All about our trip to see the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival at Disney!
This past weekend I visited the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival at Disney with two amazing women: Catalina (@catalinaonair) and Fran (@howdoyouadult). It was a last-minute invitation (literally 24 hours’ notice) and I am so glad I said YES. The Type A in me usually needs to plan things out, but this time I chose to throw caution to the wind and had a blast!
We stayed at Disney’s Grand Floridian hotel and were pampered. The beds were gloriously comfortable. And that Mickey made from towels was a very cheery welcome!
We quickly got ready for Illuminations at Epcot. After the amazing fireworks and light show experience, we made our way to Magic Kingdom to enjoy the night. We grabbed a late dinner and, of course, a sweet treat before visiting Cinderella’s castle.
We went back to the hotel room and crashed. Well, Fran crashed. Catalina and I enjoyed our elaborate skincare routine before bed LOL. (Don’t worry, I made sure Fran at least had a makeup remover wipe before crashing!)
The next day we got ready to hit up as many parks as possible. Since were were going home that day, we wanted to make the best of it. Let’s just say that 21k steps later, I am still recovering from that one full day at Disney! But I would still do it all over again!
The grounds of the Grand Floridian were gorgeous. And the breakfast? To die for. Of course, we made sure we got cocktails with breakfast. It wouldn’t be the happiest place on Earth without happy juice amiright?
After boarding the monorail, we were on a hunt for the perfect ears. Catalina went with a Flower & Garden Festival themed ears. I fell in love with the Briar Rose Gold ears. I’ve been on a blush and rose gold kick lately and I don’t hate it. I LOVE these! Plus, I wore them for 12+ hours and no headaches!
The Flower & Garden Festival at Epcot was a sight to behold. Of course there were flowers everywhere. The view from the monorail ride gave us an amazing birds’ eye view of the flower arrangements. The floating gardens were so cute.
The lifelike character topiaries were out of this world. The princesses looked so lifelike!
I grew to love Epcot for the attention to detail in each of the “countries.” Fran grew up with lots of Norwegian artwork and pointed out all the motifs painted and/or etched into the wood inside the houses in Norway.
I also noticed that the Disney cast members in each “country” in Epcot were actually from those countries! I loved hearing the accents from all around the world.
I also made sure Fran got a First Time button at Epcot. It’s such a sweet gesture from the park and I couldn’t let her first time go without one. After stopping at a few shops, we finally found the perfect ears for her: black velvet with a red polka-dotted bow. Each of our mouse ears were perfect!
Shortly after this picture was taken, I RAN to the live mariachi music in an open square inside México. I cried tears of joy hearing the musicians play and sing Llorona, Remember Me, and other songs from Coco. Even though my family isn’t from Mexico, I can’t explain the joy I felt at the representation of a rich Hispanic culture.
After riding Mission: SPACE, Soarin’, and Frozen Ever After in Epcot, we made our way to Animal Kingdom. My one must-have out of this trip was experiencing the Avatar Flight of Passage ride at Pandora.
Of course, we also rode Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain. I am about 5,000,000% sure I lost my spleen to this ride. Idk. It was too dark to tell.
We finished off our time at Disney searching for this photo wall. It was VERY hard to find, especially so close to park closing time.
All in all, this was an amazing trip. All three of us were experts in dodging people left and right, and could easily regroup. I can’t wait for the three of us to do it all over again!