How to Maximize Your Experience at the EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival: A Strategy Guide

For Disney guests, springtime is an opportunity to enjoy extra seasonal fun. The EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival, which runs from March through June, offers many family activities.

What is all the buzz about? While you might spot Spike the Bee in one of the flower beds, other fun opportunities include gardens, character topiaries, unique photo opportunities, themed merchandise for sale, a butterfly landing, a concert series, festival food, and more.

A Beauty and the Beast topiary is seen at the EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival with pink, purple, and white flowers in a flower bed. — Beauty and the Beast are examples of the fun topiaries at the Festival.

A topiary of Goofy shows him blowing a dandelion at the EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival while standing in a bed of red flowers. — A topiary of Goofy shows him blowing a dandelion during the EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival.

If you are visiting EPCOT during the International Flower & Garden Festival, you should choose your festival strategy in advance. Decide which approach interests you the most:

Enjoy your park day, and do not spend time on festival-related activities. Guests who are not interested in any festival activities, have limited time in the park, or are first-time guests may wish to experience the park's typical offerings instead of taking time for the festival. I encourage you to review the festival activities anyway, in case of issues with weather or rides not operating. This will allow you the flexibility to change plans quickly and focus on the festival if needed.
Concentrate mainly on a typical EPCOT park day, casually enjoy seeing the topiaries as you walk by them, take a few festival-related photos, and sample some limited-time food around the park.
Balance your time between going on rides and seeing characters while also incorporating festival activities, such as attending a concert.
Enjoy the festival for the day instead of attending the park for the typical activities. Local guests and guests who have visited the park many times might choose to concentrate on the festival rather than the rides.

If you are attending the festival (or another one) during your vacation, consider if you want to attend it at the beginning of your vacation to ease into the fun or if it would work better to attend it in the middle of your trip for a bit of a break (although you will still be walking many steps). You can participate at the end of your vacation, but consider if you want to end your vacation with a nontypical Disney memory rather than walking out after that one last great ride.

Once you decide on your festival/park strategy, you can choose concert dates and the date you need to attend the park if required. Having a plan also prevents you from being sidetracked by the festival sights, which might cause you not to use your time wisely and leave the park without accomplishing enough. You can also research the Magic Shots you must get and the food you want to try before your trip. You can find the picture opportunities, food menu, and information about festival food for those with special diets on the company’s site.

Pots of flowers on the ground surround a large butterfly topiary with pink flowers. — Floral displays are seen throughout EPCOT at the Flower & Garden Festival.

A butterfly rests on yellow and orange flowers and greenery at the Butterfly Landing at EPCOT. — Guests can see different butterfly species up close at the Butterfly Landing.

Our Experience Choosing to Concentrate on the Festival

It is easy to attempt to ride as many rides as possible at Disney World. Still, when we attended the EPCOT International Flower and Garden Festival, we decided to take the day to enjoy the festival. We did not ride any rides, and it was a fantastic day. It was all about a relaxing day of stunning visual beauty for us.

Looking at the character topiaries is a significant part of the fun. You can enjoy looking at them, taking pictures of them, or taking photos of your friends and family standing before them. We had researched which Magic Shots we liked the best, and we made it our goal to get as many as possible on our list. The colorful flower beds were fun to see and provided good background photos. You can read about taking background photos for your artistic or craft collection here. We were not disappointed with the butterfly landing.

It was a relaxing day of taking in all of spring’s fun and color. There was no standing in line for rides; it was quality family time, making time for spring, and childlike excitement when butterflies flew around us. Will you be bored if you skip the rides? Only you can answer that, but it was not a wasted day for us. We are the type of people who sometimes push it too much when we should have called it a day and returned to the hotel hours ago. It was a peaceful, relaxing day that filled us with happiness (albeit in a different way than a typical park day).

A pond at EPCOT is filled with round displays of red, orange, and yellow solid-color flowers. — Floral displays in the water at EPCOT add to the spring atmosphere.

A Mickey-shaped pink floral display is seen on the grass near the water at EPCOT. — Spring decorations are found in many places throughout the park.

Tips For EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival

Here are some tips to consider for attending the park during the festival:

No matter your festival strategy, it is worth going to the butterfly landing. The beauty of the butterflies dancing in the flower beds of the entrance/exit before you even get inside the landing is worth your time. Even if you are not participating in the festival, you can appreciate the beauty as you walk by it or see it while you wait for a character’s appearance. It also provides a nice break. This is a chance to take a few minutes to stop and, you guessed it, smell the flowers.
You have the flexibility to partake somewhere between none of it and all of it, and it takes minimal work to be prepared enough to have a successful festival experience by knowing what is on your must-do list. Take advantage of the ease of incorporating a few festival activities into your typical park day for special memories.
Consider getting Disney World’s PhotoPass to take memorable photos at the festival.
If you are unsure what to do at the festival or are overwhelmed with planning, attempt to take a mix of your own pictures and some pictures with Magic Shots. Look at topiaries as you walk around the park, and sample one or two food offerings as snacks.
Allow yourself to be free of park madness, take a day to be in the moment, and appreciate spring and its beauty if that makes you happy. It might be one of your best park days in a long time.
It took the majority of our day to participate in our festival activities, so if you want to do both the festival and a full park day, you may want to choose an extra day at EPCOT rather than one of the other parks.

Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore are enjoying spring in a bed of flowers. — Join Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore in childlike fun at the festival.

This festival offers a lot without much planning needed to make the most of it. Review the information online, decide how much you want to enjoy the festival, and create meaningful memories. Spring is a time of renewal, and theme parks provide an opportunity for that with seasonal fun. You can read about spring renewal here while you wait for your trip!