Try These New Tastes of EPCOT

There’s a good reason why Walt Disney World’s EPCOT park is known as Festival Central. With four major set-piece occasions throughout the year, it is hard to visit without one of their special events going on. Which is great news for our visitors.

As of March 5 and running all the way through to June 2, the grand International Flower & Garden Festival is in full bloom, and this is a truly wonderful time of the year to be here, with the big horticultural event of the year ensuring a fresh and exciting ambience.

In keeping with this annual fiesta – the 30th of the Garden variety – the park positively bursts into colour and vibrancy, with extensive new flowerbeds, topiaries (70 in all, including Bambi and friends, Pumba and Timon, and Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy) and themed gardens (25 of them), plus the real bonus of fresh flavours, new merchandise and the hugely popular Garden Rocks concert series at the America Gardens Theatre three times each evening.

The flavours, of course, come from a series of themed Outdoor Kitchens spread around the park and are now as much a feature of the Festival as the plants themselves, hence it makes for a real foodie element to proceedings.

What IS the Flower & Garden Festival?

This is mainly for newcomers to the Disney scene, but it’s worth underlining what this three-month event is all about. In short, it is a fabulous overlay for the park that puts EPCOT at its most picturesque. The addition of the Outdoor Kitchens and nightly concerts from big-name acts make sure there is something for everyone, and provide an overall vibe of real excitement.

There are also new elements each year to ensure regular visitors want to come back and reacquaint themselves with all the garden delights. This year, Communicore Hall Garden is an all-new highlight that makes use of this rather sterile space in the World Celebration section to present a larger-than-life gallery that showcases how Disney’s Horticulture team brings the Festival to life each year. In addition, the Farmers Feast Kitchen – one of our all-time faves – has been brought inside the Hall, which gives it the chance to be even more creative with the additional kitchen space.

The grand entrance topiary also changes each year and this year’s version features the characters from Moana and Moana 2 in a clever set-piece showcase for the films. Each of Moana, Maui, Heihei and Pua feature in the ensemble, and there are some clever lighting effects that have been added for extra pizzazz, which are especially good at night.

Children are not forgotten, either, as there are always two elaborate play areas designed just for them. This year, the new Playalong Bay Play Garden pays homage to the fab Stormalong Bay water play area at Disney’s Yacht and Beach Club Resorts. The seaside-inspired playground is located between the Imagination pavilion and the entrance to World Showcase.

Best tactics for the Festival

Make sure you start by grabbing a copy of the handy brochure-style Festival Passport, which includes a map and checklist of all the different Kitchens and their menus, and also offers the bonus of the Garden Graze, a selection of 10 specific food and drink items from the various kiosks. If you order at least five of the 10 – and get a stamp in your Passport each time to prove it – you then qualify for a little gift prize back at the Pineapple Promenade booth.

If you have children, a good challenge for them when you arrive is to invest $9.99 in Spike’s Pollen-Nation Exploration Scavenger Hunt, which comes with a special map and stickers and invites guests to look out for Spike the Bee around World Showcase. Place a sticker on the map wherever you find Spike and, when complete, take your map back to where you bought it for a small gift. There is also the super-cute Butterfly Landing, which surrounds visitors with butterflies and also has terrific appeal for the young ’uns.

Best of all, the Festival is all part of your regular park entry, so your only extra expenditure is on some of the tasty treats on offer at the Outdoor Kitchens, the scavenger hunts and any souvenirs you may buy. Food items typically cost from $5.50 to $11.50, and drinks (non-alcoholic mixes, craft beer, wine and cocktails) from $4 to $16.

But what about the food?!

Of course, most people now want to know all about the latest dishes on offer at the 21 kitchens and 10 regular food and beverage outlets that add to the Festival menus, so here is the inside track on what to expect this year. Just to start with, there are two all-new food kiosks, the Yacht Grub and Beach Grub, which pay homage to Disney’s Yacht and Beach Club Resorts. They will be serving up a mix of seafood, dips and chips and both meat and cheese plates, all of which look particularly scrummy and good value.

The other 19 kitchens vary in international terms from Japan (Hanami) to Mexico (Jardin de Fiestas) and Primavera Kitchen (Italy), and several with more whimsical themes, such as Magnolia Terrace (in the American Adventure pavilion), Citrus Blossom (inside the Odyssey pavilion) and the Swirled Showcase (featuring classic variations on soft-serve ice cream), next to Canada.

Returning favourites include the super-fresh Avocado Toast and Shrimp & Grits from the Brunchcot kitchen, the tasty Cubanito (Cuban sandwich) from Florida Fresh (along with their new Conch Fritters and Strawberry Shortcake), the flavourful Satay Beef Bao Bun from Lan Yuan (in China), the dreamy Toasted Pretzel Bread topped with black forest ham and melted cheese from Germany’s Bauernmarkt, and the sumptuous Spicy Chicken Gumbo from Magnolia Terrace.

If those are some of the highlight food items on offer, the drinks list is just as creative and impressive, and the choice of craft beers continues to be a major highlight, notably the Japanese-inspired Pilsner at Hanami and Collective Arts Brewing Honey Lager from The Honey Bee-stro, plus two new choices, the Gulf Stream Brewing Les Rêves de Monet Lager with lavender (yes, really!) at the Farmers Feast, and Central 28 Beer Company Elderflower Pale Ale at Swirled Showcase. But, if we had to single out just one beverage on the Don’t Miss list, it would have to be the Spiced Rum Cocktail from Magnolia Terrace – a taste of the tropics in a glass!

There’s more!

Be sure to take notice of Spaceship Earth after dark, as this mighty geodesic sphere offers an additional Festival highlight thanks to the new permanent night-time light show over the entire exterior. It runs every 15 minutes or so until closing time and this year sees the return of the Colours of the Wind show, themed from the film Pocahontas.

Each annual edition of the Flower & Garden Festival also brings plenty of the signature topiaries, the clever art of clipping shrubs and bushes into particular shapes or, in this instance, Disney characters! This year, the topiary highlights include the Moana crew, the return of Phineas and Ferb, and Woody and Bo Peep from Toy Story. Even Spike the Bee gets his own topiary. In all, there are more than 70 characters to discover around the four sections of the park, albeit the vast majority are to be found in World Showcase.

This is the Festival that really gets us excited each year, and we think it is THE unmissable event this Spring. See more details on this link.

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