3 Things to Do at EPCOT’s Flower & Garden Festival With Kids
Every spring, EPCOT hosts the International Flower and Garden Festival–best known for its beautiful gardens, character topiaries, festival food booths, and live entertainment throughout the park.
We recently visited with our two kids (ages 5 and 2 ½), and it’s a festival we always look forward to each year. As we made our way around World Showcase, my kids were so excited to see some of their favorite Disney characters brought to life in such a unique way.
We also spent time completing both the Eggstravaganza and Spike’s PollenNation Exploration scavenger hunts, which made exploring the park even more fun for them.
In this post, I’ll share 3 of our favorite things to do at the Flower and Garden Festival with young kids, including viewing the topiaries, visiting the butterfly garden, and completing a scavenger hunt.
Explore the Topiaries
One of the highlights of the Flower and Garden Festival is the character topiaries located throughout the park. This is such a great experience if you’re visiting with young kids because they’re easy to spot as you make your way around EPCOT, and there’s no waiting involved. You can explore at your own pace and take some really fun pictures along the way.
Disney does such a great job bringing their characters to life, with bright colors and incredible attention to detail. You’ll find a mix of classic favorites like Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pan, along with newer characters like Mirabel and Luisa from Encanto, so there’s something for everyone to enjoy.
My favorite was the area themed to Monsters University near Creations Shop. They had Mike and Sully surrounded by brightly colored planter pots filled with flowers. I loved all the little details–they even included a stack of Mike’s books and his Monsters University hat. The surrounding bushes were designed with eyes and mouths to look like monsters, and it was such a simple idea that completely transformed the space.
Along with the topiaries, you’ll also come across different garden areas throughout the park, like patchwork flower beds and designs made to look like fruits. It helps break things up and makes it feel like there’s always something new to look at as you walk around.
It’s a relaxing activity that requires no planning, and is an easy way to keep kids entertained while exploring the park.
Visit the Butterfly Garden
One of our favorite stops during the festival was Butterfly Landing. It’s a walkthrough garden designed for butterflies, with plants and flowers that attract them and signs that share fun facts about how they grow. There are also a few areas where you can see butterflies in different stages, including inside their cocoons.
As you walk through, butterflies fly freely all around you, and if you’re lucky, one may even land on you. My older son really enjoys learning about bugs and insects, so he was very excited to see real butterflies up close.
If you have little ones in a stroller, you can technically bring it inside Butterfly Landing, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s a popular experience and can get a little tight once you’re inside. There’s stroller parking right near the entrance, which makes it much easier to get around.
You’ll find the butterfly garden near the Imagination Pavilion, making it an easy stop as you explore the park.
If your kids enjoy this type of walkthrough experience, you might also want to check out Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana, which is another great way to explore at your own pace. You can read more about visiting Journey of Water with toddlers here.
Try a Scavenger Hunt
During different festivals and holidays throughout the year, EPCOT offers scavenger hunts that you can complete for a prize. At the Flower and Garden Festival, you’ll find Spike’s PollenNation Exploration, where you search around the park for little Spike the Bee garden stakes and place a matching sticker on your map based on the flower he’s next to.
For a limited time, EPCOT also offers the Eggstravaganza scavenger hunt, where you look for large eggs themed to different Disney bunnies throughout World Showcase. When we visited, both scavenger hunts were available, and since we were already planning to walk around World Showcase, we decided to do one of each.
There is a cost to participate (around $11.99), and discounts like the Annual Passholder discount can be used. Once you complete your map, you can redeem it for a small prize.
This ended up being a really great activity for both of my kids. My older son loved searching for all the bees and eggs, while my younger one had an easier time spotting the bunny eggs.
Sometimes young kids can lose interest just walking around the park, but having something to look for keeps them entertained. It’s a relaxed activity that you can complete at your own pace, and you don’t have to finish it in one visit. As long as the scavenger hunt is still being offered (and supplies last), you can pick up right where you left off. We also found that it encouraged us to spend more time exploring different areas of World Showcase that we probably would have just walked past otherwise.
For adults, there’s also the Garden Graze, which is similar to a food-based scavenger hunt. You’ll pick up a Festival Passport when you arrive at EPCOT (it’s free), and collect stamps for each of the Garden Graze menu items you purchase. Once you’ve collected five stamps, you can redeem your passport at Pineapple Promenade for a complimentary festival treat. Like the kids’ scavenger hunts, this is something you can complete at your own pace during the festival across multiple visits.
If you’re planning to try one of the scavenger hunts at EPCOT, I’ll be sharing a more in-depth post with tips for completing them with young kids, including how to pace your day and make the most of it.
Bonus: Don’t Skip the Playgrounds
While the playgrounds aren’t specific to the Flower and Garden Festival, they’re definitely worth taking advantage of if you’re visiting with young kids. Some of the scavenger hunts will bring you right past these areas, making them an easy place to stop, take a break, and let kids burn off some energy.
Final Thoughts
We look forward to the Flower and Garden Festival every year. With the start of spring and more mild Florida weather before the summer heat sets in, it’s one of my favorite times to visit Disney. The entire park comes alive with beautiful flowers, and it’s such a unique atmosphere you really don’t get anywhere else.
There’s so much to see and do during the festival, but we’ve found our three favorite activities are the ones we can enjoy at our own pace as we walk around the park. The character topiaries are a fun way to spot some favorite Disney characters, the butterfly garden gives little ones a more interactive experience, and the scavenger hunts make exploring World Showcase even more fun for kids.