If you’re a fan of Walt Disney World, there’s a better-than-even chance your favorite park is Epcot. There’s something about that park that many fans love, be it the unique environments, the diversity of food in World Showcase or, in many cases, the diversity of alcoholic beverages one can find in World Showcase. Neil Patrick Harris understands this intrinsically.
Harris is a regular host at Epcot’s Candlelight Processional every year because he’s a very open and honest Disney Adult. He loves the parks as much as the rest of us, and he understands them in a way that only those of us who are a bit (or perhaps more than a bit) obsessive truly do. Harris likes to include jokes for the Epcot audience, often some that are a little inside baseball, and now he’s going viral (thanks to friend of this writer, Main St. Magic) for one that any Epcot guest will appreciate. "Welcome to Epcot, which stands for Ecery Parent Can Order Tequila."
Welcome to Epcot, which stands for Ecery Parent Can Order Tequila.
The relationship between Epcot and alcohol is one that goes back to the park’s opening. Epcot was the first Disney Park to sell alcohol to the general public. While every North American Disney Park now serves booze in at least some capacity (even Disneyland itself sells booze in a few spots), Epcot still has the reputation as the park at which to drink And yes, tequila is part of the reason why.
Because World Showcase at Epcot has different pavilions celebrating different nations of the world, adult guests can enjoy the alcoholic beverages that each nation is known for. This can mean enjoying tequila in Mexico, sake in Japan or distinctly British beer in the U.K. “Drinking Around the World,” i.e. sampling the alcoholic offerings from every nation in World Showcase, has become a popular (though certainly unofficial) attraction at the park.
Harris is, of course, also making a joke about the fact that if you’re a parent visiting Epcot, you could probably really use a drink after spending several hours with your kids in a theme park. Harris is a parent himself, so he knows of what he speaks.
Some people think alcohol is given too much focus by guests at Epcot, and certainly nobody wants to see guests overindulging and becoming a problem. It’s not actually that common, but it does happen. Alcohol is frequently involved in incidents that end up with people banned from Walt Disney World after guests imbibe too much and then do something they probably wouldn’t do sober.
There's an extra reason to celebrate at Epcot this season. The construction walls surrounding the newest Disney World attraction and the park's multi-year update are finally down. While not everybody loves the new World Celebration, we could probably all raise of glass of tequila in celebration that the walls are all finally down.
