It’s time for some weekend fun at EPCOT! The park certainly did not disappoint today, delivering the opening of two booths for the Taste of the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, Minnie Mouse: The Main Attraction King Arthur’s Carousel ear headbands, new “The Child” merchandise, and other fun finds. That’s a lot to cover, so let’s head on in.

A bit of a surprise upon first approaching the park, signs were up to advertise the Passholder lines for entry into EPCOT. While we won’t pretend like these aren’t usually the longest lines to wait in, it’s nice to see the effort being made.

Also near the touchless touchpoints, work on the overhang to refresh the area seems to be progressing nicely, with the flat white paint scheme taking over.

Early on at Mouse Gear, we discovered these new autumnal orange flannel bow Minnie ears, which also made an appearance over at Disney’s Hollywood Studios this morning.

Unlike those ears, these Limited Edition Baby Yoda MagicBands have been exclusive to EPCOT, and they were available in great quantities at Mouse Gear today.

Later in the morning, guests would need to wait in a short line just to enter Mouse Gear, which is unusual for the store during a sunny morning.

Another EPCOT exclusive, these EPCOT Forever MagicBands were in shorter supply today, and somewhat oddly, only at ImageWorks in the Imagination Pavilion, as the surrounding Figment merchandise might indicate.

On the exterior of the pavilion, the main fountain was in full effect, though the jumping fountains have been mostly out of service since the park reopened.

Outside of the nearby Land Pavilion, we took a moment to — again — to appreciate the cleaning progress on the monorail beam that cuts through the park. There’s something cathartic about a freshly cleaned beam.

Inside, we always enjoy taking a few seconds to check up on the seasonal balloons which hang from the ceiling.

Taking a moment to check out the Innoventions buildings, the West structure remains in its half-standing state. Over to the East, the frame of the building sits mostly gutted still.

Over at Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, we await the installation of the solar panels, as the installation of the mounts was completed just last week.

Far more progress has been made at the Play! Pavilion, where the majority of visible roof panels have been replaced by crews.

Next door at Mission: SPACE, we can’t help but embrace our inner child and want to play in the Space Base play area, but alas, it remains closed for safety reasons.

While we may not have been able to take a play break, Mission: SPACE Cargo Bay did give us a fun surprise of two pairs of new Baby Yoda socks. These could pair nicely with the aforementioned MagicBand.

Heading into the World Showcase, where a lot of today’s action could be found, we caught the Frozen Promenade passing by with Anna and Elsa. Sadly, this would be the only processional we were able to see, partially due to rain which would move in later, and simply not being in the right place at the right time.

Our first discovery, we noticed that the Alps booth has opened, making it’s late appearance to the Taste of EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival 2020.

The Alps booth was not alone, however, as the Spain booth also made its Food & Wine debut for 2020. Check out booths’ respective posts for details and reviews on the new items.

In the Norway Pavilion, yet more Viking-themed merchandise has appeared, all of which reflects the updated art style that we really like.

At this point in the day, the skies across World Showcase Lagoon gave us a heads up that the weather would not be staying as agreeable as it had been up to that point.

Despite Mother Nature’s warning, we kept trekking around to Block & Hans, which like the Alps and Spain booths, has also reopened.

Naturally, World Showplace is the place to be when the weather becomes less hospitable to outdoor eateries. Thankfully, there was no wait to enter, though the normal weekend-level crowd was already inside.

Circling back towards Mouse Gear near the end of our day, we were in for a surprise — the appearance of Minnie Mouse: The Main Attraction King Arthur’s Carousel ears! Much like the Minnie Mouse: The Main Attraction Peter Pan’s Flight MagicBand which arrived without notice at EPCOT three weeks ago, this “online-only” item making an appearance was unexpected, to say the least.

Finally, on our way out of the park, we checked up on everyone’s favorite Lucite pylons. Since they were installed, there has been what appears to be a slight bit of damage to one of the pylons. We’re certain Disney has what they need to get this particular pylon into tip-top shape, though.

We appreciate you following along for all of these great discoveries at EPCOT today! To be the first to hear about all of these stories and more, make sure to check in with WDWNT.com all throughout the day!

Kevin Lake