The EPCOT Flower and Garden Festival

Each spring EPCOT goes through a magical transformation. The entire park comes alive with flowers, butterflies, and life-size topiaries of iconic Disney and Pixar Characters. There are gardens for flowers, herbs, and vegetables. There are dozens of pop-up stands where park guests can purchase products to take home to tend their own gardens or even grow their own Mickey topiaries.

Just about everywhere you can imagine they have added brightly colored flowers. This year they had an exhibit that paid tribute to prehistoric plants. There were even little dinosaur figures in with the plants. The biologist in me was very excited over the fact that they had a bit of mass and it was producing spores. You can tell that all of the plants are very well cared for.

There are talks from experts in gardening and designing back yard spaces. Nearly all of the pop up stands and the existing snack stands have special snacks and drinks for this event. They even have dole whip! (Which previously could only be found at the Magic Kingdom or Polynesian Resort.) A lot of the drinks featured on special were alcoholic, with non-alcoholic versions available as well. Most of them are fruity and perfect for a temporary escape from the heat of the day. 

A lot of the character topiaries are placed in their native lands. In England you could even see Peter Pan on the roof of one of the castles. Though, I will admit that every time I walked by the 'tea garden'  I laughed a little. 

There are spice gardens, vegetable gardens, and even a giant enclosure with countless butterflies. overall the entire event is simply amazing. If you can spare a day to just walk around the park and enjoy all of the festivities you won't regret it. But, trying to see all of the exhibits and ride the rides, and see the attractions might be a little too much for one day and could easily cause the little ones to get burnt out by the end of the day.

If you are lucky enough to visit the parks during the extra magical time take a little extra time to enjoy it. They have some of the same characters each year, but a lot of the topiaries change each year, so it will be different the next time you go. How cool is that?

Have a magical day!