Buns.

I’ll wrap up this post by revealing a pro move at Disney’s Epcot: You do not want to miss Spaceship Earth (the ride inside the giant Epcot ball) but you’ll do well to skip it when you enter the park. Everyone wants to ride this first upon entering, so even on a non-busy day like we had, the wait was still 45 minutes. We waited until after our fish-and-chips dinner to hit up this ride and didn’t even have to wait.

Epcot was a very busy day. It was our longest-walking day and longest time spent in a park but the food, drinks and fireworks made it all worth every second. This is by far Disney’s best park and I’m very happy to have gotten to share it with my bride.

Epcot Score: 4.1 / 5

Overall Disney Score: 3.85 / 5

One more post forthcoming. M-I-C … See you real soon!