Candlelight Processional, Homecomin’ & More!

Follow our day from Chef Art’s Homecomin’ at Disney Springs to the Candlelight Processional at EPCOT and everything in between! This time we are starting out at Disney Springs for brunch before heading to Hollywood Studios. And then we’ll park hop to EPCOT for dinner and the Candlelight Processional. This will be our first time to Homecomin’ brunch and the Candlelight Processional, and looking forward to spending the day at Walt Disney World!

Planning around the Candlelight Processional

We have been Disney World annual passholders for a few years now, and we always find new experiences each time. This time was no exception. In addition to the new 50th festivities, the holidays are a special time of year at Disney World. And one event that happens every year during this time is the Candlelight Processional at EPCOT. You can read more about it on the Disney site here: Candlelight Processional | Walt Disney World Resort.

Since we want to see the Candlelight Processional at EPCOT this year, we plan the weekend around it. And since we’re arriving after work on Friday, Saturday night is the best night to see the Candlelight Processional. This night time show is a retelling of the story of Christmas by a celebrity narrator. And show times are 5:15PM, 7:00PM and 8:30PM in the America Gardens Theatre in the American Pavilion. However, seats are not guaranteed unless you have a dining package. But, this year there are only 4 restaurants and they were all booked 60 days out. So, we kept trying to book a dining package, and eventually were able to score a dinner time. We booked 4:00PM at the Rose & Crown in the UK pavilion with reserved seats for the 7:00 Candlelight show.

While trying to book the Candlelight dining package, we also looked for other restaurants available. One restaurant that we have wanted to try but never could was Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’ restaurant at Disney Springs. We knew we had an early dinner reservation Saturday night, and were looking for something late for breakfast or early for lunch. And we were able to book Homecomin’ for brunch at 10:00AM!

If you want to jump straight to the Candlelight Processional, click here. Otherwise continue reading below.

Homecomin’ Brunch at Disney Springs

Not only were we really wanting to try Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’ restaurant, but we wanted to come for brunch. There are many unique comfort food items on their menu. Continue reading for a summary of our brunch, or for more details read our separate post: Homecomin’ Brunch at Disney Springs. Our reservation is at 10:00AM, so we leave our resort in time to park and walk there.  We park on the 2nd floor in the Lime garage at Disney Springs.  A little early, we go ahead and check in and are seated right away.

We want to experience the full brunch experience, so order their Bloody Mary to share.  Their “Southern Mary” looked great, but is a little spicy for us.  We’ve had better at Disney unfortunately, but we decide to order their doughnut starter to try them. The pecan and bacon caramel topping made the doughnuts really tasty and was a nice start.

Having a hard time narrowing down our entrees, we settle on the Hallelujah Biscuit with ham and the Short Rib Hash with bacon. Our daughter gets the French toast with bacon.  The amount of food is large.  Our daughter’s French toast is excellent and it came with a cheddar-cheese drop biscuit. Becky orders the Short Rib Hash with scrambled eggs instead of a fried egg on top.  It also came with a biscuit and she also got bacon.  Paul’s open-faced Hallelujah Biscuit has their famous fried chicken, pimento cheese, bacon, two over-easy eggs and covered in sawmill gravy.  The Hallelujah biscuit is excellent.  These are all heavy entrees and we are sorry we ordered a starter.  We actually left ham and bacon on the plates!

Christmas Trees and more at Disney Springs

After leaving our Homecomin’ Brunch, we are super full and decide to walk around DIsney Springs. Disney Springs has holiday decorations everywhere and we notice a Nightmare Before Christmas themed tree. We find out that it is 1 of 20 trees part of this year’s Christmas Tree Stroll at Disney Springs. We would love to come back to check out the remaining trees.

We walk up near the Lego store and see a line to get in. At this point, we decide to split up. While Becky and our daughter check out gifts in the Lego store, Paul will find the toy store. Paul makes it to Once Upon a Toy and finds not only toys, but Santa. There is a line to get in the store, but it’s to see Santa. Paul walks in and finds some gifts for our daughter that she wanted. While leaving he finds out that you can get PhotoPass pictures with Santa so he goes off to tell Becky.

We meet up outside the Lego store and return to the Santa line at Once Upon a Toy. At this point the line is very small and inside the store so we walk up. A cast member asks us if we have something on the app. He says there’s a virtual queue for Santa, and we can join on the app. We check it out and it says to return in 115 minutes. They won’t let us just get in line, and we are not waiting around 2 hours so we leave.

Hollywood Studios for a few hours

We drive over to Hollywood Studios from Disney Springs and get the free standard parking. It is free with annual passes, normally $25. We are a little farther back then we want to be but we plan to only be here a few hours. We have dinner reservations at 4:00 at EPCOT and it’s almost noon. It is also hot on this December day, in the 80’s. So we apply some sunscreen before heading into the park.

We don’t have any plans at Hollywood Studios today, but our daughter’s favorite ride is here. She loves Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, one of the newest rides here. With wait times already over an hour, we look to see if we can purchase a Lightning Lane pass. Each park has 2 premier rides where you can purchase access to these Lightning Lanes. It is $10 per person, and we’re able to get 2:30-3:30. So, we have about 2.5 hours until then.

We give our daughter a couple options what to do next, and she picks the Disney Junior Dance Party! So, we head that way. Near the entrance to the show they brought back the Disney Junior character greetings. We stand in line to meet Vampirina. You still cannot hug or touch the characters, but you can get pictures with them standing behind you. It works and she’s happy. We then head into the show. All of the little kids love the dance party and our daughter now wants to go on a ride. So, we decide to head to Toy Story land.

Walt Disney Presents, Alien Swirling Saucers, Popcorn and Beer

As we are walking toward Toy Story Land, we see Walt Disney Presents. We have walked past it a few times, but we have time to spare and check it out. Inside are many rare Disney artifacts and at the end is a theater. This is where our daughter says she has to go to the bathroom so Becky takes her. Paul stays and watches the show about Walt Disney’s life and was glad to see it.

While still in the show, Becky and our daughter get in line for Alien Swirling Saucers.  Paul joins them about half way in line.  We all 3 ride in the same car and have a blast with every turn. After the ride, we decide to walk through the market at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.  Our daughter wants a snack and they have a popcorn shop names Kat Saka’s Kettle. But unlike the $2 popcorn refill boxes around the park, they have $6.49 smaller bags. We get their Buttered Blue Grains which is buttered popcorn with blue food coloring. Not ideal, but again it works.

As we leave the Star Wars land, we pass the BaseLine Tap House. It is almost 2:00 and we still have 30 minutes until our Lightning Lane window. We haven’t eaten anything since our brunch this morning but a beer sounds good. Paul waits in line while Becky takes our daughter to the Minnie Mouse character greeting across from the restaurant. Baseline tends to have mostly hoppy bears which we don’t like. But we got 2 light beers, a Mexican style lager and pilsner. Paul then waits outside the Minnie exit where we meet back up and enjoy our beers.

Runaway Railway and Disney Skyliner

We get in the Lightning Lane entrance for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway right after 2:30. We have dinner reservations at EPCOT at 4:00 and will need to leave right after the ride. Though the ride is between a 75-85 standby wait, we get on in 15 minutes. We enjoy the ride, then head out of the park to the Disney Skyliner.

The Disney Skyliner is one of our favorite modes of transportation at the parks. And we know it takes about 25 minutes to get to EPCOT. The good news is it lets out between the France and UK pavilions in EPCOT’s World Showcase. This is perfect since we have reservations at Rose & Crown Dining Room in the UK. The Skyline is a gondola system with smaller cars which we usually get to ourselves. When we leave Hollywood Studios we are in a car by ourselves to the junction point at the Caribbean Beach Resort.

At the junction point, we get into a car to EPCOT, and they put others in the car with us. Though they get off at the 1st stop at the Riviera Beach Resort and we ride alone the rest of the way. Once off we hit the restrooms next to the station and then enter the park. Once into EPCOT, we walk to the UK Pavilion where we see something going on behind the shops. We are hoping to see Santa, but it’s a piano player. So, we decide to walk through the shops. While waiting outside the shop we run into our daughter’s best friend from school! She is so excited, but we only have a few minutes before we check in for dinner.

Rose and Crown Dining Room

We check in 15 minutes before our reservation and they call us 5 minutes later. Not quite ready to leave her best friend, we slowly make it back to the restaurant. We booked this restaurant as part of a Candlelight Processional Dining Package. It’s a fixed price for dinner and reserved seats for the show. We figure we paid about $15 each to get a reserved seat, and glad to have them for the show.

With the dining package, we get an appetizer, entrée and dessert each. And since we really haven’t eaten anything since brunch, we’re ready for dinner. Paul is ready to order the Scotch Egg and Becky orders the United Kingdom Cheese Platter. Our daughter gets the soup of the day which is tomato basil. Each appetizer was the perfect one for each of us. We devour them without sharing.

Last time, we both got the Fish and Chips, so this time we wanted to try something different. Paul narrowed in on the Welsh Pub Burger but subbed the “chips” with Bubble and Squeak. Our server told us it was like a latke with griddled mashed potatoes and cabbage. Becky finally choses the Chicken Masala Curry with an additional side of Mushy Peas. Our daughter gets the Cheesy Pasta with 2 sides, peas and carrots. It comes out in 3 bowls which is a lot of food. Again each of us were happy with our choice and there was more food than we could finish, and we still have dessert.

They have 2 options for dessert and we order each, the Sticky Toffee Pudding and an English Trifle. Our daughter also gets an English Trifle but she gets sprinkles. The toffee pudding is warm and delicious and the trifles are tasty.

Face Painting and Model Trains

At the end of dinner, our server gives us the tickets for the Candlelight Processional. However, we still have about an hour and a half before we need to get to the show. Our daughter’s best friend had gotten her face painted like a reindeer, and of course our daughter wants the same. However, the face painters are all the way in the African Outpost area past the American pavilion. So, we figure we can walk there and get her face painted, then head back to America for the show.

On the way we see Aurora, aka Sleeping Beauty, our daughter’s favorite princess. She is twirling around in France and we take a few pictures before heading on. We also pass the model trains next to the Germany Pavilion which has some Christmas additions. This is a nice stop near restrooms for any kids to enjoy watching the trains.

Once we get to Africa, we get to the face painters. And once again, we are told we need to get in a separate line to pay for it before coming back. This is the third time we’ve had to do something like this today, which seems really inefficient. But after 10 minutes we pay, then get in line for the face painters.

Picking the reindeer face paint was of course more expensive than their normal options. At $25, it was the most expensive fast painting ever, but she had to have it. We will say, our face painter did an excellent job. The reindeer face paint had multiple layers and took over 10 minutes to apply. Happy again, it is time to head back to the American pavilion for the Candlelight Processional.

Candlelight Processional at EPCOT

We grab some seats about 5 minutes before the show starts at 7:00PM. If we would have gotten here earlier, we’re sure we could have gotten better seats. But without purchasing the dining package, we wouldn’t have had seats this close, if at all. Not to mention we have plenty of space and have a great view. The reserved section is roped off and the general seating behind us looks full.

We’re ready for one of the most popular events of the Christmas season at Disney World. At the beginning, the orchestra comes out and their conductor is introduced. The 50-piece live orchestra plays a few Christmas songs and you feel like you’re at the symphony. After about 5 minutes, the Voices of Liberty come on stage in red gowns. The Voices of Liberty are the performers who sing throughout the day before the American Adventure show. This group of singers can also be seen on this stage at times throughout the day as well. They sing another Christmas tune before the Candlelight Processional begins.

Starting about 7 minutes into it, the processional begins. From behind our seats, singers in golden gowns holding candles walk in on both sides. They pass through our section to the stage on either side of the Voices of Liberty. They sing another song before our celebrity narrator comes out on stage. The celebrity this weekend is Lisa Ling, an American journalist. Though she wouldn’t be our first choice, she is here this weekend. After her introduction, she starts to read the story of Christmas. After reading a little bit, the orchestra and chorus of singers do another Christmas song. This continues until the end about 7:50.

Leaving the Candlelight Processional and Getting Back

Once Lisa Ling leaves the stage, people start leaving the show. We leave the American Pavilion to head back to the exit just after France. On the way we decide to stop in Japan to do a little shopping. Our boys always love to walk through this large store, and our daughter picks something for one of them. We browse around for a little while before exiting the park the way we came in.

Once we exit, we debate on whether to take the Skyliner or ferryboat back to Hollywood Studios and our car. We decide to try something new and take the ferryboat hoping it will be faster. The line for the ferryboat is smaller, and we have a short wait before we can get on and find a seat. The ferryboat makes 3 stops at the Boardwalk, the Yacht Club and the Dolphin and Swan hotels along the way. After a long day, it feels like it takes forever, but we get to Hollywood Studios in about 15 minutes. Plus we didn’t have to change boats. Once back, our daughter is asleep as we walk to our car. We get back to our resort by 9:45.

Summary of Candlelight Processional and More

Today has been long but another great day at DIsney World. We started with Homecomin’ brunch and spent some time at Disney Springs. We definitely recommend trying Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’ restaurant if you get the chance. After brunch, we headed to Hollywood Studios for a few hours before taking the Skyliner to EPCOT. After seeing our daughter’s best friend from school, we had dinner at the Rose and Crown restaurant. And afterwards had to get her face painted like her bestie.

We capped off our night with the Candlelight Processional at the America Gardens Theatre in the American Pavilion. The show retold the story of Christmas with a live orchestra and chorus. For those that love Christmas songs, this was excellent. Though, if you have little ones, this may be a little boring. In a way, it feels like going to church on Christmas, and we were glad we went. And we recommend booking a dining package to reserve your seats. From Homecomin’ to the Candlelight Processional, we had another great day at Disney World!