New Guest Rideshare Pickup Area Pulls In to EPCOT
Picture this: You’ve had the best, busiest, most brilliant day at EPCOT. You were up at the crack of dawn to secure that boarding pass for Cosmic Rewind, you ate until you were stuffed at the Food & Wine Festival, and you almost burst with excitement to finally meet Figment in his own new meet-and-greet.
Now, as your feet are singing and you reluctantly leave the park, all you want is a smooth and safe transit home. The very last thing we want is to be fighting with our phones, overwhelmed by extensive parking lots all filled with identical-looking cars, confusing in the heat and the crowds – right?
Well, it looks like this particular struggle is going to be a thing of the past. Upon exiting EPCOT this afternoon, our eagle-eyed MickeyBlog reporters noticed a brand new feature area had been created in the park’s car parking lot, specifically aimed at guests who utilize rideshare apps for their onward journeys home.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Let’s check it out!
New Rideshare Area at EPCOT
As you can see from these photos of sunny EPCOT, new A-frame boards have been placed around the park’s exit, directing guests towards a rideshare zone, “hosted by Lyft.”
Now, Lyft has been a long-term partner with Disney, and is the company behind the famous Minnie Van service at Walt Disney World, too.
However, this newly marked area of the EPCOT parking lot doesn’t have anything to do with Disney-owned travel. Instead, it is simply a pre-marked area set aside for guests utilizing such services, to help aid traffic and add ease of travel for guests leaving the park.
Now, if you’re using Lyft or another rideshare service, you will be able to follow these arrows to a sectioned-off area of the parking lot, where rideshare cabs only will be permitted to stop and load up customers.
That means no more getting confused with the general parking crowds, Monorail rushes, or otherwise!
Once guests have made the trek to the specific rideshare zone, they will find a small array of numbered parking spots, each available for rideshare drivers to park in as they wait for passengers.
Having numbered spaces means that guests will have an even easier time finding the vehicle they booked – they just have to agree to the correct space with the driver.
No more squinting at license plates or trying to guess the makes and models of cars — all you need now is a number!
This whole operation is a very recent addition to EPCOT, but we’re thrilled to see it being utilized already by savvy, ride-sharing guests. It’s sure to make getting home a breeze after a busy park day, and we will surely be keeping this in mind ourselves on future visits!
So, whether you want to leave the car at home for your next EPCOT Food & Wine Festival visit or just don’t feel like queueing for those Disney buses next time you’ve been to the park, be sure to follow those arrows for this new rideshare pickup zone, hosted by Lyft.
We hope to see these pop up in other parking lots across the resort, and will be sure to keep you posted as we spot them!