Candlelight Processional at Epcot

This is the first year that my family and I (Anna) went to the Candlelight Processional at Disney’s Epcot. A friend at work had told me that I needed to go this year and as usual (she also convinced my family to get annual passes) we took her advice. For those of you that don’t know what that is, it’s when Epcot host several famous people that will read the Christmas story (you know, the one with Christ actually in it) while local choirs sing Christmas songs. They have three showing a night.

One thing I’m glad we did was make reservations in advance to eat before the show and then get priority seating for the processional. It’s called the Candlelight Dinner Package. It was well worth it for us!

The restaurant we chose was Tutto Italia Ristorante. I had wanted to eat here for a while anyway and this provided the perfect opportunity. The food was absolutely delicious! As part of the dinner package, my dad, mom, and I each got to pick a non-alcoholic drink, a starter, an entrée, and a dessert. Everything we all ordered was great. I shared the Calamari Fritti to start with my mom, the Filetto di Sogliola (lightly breaded fish served with white asparagus, capers, and a lemon butter sauce) as an entrée, and the Torta di Ricotta (lemon ricotta cheesecake topped with marinated strawberries) for dessert. I would definitely recommend any of my choices.

After we ate, we had enough time to walk around the other countries and make our way back to “America” for the spectacle. On our selected night Dennis Haysbert (might recognize him from All State commercials or the TV show 24) was the person reading the Christmas story. There were two lines. One of the lines was for the people that got the dinner package, and the other line was for the people who were waiting in standby. Both lines were so long that they were flowing into the nearby countries. It didn’t look like any of the standby people were going to get in, which was disappointing because Matt was going to meet us there after work. Luckily we were able to save him a seat, but hardly any other standby people were let in for our time slot.

The processional was very good. All the singers were excellent and Dennis Haysbert did a great job reading after a few mix-ups at the beginning. I was a little confused when the audience didn’t get any candles to hold, but I guess it’s safer that way. Overall, it was a great experience and I highly recommend it to everyone!