2/21 Epcot Flower & Garden Festival 2013 Preview as Topiaries Begin Arriving, Including Lady & Tramp

February 21, 2013 Denise

Hi everyone!

You'll find me at Epcot fairly often now, as flowers and topiaries are added to Epcot for the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival! Today I arrived to find topiaries all over World Showcase, and flower planters in the water near the Odyssey. The Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival opens on March 6th, 2013 and lasts through May 19th. This is our 6th year covering it (check out our coverage from last year)! Keep reading for almost 100 photos from today over several pages.

The Land of Oz playground and games opened last week in advance of the Festival (and in advance of the film Oz the Great and Powerful). That area is still being added to. Food booths are up around World Showcase, which will open with the Festival for guests to enjoy food and drink offerings similarly to the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. We are hoping it won't make World Showcase too busy in the evenings and weekends! I can't wait to try the Dole Whip with Spiced Rum.

This is absolutely my favorite time of year at Walt Disney World! If there is one small disappointment, it's that so many topiaries are in the same place as the previous couple of years. But I'm looking forward to the new ones that will be installed, including for the film Monsters University! Some of the gardens will be illuminated for the first time this year as well.

I actually walked in via the International Gateway before World Showcase was open, but I figured I'd open with a Spaceship Earth photo. There are vibrant flowers here, but in less than 2 weeks there will be a topiary display titled "Join the Party with Mickey and Friends".

I didn't take a lot of photos in World Showcase when I arrived, and most that I did will be grouped with the ones I shot later. But you can see Captain Hook and Tick Tock Croc protecting (or invading?) the bathrooms in England in the first pic – there will be more later! I walked toward Future World, taking photos of the food booths.