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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Last week I told you about the 2013 Epcot Flower and Garden Festival. This week I want to show you just some of the topiaries that can be found throughout the park.

Epcot Entrance Topiaries

Phineas & Ferb

Fairies

Peter Pan

Princesses

Toy Story

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1. Write a post about Disney and add it to the Linky. Make sure you link to the actual post and not to your home page. Links that go to a home page will be deleted. Linky will be open Monday-Sunday of each week.
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Next week’s post will be full of topiaries, this week I want to focus on the rest of the festival. We ventured into the Festival Center where we always must first have a moment of silence for one of our favorite extinct attractions…Cranium Command, then we were free to check out the new festival merchandise and catch part of a seminar on how Disney decorates the parks for Christmas!

We also visited two of the new “try it” kids areas, Radiator Springs and The Land of Oz.

Radiator Springs is a Cars themed play area that featured a playground, a garden of car parts and an area with pictures of car parts for you to look for in the garden.

The Oz play area included games of chance, fun house mirrors, a hot air balloon photo op, a playground and an ice cream sand”witch” cart! The area was beautiful and  fun respite for kids who needed a break from gazing at flowers.

Of course, this is the Flower & Garden Festival so there are 4 of my favorite flower pictures from our visit.

The other new addition to this year’s festival were the Garden Marketplaces and Festival Farms which were located around World Showcase, think mini Food & Wine Festival.  There were several new food choices available and I think the favorite Garden Marketplace was the Pineapple Promenade sponsored by Dole. Here you were able to purchase Dole Whip and other pineapple foods and beverages in Epcot. Jordan was very excited about this and even wore his Dole Whip shirt to celebrate.

We always enjoy the Flower and Garden Festival and I am sure we will spend a few more days there before the Festival ends on May 19th.

Join Mouse House Memories

1. Write a post about Disney and add it to the Linky. Make sure you link to the actual post and not to your home page. Links that go to a home page will be deleted. Linky will be open Monday-Sunday of each week.
2. In your post mention that you are linking up to Mouse House Memories at TheMomMaven.com.
3. Optional but appreciated. Use the “Mouse House Memories Badge” at the top of this post  in your post, sidebar or blogroll and link back to the main Mouse House Memories post http://themommaven.com/2013/01/mouse-house-memories-2013/.

The post Mouse House Memories- the 20th Annual Epcot Flower and Garden Festival appeared first on The Mom Maven.

I’ve linked to these Wordless Wednesday Linkys:
ResourcefulMommy
BrainFoggles
MyThoughtsandRamblings

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