Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival 2011

Epcot Flower & Garden Festival

Epcot Flower & Garden Festival

 

Walt Disney World Orlando, FL. ~ The weather in Orlando this past Saturday was picture perfect for Disney’s Epcot Annual International Flower & Garden Festival. To stay at home on a day like this would have been such an injustice and with a festival like this, it was a no-brainer what we were going to be doing on this day. We packed up our daughter and drove the 15 minutes to the parking lot of Epcot. As we approached the turnstiles, you could see the courtyard as I call it, full with flowers and Disney characters made of flower and herb decorations. The smells cannot be described, but if you can imagine the sweet smells of lavender and orange blossoms, you kind of get a idea of what Epcot has in store for your senses. Everywhere you look there is absolute beauty. As you walk around the globe, there is a character display of Mickey, Minnie and Pluto. The designers who came up with this and implemented its design were absolute geniuses’, my hats off to all of them. This was defiantly a crowd stopper as everyone was there snapping up pictures with their cameras and phones, me included. As you walk towards the World Showcase, you saw that the designers had set up a wonderful butterfly garden on the right hand side and Pixie Hollow walk thru display on the left. We walked thru the butterfly garden and were amazed at all of the hand crafted trellises that were the new homes for all of the butterflies that Epcot had on display for its visitors. After taking hundreds of photos, it was off to Pixie Hollow. This was also a great viewing point for the lawn in which Epcot’s designers out did themselves. The lawn that borders Test Track and the reflection pond is about the size of a football field and was covered in flower designs that captivated every person who set eyes on it. It was absolutely hypnotic and the sweet smell of their flowers made you want to just sit down and breath in the beauty of it all for hours. Pulling ourselves back to reality, it was on to the displays in the Pixie Hollow area. In this walk thru, the designers made the movie characters up in mosses, flowers and the occasional bunny that would run across the paths in front of us. This is a great area if you have kids as there are wide open grassy areas for the kids to run safely in. Moving on to the World Showcase, you are now hit with the smell of delicious foods that are being served around the lake. This combined with the exotic smell from all of the herbs and flowers from around the showcase, it was no wonder that we felt like the kids in the Willie Wanka movie who wanted to run as fast as they could to gobble up all of the deliciousness that awaited them. This is exactly what we felt like and so we headed straight to the left towards the Mexico Pavilion where the Margaritas’ and Churros awaited. As you walk thru each country, you will see different flowers of the regions as well as herb gardens for you to enjoy. Lavender and sweet blossoms were abundant, so if you are sensitive to this smell, you might want to avoid this event as it was abundant everywhere. I though love lavender and was in a dream all day long. England was probably my favorite as they had their beautiful gardens displayed along with the fresh blossoms of sweet oranges everywhere. This was my Zen moment sitting on the curb eating Fish & Chips while sipping on Guinness Stout watching all of the smiling tourists walking buy, talking about how good everything smelled so good in merry o’le England. After a short walk thru Canada, we were on our way out of Epcot Center and back to our home where we were going to implement many new ideas in our backyard that we had witnessed at Epcot. If you are a person who loves this type of experience, then I highly suggest a day or two at this wonderful event. Please contact our office if you need to purchase Epcot tickets for this festival. This is a annual event, so if you miss this one, there is always next year.

Patrick Pulliam Copyright © 2011

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