Top Travel Post 5

Look What’s Coming to Walt Disney World in 2017.
This post gave an overview of the Happily Ever After nighttime spectacular at the Magic Kingdom, the Rivers of Light nighttime show at Animal Kingdom and the most anticipated new land at Walt Disney World for 2017, Pandora-The World of Avatar. I had the opportunity to experience all three of these new offerings at Walt Disney World this year and I love Happily Ever After and Avatar. I saw Rivers of Light Once and as far as I’m concerned, I don’t need to see it again.

Top Travel Post 4

Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival Opens March 1 was an overview of what’s new and what’s returning to one of the biggest festivals at Epcot. There was new food, new music, and new topiaries at the 2017 festival. Stay tuned to find out what’s new in 2018.

Top Travel Post 3

2017 Disney Candlelight Processional Celebrity Narrators post was a bit late this year, because Disney was late announcing all of the narrators. Picking which narrators to see is a big deal for a lot of Disney guests. This year we were able to see both Pat Sajak and Jodi Benson.

Top Travel Post 2

My 2017 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party Dates Announced post always gets a lot of visitors because many people plan their vacations around the party dates. If you haven’t attended Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party or Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, I hope you will make plans to attend next year.

Top Travel Post 1

These Top 10 Must Pack Cruise Essentials will help to ensure that you have a wonderful cruise experience. I personally take 8 of them with me every time I cruise. If you are thinking about going on a cruise in the near future, check this list out, I’m sure you haven’t thought of all of these.

Thanks for being part of The Mom Maven family in 2017, I’m looking forward to a great 2018!

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What’s New at the 2017 Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival?

New Food

Fresh, farm-market food and beverage flavors will debut at the new Northern Bloom and The Berry Basket Outdoor Kitchens that will join 13 returning Outdoor Kitchens. Delectable chef-inspired bites from Northern Bloom include Seared Scallops with French Green Beans and Butter Potatoes with brown-butter vinaigrette and Applewood smoked bacon. A Maple Popcorn Shake for sipping can become an adult libation with the addition of some Crown Royal Maple Whiskey. At The Berry Basket, the Lamb Chop with Quinoa Salad and Blackberry Gastrique can pair with the new Founders Raubeaus Pure Raspberry Ale.

New Topiaries

• The new generation of princess topiaries (Snow White, Anna and Elsa – the first to be designed and created with topiary facial features) will welcome a brand-new Belle topiary as fans remember her from the Oscar-winning Disney film, “Beauty and the Beast.” Located outside the France Pavilion with the Beast topiary, Belle will come to life with sculpted facial features and her yellow ball gown created with golden blooming Joseph’s Coat and Creeping Jenny plants.
• Another festival first will be a 6-foot-tall topiary of Figment, the feisty dragon mascot of the park’s Imagination! Pavilion, perched atop a 5-foot-diameter ball fashioned from yellow Joseph’s Coat.
• This year’s Epcot front-entrance topiary garden, “Welcome Spring Fun, Food and Flowers,” inspired by a vintage Walt Disney short film will spring to life with a floral-festooned maypole featuring Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Daisy and Pluto.

More Music

• The popular Garden Rocks concert series will expand to four days each week, with three concerts each Friday through Monday presenting pop musicians that span multiple genres over five decades. New acts this year: Simple Plan, Exposé and Berlin featuring Terri Nunn. Festival favorite Jon Secada kicks off the series March 3 and 4, and Dennis DeYoung featuring the music of STYX wraps the long weekend March 5-6.
• New Garden Rocks Dining Packages will be available on select days at several Epcot restaurants. Guests can book packages at 407-WDW-DINE or by contacting their Travel Agent.
• Tomorrow’s post will give you the full Garden Rocks concert schedule.

Updated Play Areas

• Redesigned interactive play gardens will include the new “Cars”-themed Road to Florida 500 garden introducing the new “Cruz” character topiary from the June 2017 release of Disney•Pixar’s “Cars 3.”
• Music Garden Melodies play area will return with a new garden design, musical note topiary elements and climbing nets.

photo courtesy of Disney

Festival Center Hours

During the first festival week, the Festival Center will open Wednesday, March 1 and each day through Sunday, March 5 with an entertaining mix of gardening seminars and DIY workshops. Throughout the rest of the festival, the center will be open each Friday through Sunday. This frustrates me because we usually visit during the week to avoid the crowds and I miss being able to visit the Festival Center.

Plan your Visit

Now is the time to plan your visit to the 2017 Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival. There are still great deals available if you book by March 30th. Just Email Me to get started planning your magical vacation.

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What’s New at the 2016 Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival?

The new La Isla Fresca and Cider House Outdoor Kitchens will introduce fresh variety and flavor to the culinary offerings at a record 13 festival kiosks surrounding the World Showcase Promenade. Donald Duck’s mischievous nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, make their topiary debut with Donald and Daisy in the park’s signature front-entrance garden. Xylophones, drums and chimes will take child’s play to tuneful levels at the new Harmony Gardens play area featuring “leader-of-the-band” Mickey Mouse topiary.

Fun Facts

• 30 million blooms blanket the park throughout the festival, which runs 90 colorful days and requires two complete crop rotations to keep floral displays fresh and seasonal.
• 13 Outdoor Kitchens include the new La Isla Fresca and Cider House kitchens and gardens. Bauernmarkt: Farmer’s Market returns at Germany pavilion. Dozens of new sweet and savory food and beverage menu items add tasting fun and variety to the festival. Each marketplace will feature a garden planted with select produce and herbs to represent more than 50 overall beverage choices and more than 30 food items featured.
• The festival’s front-entrance Fresh Food, Fun & Flowers topiary scene, inspired by a 1943 Donald Duck comic book called The Victory Garden features three new Disney Character topiaries — the first-ever Huey, Dewey and Louie topiaries in a comical gardening scene. More than 30 varieties of flowers, plants, and other garden materials are used to create the scene.
• The new Floral Sun topiary scene behind Spaceship Earth paints the landscape with golden colors, and 15 yellow “sunbursts” of red and yellow Joseph’s coat pop up in a Future World topiary bed.
• Music Garden Melodies with Fab Five topiaries, a themed playground for children complete with innovative play systems featuring interactive musical gadgets, is one of the largest festival gardens created at nearly one-third acre. The garden includes a collection of plants with features that resemble musical instruments as part of the ambiance.
• Anna and Elsa in full floral splendor appear (new last year) move to a fresh topiary vignette straight from the hit Disney film, “Frozen.” In the Norway pavilion scene that’s wired to twinkle by night, Elsa works her magic to conjure a colorful spring garden. About 25 varieties of flowers are planted to evoke the scene. Florals including hot pink, red, and orange Gerberas, blue and yellow Violas, violet Petunias and purple Dianthus blanket the spring transformation. Anna and Elsa topiaries are each about 6-1/2 feet tall and are created with plants that include variegated Ficus, green Ficus and the succulent Sedum Coral Reef. But Elsa will look taller because she’s standing closer to guests than Anna by about 8 feet.   
• At least 25 different plants, grasses and mosses of various colors, including pink and red begonias, dusty miller, palm fiber, palm seeds, ficus and lichen, are used to create and define facial and other features of festival character topiaries. The topiary team uses about 200 one-pound boxes of hairpins to attach plants and flowers to the topiaries.
• Nearly 1,000 native butterflies represent up to 10 species at the expansive Butterflies on the Go butterfly house presented by GoGo squeeZ. Among the garden’s two dozen nectar plants are passion flower, coral honeysuckle, lantana, butterfly bush, blue porterweed, scarlet milkweed and canna lily.
• 240 extra playground hours add extra festival magic for children and their families with the illuminated garden playgrounds staying open through park closing.
• More than 500,000 plants, trees and shrubs are planted for the festival; 250,000 of those are annual blossoms installed for the festival. Affordable tree care solutions are necessary to keep trees healthy and looking great. There are a few key things to remember when looking for an affordable tree care solution.
  First, make sure you find a reputable company. Check online reviews and ask friends and family for recommendations.

  Second, compare prices. Make sure you get quotes from multiple companies so you can find the best deal.

  Third, be sure to ask about the company’s experience and qualifications. You want to be sure that the company knows what they’re doing and has the experience to back it up.

  Festival plants include 60 different species of trees, 47 types of palms, and 48 varieties of bedding plants.

• 78 hands-on gardening demonstrations and seminars will be presented.
• Forty 8-to-9-foot tall “flower towers” in an orange-and-green sunburst theme make colorful statements across the festival landscape.
• More than 200 floating mini-gardens, each three feet in diameter, of multi-hued New Guinea impatiens provide splashes of color on two ponds that border the walkway between Future World and World Showcase.
• 700 container gardens of flowers, herbs, plants and vegetables in clay pots, barrels and urns enhance the landscape throughout Epcot.
• 400 Walt Disney World horticulturists are needed to install the festival landscape, topiaries and many exhibits; 100 Epcot horticulturists maintain topiaries and other festival displays.
• It takes more than one full year and about 24,000 cast member hours to prepare for the annual festival.
• The festival’s weekend Garden Rocks Concert Series includes 13 bands known for their Top 40 hits across four decades. This year’s musical hit-makers from the 1960s through 1990s include four new-to-the-festival acts Blood, Sweat & Tears, Georgia Satellites, Darlene Love, and BRIAN HOWE, former lead singer of Bad Company.

Have you visited the festival this year, or in years past? Will you be visiting later this spring? What is your favorite part of the festival?

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