One of the most festive traditions at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World is the Candlelight Processional. Luckily, for EPCOT guests this seasonal event spans the months of November and December. The Candlelight Processional is included in your EPCOT admission and is the perfect activity to get in the holiday spirit. This year, my family splurged on a Candlelight Processional dining package and not only had a great experience but hope to make it an annual tradition!
The Candlelight Processional dining packages are available at several table service locations for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as one counter service location – Regal Eagle Smokehouse. See the full list here. We chose The Garden Grill for dinner since my son is all about meeting characters right now.
The Garden Grill is located inside the Land Pavilion at EPCOT and has views into the Living with the Land attraction. Definitely a fun atmosphere, unique to being at Disney! Garden Grill offers family-style dining, and the best part is the menu features many vegetables grown inside Living with the Land. The dinner options include – garden salad, cornbread, skirt steak with chimichurri sauce, roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, and fresh seasonal vegetables. The cornbread came out warm and reminded me a little of the version served at Fort Wilderness – which is a huge compliment. The steak was tender and the turkey was surprisingly flavorful. The vegetables were all incredibly fresh. If you told me the vegetables were harvested from Living with the Land right before our dinner, I would have believed it! Finally, dessert was an apple pie al a mode, and it was equally delicious.
While I was pleased with our meal, the characters obviously stole the show. My son met Mickey, Chip and Dale, and Pluto three times and had a special interaction each time. I am often cynical over Disney prices. However, this was a rare moment when it all felt worth it.
On to the actual show, the Candlelight Processional! The celebrity narrator on this evening was Brendan Fraser. That’s right – Oscar-winning, The Mummy star, George of the Jungle, “… if I had gotten my cup of coffee!” Brendan Fraser. This was his first appearance at the Candlelight Processional and I knew it would be near impossible to get a seat if not for the dining package. Especially when traveling with kids, no family wants to wait in line for hours to only maybe get a seat at one of the shows.
The dining package was worth every penny on this particular evening. We selected the 8:30 pm show, the last of the night, and the dining package line was almost to France. We hopped in line about an hour before the show and the line was already to Morocco. I’ve honestly never seen a Candlelight line this long, but surprisingly, we all had seats with about 50 people from the standby line. The #Brenaissance is real, everyone.
The Candlelight Processional is such a special experience and is 45 minutes of pure Christmas joy. On top of that, being able to see one of your favorite celebrities at Disney is beyond exciting. We paid $78 per adult for our dinner at Garden Grill with the reserved seating for the Candlelight Processional and feel this is a fair price. Dinner and Garden Grill would normally be $62 so we essentially paid a $16 premium to have a guaranteed seat. I should note, no discounts are applicable for these dining packages but I would still rate this as a fair value.
One other thing to keep in mind with these dining packages, they tend to book up quickly when first released and many people cancel the week of or the day before. I checked reservations the morning of our dinner, and all show times and restaurants were available.
If you’re planning a holiday trip to EPCOT, I would put the Candlelight Processional high on the list of must-do’s. If you’d like to have a seat for the show and not have to wait hours in line, book a dining package and enjoy a great meal at EPCOT!
