The perfect way to kick off Christmas week is with the Candlelight Processional in EPCOT! This year we were so excited to see the Candlelight Processional with Gary Sinise narrating. This is such a beautiful event celebrating the birth of Jesus through the Nativity story. I’m excited to share our evening with you all and hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
What Is The Candlelight Processional?
The Candlelight Processional originally started in 1958 in Disneyland. In 1971, Magic Kingdom also hosted the processional for the first Christmas season in Disney World and then it moved to EPCOT in 1994 where it has been ever since. The event incorporates an orchestra, choir and celebrity narrator to tell the Christmas Nativity story of Jesus’ birth. In EPCOT they even incorporate the Voices of Liberty! The staging, lighting and music are always so beautiful. This year we saw the Candlelight Processional with Gary Sinise narrating. He was fantastic! He told the story with so much love and joy. You could really tell he truly loved being there. He even said a great tribute to all our troops and veterans at the end that was very special. Each narrator puts their own spin on the telling and we really enjoyed Gary Sinise.
When Is The Candlelight Processional?
The Candlelight Processional happens nightly in EPCOT from November 28 – December 30. The showtimes are 5pm, 6:45pm and 8:15pm at the America Garden Theatre in the America Pavilion. There is general seating you can just line up for before each show and guaranteed seating you can get by booking a dining package. Depending on the narrator, the line can go all the way into Italy and even weave around for the guaranteed seating! Gary Sinise drew quite a crowd and even the guaranteed seating had a long line that started two hours before the show.
Candlelight Processional Dining Packages
There are a few options for the dining packages. You can book a reservation at any of these restaurants:
- Biergarten Restaurant in Germany
- Chefs de France in France
- Coral Reef Restaurant in the Living Seas
- Garden Grill in the Land Pavilion
- La Creperie de. Paris in France
- La Hacienda de San Angel in Mexico
- La Cellier Steakhouse in Canada
- Nine Dragons Restaurant in China
- Rose & Crown Restaurant in United Kingdom
- Shiki-Sai: Sushi Izakaya in Japan
- Spice Road Table in Morocco
- Tepan Edo in Japan
- Tutto Italia Ristorante in Italy
- Via Napoli Ristorante e Pizzeria in Italy
All of these restaurants include an entree, dessert or full buffet as well as one beverage (alcohol included for 21+). At Spice Road Table the package includes two small plates, a shared tagine, shared dessert platter and one beverage. If you don’t want to do a full table service reservation you can go to Regal Eagle in the America Pavilion and do a same day dining package meal. But those are limited so get there right when they open at 11am! These options give each person dining a guaranteed seat in a preferred viewing area for one of the three Candlelight Processional shows on that same day.
Coral Reef Dining Package
We chose to do a late lunch at Coral Reef to get guaranteed seats for the Candlelight Processional with Gary Sinise. It had been a really long time since we had eaten here and we were not disappointed! The hubs and Sawyer both got the Surf and Turf. That was filet mignon, grilled shrimp, garlic mashed potatoes and key lime chimichurri. They both said it was delicious! Thatcher had the Shrimp Fettuccine which was yummy shrimp alfredo. I had the Grilled Snapper that came with coconut lime rice, mango salsa, avocado, toasted coconut and chili lime seasoning. It was so good!
We were all stuffed but still had dessert because it was included! Haha! The hubs and Thatcher had the Pineapple Coconut Bread Pudding, Sawyer had the Chocolate Mousse Bar and I got the Key Lime Sunset. All of them were incredible and totally worth the extra fullness! I also took advantage of the included alcoholic beverage and got the Indigo Hibiscus and it was fabulous!
Conclusion
We loved the Candlelight Processional with Gary Sinise, it was the perfect way to get ready for Christmas week! It is just such a beautiful show and such a great way to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas. If you can get it together (which I did not this year) it’s a great time to get the family all dressed up and take some pretty Christmas pictures. Gary Sinise was perfect and I am so glad we got a reservation so we had great seats for his narration.
One of my favorite parts of the Candlelight Processional is the long trumpets (not sure that’s what they are). They really just make it so cool! I highly recommend checking the narrator list when it comes out and making a reservation for that night, you won’t be sorry! Thanks for reading along and I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and have a magical day!!
