It’s always a good time to start a new family tradition, and if you are looking for a new Christmas tradition, I highly recommend Epcot’s Candlelight Processional. The beautiful retelling of the Christmas story is accompanied by a 50-piece orchestra, a choir and a celebrity narrator, and it is one of my family’s favorites. Here are my best Epcot Candlelight Processional tips to make your visit a success.
This post is sponsored by Disney.
The Best Epcot Candlelight Processional Tips
The Epcot Candlelight Processional is located at The American Adventure Outdoor Pavilion in the World Showcase. It is performed three times a day (at 5 pm, 6:45 pm and 8 pm) on select days throughout the holiday season. The show is about 35-45 minutes, and the performance is included in regular park admission.
During each show, the narrator reads a passage from the Christmas story and the choir joins in song between each passage. It is a spectacular show, and I never fail to get goose bumps as Christmas is celebrated in song.
Epcot Candlelight Processional Performers
The candlelight processional is narrated by a series of celebrity narrators. In the past my family has seen Gary Sinise, Neil Patrick Harris and Whoopi Goldberg among others. Each narrator has their own flair, so it is fun to see various celebrities telling of the Christmas story.
Behind the narrator, a professional choir dressed in red and green leads the narration in song. And off to the sides, high school choirs join their voices to the beautiful song.
This year, we choose the performance to attend not based on the celebrity, but based on the high school choirs and got to see my 17-year-old cousin perform. It’s such a special opportunity for choirs to join the Candlelight Processional.
Get The Best Seats For The Epcot Candlelight Processional
If you want the best seats in the house for the Epcot Candlelight Processional, gold badge dinning packages are the way to go. With these special dinning packages, your family gets priority seating to the show of their choice. And the best part is that you don’t have to wait in line for house to get these seats.
Candlelight dinning packages go on sale over the summer, so it is possible that select shows with popular performers will sell out as my family discovered this year. By the time we got around to looking for tickets the week of Thanksgiving, seats for the 5 pm show we wanted to see were completely sold out. (FYI – tickets to the 8pm show were still available the day of.) Tip – breakfast and lunch packages are now available and less expensive than a dinner package.
Everyone who doesn’t have the special Gold Badge tickets can wait in the standby line. This was our first year to wait in line, and my Google search recommended to get in line 45 mins to an hour before the show. So we hopped inline at 3:15.
Well, when the narrator is super popular even an hour and 45 mins is cutting it close. We were in the last 30 or so people to get seats in the very last row. I can only imagine what time people had to line up to get up close.
So here’s a trick. Check the dinning packages, if they are sold out — it stands to reason its a popular show and you will need to be in line earlier.
Epcot Festival Of The Holidays
In addition to the Candlelight Processional, Epcot celebrates the season with the Festival of the Holidays. Throughout the park, guests are greeted with special performances, holiday snacks and special holiday decorations.
Awesome post! Thank you for sharing, Jen!!