EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival 2024: Bonsai, Butterflies & Tons of Fun

Each year, the EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival brings beloved Disney characters and stories to life in a vibrant, elaborate display of flowers, topiaries, and other whimsical decorations. These creations are displayed all over the Orlando, FL park, making for amazing photo opportunities and discovery. There also are interactive exhibits as well as incredible foods and drinks at each of EPCOT’s ‘round-the-world destinations, a super fun concert series, and so much more to explore.

For 2024, the EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival runs from February 28 through May 27. And of course we loved it so much last year that we absolutely couldn’t miss it this time around!

Here are a few of our highlights from a trip to the 2024 Festival—enjoy!

Read our recap of the 2023 EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival here!

Festival Passport

One of my favorite things about EPCOT’s various festivals is the passport you can pick up at all the outposts around the park—it gives an overview of things to see and do (like scavenger hunts and festival tents), plus food and drink options, complete with a page where you can collect stamps for special menu items.

Collect five stamps and you get a special treat!

We’ve successfully completed the stamps at one festival so far—and we tried really hard to do it again this time around.

Traveling Around the World

If you love EPCOT, you might have strong opinions about which direction to travel around the World Showcase—especially if you’re drinking around the world. Do you start in Mexico or Canada? Do you prefer to go clockwise or counterclockwise?

We switched things up this year and decided to go in what we’re assuming is 2024 Olympics Parade of Nations sorting, entirely because I just published an article about that subject last week. So our order was:

1. Germany
2. Canada
3. China
4. Italy
5. Japan
6. Morocco
7. Mexico
8. Norway
9. United Kingdom
10. USA
11. France

Before starting though, we stopped by the Brunchcot booth and picked up an avocado toast (which earned our first passport stamp) and fried cinnamon roll bites.

We also had to go on Test Track as always (single rider lane, which is always fun to start the day with because the line is super short)—on the way over, I snapped these topiary photos of Huey, Dewey, and Louie, plus Donald Duck with a little bee on his head:

And then we were on our way with our ‘round the world adventure!

Germany

Our first stop was Germany, where the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs topiaries can be found. We also picked up potato pancakes and a Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier. I loved the little Miniature Garden, which accompanies the miniature town with model trains.

Related: If you’re into trains, read Joe Smith’s articles on Frayed Passport, where he talks about taking Amtrak trips all over the United States!

Canada

Between Canada and the United Kingdom, you can see the Peter Pan, Captain Hook, and Tick-Tock topiaries, plus a whole garden just for Tinkerbell. There’s also a set of topiary geese that I loved here.

Of course I had to get poutine—after living in Montreal for a few months, I developed a deep and abiding love of it and absolutely needed to have some before heading into the Canada Far and Wide show. There was a plant-based buffalo chicken tender poutine that looked super intriguing (and which was a stamp on the festival passport), but I skipped it in favor of the classic.

China

Stopping by the China pavilion, there are adorable panda topiaries that I didn’t get photos of, but you can see them here. I stopped into the gift shop and picked up a dragon t-shirt because I’m still a 14-year-old unpopular nerd deep down. In the meantime, Dave grabbed a Brew Pub Honey Jasmine Lager Draft Beer, which was delicious!

We couldn’t stay long because our number came up for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind—I definitely wrote this in another article about EPCOT, but I can’t get over what an absolute blast that ride is. The music is incredible, the ride itself is fantastic, and it lasts as long as you wish the Tron Lightcycle Run would go for.

A Break at the Farmers Feast and Butterfly Landing

After our ride, we popped over to the Farmers Feast area for some street corn and a hibiscus lemonade cocktail. Careful about the corn on the cob—I burnt the crap out of my hand on it and we had to let it cool off for like five minutes before diving in! Totally worth it.

Over by Mission: SPACE there was a Prehistoric Garden with little dinosaurs and a whole jungle of plants, like ferns, moss, and even Venus flytraps.

We also loved Butterfly Landing over by the Imagination! section—here, you’ll find a tent with a wonderfully detailed butterfly garden and tons of plants. To me, this is the most personally dangerous section of the International Flower and Garden Festival just because I want to take pinchings from soooo many of the plants and bring them home for my yard. I never do and never will, but the temptation is there.

Italy

Once we finished touring the butterfly garden, we headed back to the World Showcase to resume our global tour, 2024 Olympics-style—so, that meant Italy! And Lady and the Tramp topiaries! I couldn’t get over how fabulous Lady’s ears were.

The most delightful moment here was when we ordered a Disney-exclusive chianti (on the menu, it’s described as soft with notes of cherry, plum, and spice) and the server recognized my t-shirt! You can see it farther down in this article, but this is the first time someone ID’ed the Weyland-Yutani Corporation logo on my shirt as an Alien reference, and not Westworld, haha.

Japan

If you’ve read any of my other EPCOT articles, you’ll know Japan is my absolute favorite section of the World Showcase. The food, drinks, gardens (even outside of the International Flower and Garden Festival), and shopping are enough to keep me there all day—till my husband insists we should probably hit up some other spots before the fireworks start.

Throughout this section of EPCOT, you’ll find lots of gorgeous bonsai trees and several different gardens—here are just a few of them:

While we were visiting Japan, we picked up a ramen cup and an Orange Blossom Brewing Co. Cherry Blossom Green Tea Pilsner—and oh my gosh. I loved, loved, loved the ramen cup! By far my favorite treat from the whole festival (and I love everything they have to eat at EPCOT!).

Morocco

Unfortunately a big section of Morocco was closed off while we visited, but we did get to enjoy the spice garden and pop into the gift shop. I think the spice garden was my favorite of the little garden destinations throughout the park—here, they had bay leaves, black pepper, cardamom, chili pepper, cinnamon, cloves, cumin, nutmeg, star anise, and white pepper.

We also got a festival passport stamp for the delicious coconut tres leches cake here!

Mexico

Now to Mexico! I loved the Miguel and Dante topiaries here—especially Dante, who reminds me of our goofy Peruvian street dog Mimi. We were getting a bit tired by now, so we didn’t pick up any new drinks, but I did find a new friend!

A quick aside: basically we had a (not hard and fast) rule in place that if we didn’t get anything to eat or drink while visiting a country along the World Showcase, we’d buy something from the gift shop…so we got this little alebrije magnetic shoulder plush, who also traveled with us to Hollywood Studios the next day!

Norway

Stopping by Norway, I snapped these photos of Anna and Elsa topiaries, as well as a happy troll and gorgeous green roof.

Around this time, we realized we were close enough to the Port of Entry to claim our festival treat—actually two treats, which were a Dole Whip in a keepsake cup and a packet of wildflower seeds!

United Kingdom

Oh, we were really feeling it by now—but we had to continue our world tour! To celebrate getting all of our stamps, we dropped into the Rose & Crown pub in the UK section of EPCOT and grabbed two beers.

I also dropped by the gift shop to get a corgi Christmas tree ornament and an adorable apron, which is now hanging in my kitchen.

USA

We arrived to the American Adventure section just in time to see the Plain White T’s play—part of the Garden Rocks concert series.

And I came across what I think is the prettiest topiary in the whole park—Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, lit up by beautiful little string lights.

France

We made it!

We finished eating and drinking around the world at the EPCOT International Flower and Garden Festival this year…we hit up all the countries in the World Showcase and filled out our festival passport for the second time ever, just in time for the fireworks!

Wrapping Up

Eating and drinking around the world at EPCOT is tough—but we’re already super excited for the Food and Wine Festival this fall! And I’ve got to say, hopping around in a totally different order than we’ve ever tried at the World Showcase, hitting up all 11 countries and paying attention to where we needed to go next rather than walking (then eventually stumbling) in a circle kept us on track and prevented us from overdoing it on the treats. We might be onto something here, at least for our own trips to EPCOT!

So, friends—what are your favorite spots around EPCOT, or even the other Disney parks? Share your stories and recommendations with the Frayed Passport community!

About the Author

As the editor-in-chief of Frayed Passport, my goal is to help you build a lifestyle that lets you travel the world whenever you want and however long you want, and not worry about where your next paycheck will come from. I've been to 20+ countries and five continents, lived for years as a full-time digital nomad, and have worked completely remotely since 2015. If you would like to share your story with our community, or partner with Frayed Passport, get in touch with me at sarah@frayedpassport.com!

All images in this article taken by Sarah Stone and David Stone.