Eating My Way Through Epcot Flower and Garden
I’m so excited to share details about the Spring Break trip I took to Florida this year and my take on the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival. Like my previous post, I’d planned to write this one much earlier, but you know…apocalypse.
Why did I decide to go to Disney for Spring Break? Well, my very accomplished younger sister has a job managing communications there—she even has an office on Main Street USA in Magic Kingdom—so I was able to visit the parks for free. Spending time with my baby niece, E, was also a huge draw. Please enjoy a gratuitous baby pic.
Epcot and Animal Kingdom have always been in close running for my favorite Disney theme park, but Epcot takes the top spot. Even as a little kid, the free-spirited wanderer in me loved Epcot because of the World Showcase: 11 different country-themed pavilions with rides, attractions, and native cuisines. Also, Epcot is home to two of my top Disney rides (Test Track and Soarin’) and hosts cool events like the International Flower & Garden Festival, which happened to be taking place during my trip.
Epcot Flower & Garden is an annual, four-month-long spring celebration featuring tons of Disney-themed topiaries and immaculately manicured gardens. Outdoor kitchens with small plate menus are scattered throughout the World Showcase, and there are concerts from famous artists such as Plain White T’s, Rick Springfield, and The Pointer Sisters. I LOVE to eat, and the food prices are very reasonable so this is one of my favorite times to visit.
What I Did
In a lot of ways, I’m a creature of habit. When I like a particular dish, I’ll eat it again and again. If there’s a ride I enjoy, I’ll hop in line again and again. When I go somewhere I’ve often visited, I find it hard to balance doing all the things I loved on previous trips with trying something new. It’s probably why I arrived at Epcot at noon and didn’t leave until right before closing at nine.
I walked in knowing there were two new-to-me attractions I wanted to go on: Frozen Ever After (in the Norway pavilion) and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure (in the France pavilion). Every time I’ve come to Epcot since the Frozen ride opened, the wait times have been insane. This time, I came in planning to hit Frozen Ever After first thing, but it was closed. After going on my favorite ride, Test Track twice (which didn’t take long thanks to jumping in the Single Rider Line), Frozen was open…but it was a 145-minute wait, and I wasn’t down for that. Will I ever get to go on this damn ride? Who knows.
But…after a 75-minute wait–during which someone passed out in line from the heat–I DID get to go on the Ratatouille ride. I absolutely adored it! The ride is from the viewpoint of a rat scurrying along the floor of a busy restaurant kitchen, trying not to get caught underfoot. In some ways, it reminds me of the Spiderman ride at Universal Studios (which I LOVE). It’s a ride I’d wait in line for again.
I spent the rest of my day and evening eating my fill and completing the 1.3-mile World Showcase loop. I went on all my old faithfuls for nostalgia’s sake: the Gran Fiesta Tour (in the Mexico pavilion), Mission: Space, Spaceship Earth, Soarin’, Living with the Land, and Journey Into Imagination with Figment. [There is always one ride at every theme park that was created by someone on drugs, and at Epcot, Figment is that ride.]
On my way out of the park at about 8 p.m., I decided to get in line for Test Track for a third and final time, but an insane storm ripped through Orlando and shut the ride down. Y’all, it was a MONSOON. Silly me didn’t have a raincoat, poncho, or any kind of protection from the downpour. The flooding was immediate and went up to my shins. No one expected it and no one got out unscathed. What made matters worse was when I got to the parking lot, I couldn’t remember where I’d parked, and had to spend 20 minutes running around trying to locate my car. Oh–and when I found my car…I’d left the windows and sunroof cracked.
What I Saw
I love, love, LOVE the creativity of the Epcot Flower & Garden topiaries. It takes a lot of skill and artistry to create artwork with living plants. I’m lucky if I can keep a piece of bamboo alive for a week.
Notable Eats
Now we get to the very best part: the nom-noms. As I said above, during the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival, outdoor kitchens with special dishes are set up throughout the park. I spent much of my ride wait times poring over the festival “passport,” a little booklet detailing each dish and where to find it. There were so many dishes that I wanted to try, but it was too hot for a lot of them. As much as I wanted to try toasted pretzel bread topped with melted Gruyère and ham, or shrimp and grits, that wasn’t happening in ninety-something-degree heat under the Florida sun.
- Coconut Tres Leches: 👎 Vanilla cake soaked in oat milk, almond milk, and coconut milk with toasted coconut. Pretty disappointing. I wanted it to be so good!
- Tuna Tataki Bowl: 👍 Lightly seared tuna with a spicy yuzu glaze, mango, avocado, and a pappadam crisp. The mango wasn’t quite ripe enough, but I could have eaten five of those pappadam crisps.
- Seared Scallops: 👍 Scallops with French green beans, butter potatoes, brown butter vinaigrette, and applewood-smoked bacon. I would have loved more than two scallops, and while I wished the bacon was truly bacon and not ham chunks, the dish was tasty.
- Honey-Peach Freeze: 👎👎 Blegh. I love sweet things but this was way too sweet and creamy to not be ice cream. Maybe it would have been better with the booze. (Almost drink had boozy option, but it cost $7-8 more for the same size.)
- Frozen Desert Violet Lemonade: 👍👍👍 OMG, AMAZING. This frozen drink was the perfect balance of sweet and tart, exactly what I want during the middle of the day when it’s scorching outside. I wish I had tried this before the honey-peach drink because I probably would have gotten a second one. I have dreams about this drink, y’all.
Tips
- For Epcot Flower & Garden (and probably Epcot’s other festivals): You can get the beverages without the souvenir cup! Asking for your drink without the souvenir cup will save you about $10, which can buy you another small plate, or two more drinks sans cups!
- Take advantage of Single Rider Lines if they’re available. Even when I go to the park with other people, we hop in the Single Rider Line. Often, you still end up in the same vehicle or finishing the ride around the same time. If you get lucky, sometimes people are super nice and will let you sit together.
- Take your time if you can. Epcot is a park to savor. It doesn’t have a ton of thrill rides like the other parks, but it has ambiance, and a lot of it. Sure, you could get through everything in a day, but you’re bound to miss out on all of the special touches scattered throughout the park.
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