Hi friends and followers! The past few weeks, I’ve been a bit busy and felt like I haven’t had much time to work on any new DIYs – after planning out what the next two months of my life look like (which is next to near impossible lmfao), I figured I could share a fun little look at our Easter weekend trip to Disney World, for the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival in honor of Earth Day this weekend!
Tip: What most people don’t know, is that the Flower and Garden Festival, which runs from March-May, is basically like a less crowded, just as delicious version of Food & Wine Festival, minus the cooking demonstrations. While they don’t have demonstrations by famous chefs like Bobby Flay etc. they do have a bunch of different flower and food related professionals, doing floral arrangement demonstrations, concerts and more! There are no/limited lines at each of the food kiosks and all of the food selections are fresh and delicious.
For the past two years, I’ve met up with my parents for a nice weekend getaway and enjoyed everything that the festival has to offer. If you’re not looking to wait 3 hours for a mini BBQ slider or a cocktail sample, than the Flower and Garden festival is seriously the way to go.
Friday
On Friday, I had the day off from work and we were able to head out at a relatively early time. We met up with my parents at our hotel just in time to check in. This year, we stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside! Each room truly looked like a princess bedroom, and as an inner and outer child, I probably enjoyed it more than the average adult.
That night, we made a reservation in Disney Springs for dinner. Morimoto was our reservation of choice – and I’m pretty sure I craved sushi for a week in anticipation of this dinner. LOL
I ordered a delicious noodle bowl/ramen dish, that was CALIENTE, and both my mom and I ordered a strawberry cocktail with ginger beer topped with fresh strawberries. Jonathan had a mai-tai.
Not only was the food delicious, the restaurant also had these really cool beaded lights! Check them out. 🙂
After dinner, we took a nice long stroll around Disney Springs. If you haven’t been lately, Disney Springs, formerly known as Downtown Disney, has been given a serious overhaul. It looks amazing! They’ve added a whole new area with shopping and the whole place is really on-trend, with farm to table restaurants, twinkle lights and modern updates. Many of the old restaurants have gotten facade updates as well!
They’ve even added in a Sprinkles Cupcake, with accompanying Cupcake ATM. Because what could make Disney any better, than a cupcake ATM?
Jonathan and I ordered a sundae – with a salted caramel cupcake top and butter pecan ice cream.
Saturday
Bright and early Saturday morning, we headed to Epcot. Once through the gates of one of the most magical places on Earth, we picked up our food passports and headed on our way!
Must-do
The last few times Jonathan and I have been to Epcot, we’ve wanted to do a special tour, called Behind The Seeds. It’s actually a behind the scenes tour of the greenhouse area in The Land ride. Since we actually had time to plan our trip more than a month ahead of time, we were finally able to reserve a spot on the tour! If you’re looking to do it during your next trip, it’s available all year, at $25/person!
Our tour guide writing out our name tags. Did you know they keep the Disney font printed out at the counter so they can copy it. LOL Thought that was cool. His rendition was not exact, but we’ll give him kudos for trying. 🙂
Baby plant nursery! The plant clippings are “propagated” in a weird jelly like solution kind of like what they put in Petri dishes. From there, the grow under these red and blue lights, simulating sunlight.
Definitely safe to say that Jonathan had sufficient greenhouse envy after our tour!
Must-see
While I didn’t have much time to take pictures of my food, since I was busy eating it, I did get a bunch of pretty snapshots of the amazing topiaries and floral displays. The gardens scattered throughout the park are all tailored to different themes – from herbal remedies, to spicy varieties and edible flowers.
They even have a special garden where you can frolick among the butterflies!
We even had a chance to check out one of the speakers in the conference center – who showed the audience how to put together a aesthetically pleasing flower planter. If I didn’t already have a pallet planter on my front porch, this would’ve been my next project for sure!
Toward the end of the night, we managed to catch a concert by the rock band, The Gin Blossoms. Now, you may be asking yourself, “WHO?”
And, that’s exactly the question I asked before I looked them up. Apparently, they’re popular for the type of music that’s in basically every 90’s movie about teen angst. lol Here’s a popular one for your listening pleasure.
Hope you enjoyed seeing a quick snapshot into our weekend and hope that some of these fun flower pics may inspire you to go out and be in nature this weekend, or even buy yourself a little pot of flowers!
Happy Earth Day everyone!
Leave a Reply