I love Epcot Festivals. I love Epcot to begin with, as I count walking around World Showcase as one of my hobbies, but there’s something extra special about Epcot during the festivals. For us, personally, Flower and Garden started to edge out Food and Wine with the addition of the food and beverage booths several years ago. Flower and Garden Festival begins in March and lasts through May, which showcases some of our favorite Florida weather, with warm days, and cool evenings.
Topiaries
The big star of the Flower and Garden Festival, are the number topiaries strategically placed throughout the park. These topiaries are impeccably sculpted Disney plant sculptures. At night, the topiaries are lit up different colors, adding a whole new dimension to them – so make sure to take a walk around when the lights go down too, as it’s a complete different experience. This year’s topiaries include the following:
Front Entrance – Donald, Daisy, Huey, Dewey, and Louie getting ready for spring
Mission Space – Buzz Lightyear
Test Track – Lighting McQueen and Mater
Ranger Mickey – Future World East
Fantasia – Future World West
Phineas and Ferb – Future World East
Minnie Mouse and Pluto – World Showcase Entrance
Butterfly Topiaries – Backside of Spaceship Earth
Bambi and Friends – Canada Pavilion
The Hundred Acre Woods Characters – United Kingdom Pavilion
Peterpan – United Kingdom Pavilion
Cinderella and Prince Charming – France
Beauty and the Beast Characters – France
Woody – The American Adventure
Lady and The Tramp – Italy
Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs – Germany
Anna and Elsa – Norway
China Dragon – China
The Lion King – The Outpost
Butterfly Garden
A festival favorite for children and adults, and seemingly everyone but me (butterflies freak me out), this tent showcases the entire lifespan of a butterfly. You get to see butterflies flying freely, and if you’re wearing something floral (it is spring, after all) you might even have one land on you.
Food and Beverage
Epcot’s World Showcase is the home of all the food and beverage booths. We think that the Flower and Garden Festival is a great time to be on the Disney Dining Plan, because almost all of the food items count as snack credits on the Dining Plan, which is a great value for getting the most for your money. Some of our favorites include the coconut rum spiked Dole Whip from the Pineapple Promenade, the pulled pig slider from The Smokehouse, the La Vie En Rose from Fleur de Lys, and the biscuit with salmon tartar at Cider House.
Merchandise
There’s plenty of specialty merchandise to pick up at this year’s festival, and PRAISE – a majority of it features everyone’s favorite Epcot character – Figment! I don’t know which of the Disney higher ups made this decision, but it was a fantastic decision, that will be smiled upon for years. You can also pick up things like plumeria to plant at home, or bonsai trees (because who doesn’t need one of those?) to take back with you.
Concerts
Flower and Garden Festival features different pop bands performing in the American Pavilion in the same space where they hold The Candlelight Processional. To be honest, we have no interest in these concerts, but they seem incredibly popular judging by the lines we’ve seen building with people waiting to get into them.
The Flower and Garden Festival is one of our favorite times of year to visit Epcot. We think it’s a beautiful addition to an already beautiful park, and we know you’ll love eating and drinking your way around World Showcase, while looking at all the beautiful topiaries.
