Greetings, World Travelers, and welcome to the opening day of the Taste of EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival! This is our favorite Festival of the year, so we were extra excited for today. We were spared the forecasted rain and had a picture-perfect Festival day, and had a blast seeing all there was to see. Let’s get started!

Before we could even start with the Festival fun, we had to stop and admire the new flags that had been installed last night near the park entrance. For more pictures and information, check out our article here.

After checking out the flags, it was time to dive into the Festival. We’ve seen topiaries installed around the park throughout the last week, but some arrived last night, including Figment. To see all of the Festival topiaries, check out our article here.

We stopped in at Pin Traders and picked up a copy of Spike’s Pollen-Nation Exploration Scavenger Hunt (and snagged our prize early.)

We also outfitted ourselves with this year’s Limited Edition MagicBand featuring Minnie Mouse. We’re even love the box and it’s hidden Minnie!

Another must-have accessory are these wearable gift cards perfect for eating and drinking around the world. There are two designs available for the Festival this year, one featuring Figment and one featuring Spike The Bee.

Speaking of accessories, we immediately fell in love with these new ears for the Festival featuring Orange Bird. Just look at that center medallion, and the generous flowers! There are so many great pieces of merchandise for the Festival this year, we think we might have to go shopping.

There’s a little something for everyone, including these beautiful Dooney & Bourke bags featuring Minnie Mouse.

Before we got too carried away shopping, we went to have a look at the Goodness Garden Butterfly House. We’ve watched this being installed, and we love how it’s turned out. The landscaping inside is so wild and lush, and while there are lots of butterflies yet to hatch, there are many already fluttering from flower to flower. For more pictures and a full video walkthrough, check out our article here.

Across from the Butterfly House where the Expression Section was during the Festival of the Arts, we found new butterfly wing photo ops had been placed overnight. We especially love the big floral one!

The area in between Flavor Full Kitchen (formerly the Waffles booth) and Traveler’s Cafe, which has been under construction and hidden behind scrim fabric for some time now, has reopened with the Festival as the Heathful Trail, presented by AdventHealth.

This colorful astroturfed-area is a great place to relax in a comfy patio chair in the shade and take a break for a moment.

On our way in to World Showplace, we saw this Horticulture “Tips of the Trade” truck and trailer display out front.

The “Tips of the Trade” displays continued inside World Showplace.

There were some informative signs around both displays detailing some of the amazing work that the Horticulture team does around the parks.

Further around World Showcase in American Adventure, we found a new treat available at Fife & Drum. While the float itself is a returning item, it has a new garnish and a new name. The “Half Note Float” is based on the movie “Soul”, and is the same as the “Musical Float” from the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts 2020.

In the Germany Pavilion, the model train village had also been decorated for the Flower & Garden Festival, with tiny Festival banners hanging from the lampposts in town square.

At The Joy of Tea in the China Pavilion, we found a drink special of Peach Liquor with Fresh Strawberry Milk available for the Festival. We also noticed that the Festival of the Arts napkin and utensil dispenser decorations had not been switched out yet.

Back in FutureWorld across from the exit of Test Track, the patio garden area had received signage and is officially called Outdoor Escapes Presented by OFF.

With the excitement of the Festival going on, we were surprised to step into the EPCOT Experience and find Eats At The EPCOT Experience completely shut down. Even the menus had been removed. While we don’t have any official information on how long this quick service location will remain closed, we expect it to be for an extended period of time. For more pictures and information, check out our article here.

We had a wonderful day at EPCOT, and we hope you enjoyed coming along with us. Have a magical day!