Happy opening day of the International Festival of the Holidays, World Travelers! We were so excited to be able to cover the opening of this Festival, which will run just over a month long (and has been extended a day) here at EPCOT, featuring some all-new food, drink, and entertainment. Let’s get started!

First thing’s first: upon entering the park, we noticed that the Security check point on the East side of the entrance has been partially opened. Guests arriving at park opening today were parked in the East side of the parking lot and directed through this recently-finished portion of the Security structure.

Once inside the park, we headed straight for Mouse Gear so we could check out any new Festival merchandise there might be. We found three new pins released for the Festival, including two Limited Release pins.

We also found this Limited Edition pin, edition size 1500. All three pins are available at Mouse Gear only.

We also found this Limited Edition MagicBand featuring Chip and Dale. We think this is the cutest holiday MagicBand this season!

While there isn’t a lot of merchandise for this year’s Festival of the Holidays, what there is, is pretty awesome! Our favorite piece is this sherpa Spirit Jersey featuring Chip and Dale.

While we were enjoying the Festival we also found some new merchandise in the Italy Pavilion. This shirt features the phrase “Amore Al Primo Morso” which translates to “Love At First Bite” and retails for $29.99.

Next we found this ringer “Italia” shirt featuring an Italian Mickey for $36.99.

Last but not least we found this pair of “his and hers” shirts for $24.99 for the Men’s and $29.99 for the Women’s.

All that finding of merchandise had us in a scavenger hunt mood, which was perfect since there’s a new scavenger hunt for the Festival. Olaf’s Holiday Tradition Expedition takes you on a journey to find an Olaf with a symbol of a holiday tradition in every Pavilion around World Showcase. We loved finding them all!

When we were here yesterday we saw that two booth still remained from the International Food & Wine Festival with their signs intact, and no visible change. Today those booths were still there, but their signs and menus have been removed. We’re curious what the future holds for these locations.

We got to see several Cavalcades today, including the Mickey & Friends Holiday World Tour. Minnie was looks wonderful (as usual) in her new holiday dress.

We also got to see Santa Claus in his beautiful decorated cart. Doesn’t he look fantastic?

We had the pleasure of seeing some amazing performances today as well, like the Voices of Liberty “Voices of the Season”.

We also got to see the amazing Capital gingerbread display, which took 165 pounds of gingerbread to create.

We had a wonderful day at the opening of the International Festival of the Holidays here at EPCOT, and we hope you enjoyed coming along with us. Have a magical day!