Our EPCOT Festival of the Holidays 2020 article takes a look at the most recent announcements about this year’s festival, including Holiday Kitchens, characters, entertainment, and activities.

The Christmas season is just around the corner at Walt Disney World! Earlier this month, we learned that seasonal decorations, merchandise, and food will be coming to all four parks during November and December. We also found out that guests will be able to see holiday-themed entertainment, including “pop-up appearances” by Santa Claus and special appearances by several Once Upon a Christmastime Parade characters (for a closer look at all the holiday offerings coming to Magic Kingdom, see our previous article).

Disney Parks Blog has now released even more details for what we can expect to see this holiday season at the Walt Disney World parks, and this time we’re highlighting new and returning experiences for this year’s Taste of EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays beginning November 27th…

Holiday Kitchens

This year’s modified holiday festival will run from November 27th through December 30th, and once again features numerous Holiday Kitchens located around World Showcase. Each of these kitchens will highlight special seasonal dishes and drinks from all over the world, like a seasonally-themed pork schnitzel plate at the Bavaria Holiday Kitchen.

We expect that a more detailed menu from each booth will be announced soon, so we will be sure to update this post with more details when they are released!

Character Cavalcades and Appearances

Currently, guests can see Character Cavalcades featuring Anna and Elsa and Mickey and Friends traveling around World Showcase at various times throughout the day. Once the EPCOT Festival of the Holidays begins next month, these characters will still make surprise appearances at the park, this time wearing their holiday outfits. Visitors to the World Showcase may have a chance to see the “Frozen Holiday Promenade” or the “Mickey and Friends Holiday World Tour” as they stroll around enjoying food and beverages at the many Holiday Kitchens.

Alongside these classic character appearances, guests may even catch a glimpse of Santa Claus himself as he passes by spreading holiday cheer. Disney Parks Blog only mentions that Santa will take a “grand horse-drawn tour” around World Showcase, so we aren’t sure if this will be a carriage or not… or perhaps it will be a very fitting one horse open sleigh!

Entertainment

EPCOT’s annual festivals may look a little different this year, but the great news is that there are many returning entertainment favorites coming to the International Festival of the Holidays in new ways!

This time around, the Voices of Liberty and Mariachi Cobre will both perform at the America Gardens Theatre located in The American Adventure pavilion, while the JAMMitors will perform in the Canada pavilion at Mill Stage. Also returning will be the JOYFUL! A Celebration of the Season singers, who will be performing at World ShowPlace this year.

Activities

Two holiday-themed activities will be offered this year, including the returning Holiday Cookie Stroll. For guests to complete the Holiday Cookie Stroll, they will have to purchase each cookie on the stroll from five different Holiday Kitchens in order to receive the final special complimentary cookie.

New this year is “Olaf’s Holiday Tradition Expedition”, which is basically a Frozen-themed scavenger hunt similar to Remy’s Ratatouille Hide and Squeak and EPCOT’s many other festival scavenger hunt activities.

Guests can purchase a map at one of three stores in EPCOT and search for hidden Olafs in each of the eleven World Showcase country pavilions. Once they complete the map, they can then return to one of the stores to receive a special prize.

We completed Hide & Squeak during our last trip to the Taste of EPCOT Food & Wine Festival and really enjoyed searching for Remy all around World Showcase… he was actually pretty good at hiding and it ended up being quite the challenge!

---

That wraps up our closer look at everything we know so far about what’s coming to this year’s EPCOT Festival of the Holidays!

See our original post about Walt Disney World’s 2020 Holiday Season for a full look at what we can expect to see at all four parks this November and December:

We’ve got even more related articles about holidays and events at Walt Disney World, so check them out below:

As always, we encourage you to visit Disney’s website for all official information and to make sure that none of this information has changed since this article was written. Disney frequently makes changes and updates to their parks and offerings. Because of this, the information in this post was current at the time of publishing and is subject to change at any moment. We update our website and articles as often as we can, but it is always a good idea to double check Disney’s official website before planning your trip or visiting the Walt Disney World Resort.

Last Updated October 31, 2020