Fun with a Toddler at Epcot's Flower and Garden Festival

My daughter and I make frequent visits to Disney, so I guess it's appropriate to start this blog with a post about one of the Disney Parks. I first took Alyssa to Disney on her one month birthday, and she has made so many visits since then by the time she turned two she already could lead you to her favorite attractions.
When she was teeny tiny, Epcot was a favorite of mine. We spent many hours people watching together as I pushed her in a stroller around World Showcase. Once she became mobile, however, everything changed. While Epcot is a great Park for adults to visit and a wonderful place to push a tiny baby in a stroller around there really is not all that much to do for the mobile under three crowd.

                                        Alyssa at around 6 months being introduced to Duffy
Enter the Flower and Garden Festival: one of the two times of the year when visiting Epcot with a two year old can actually be enjoyable (the other time being, believe it or not, the Food and Wine Festival). What, you ask, makes it different from any other time of the year?
Well, twice a year Epcot expands upon their offerings and in an effort to make the festivals more kid-friendly they add playgrounds!
In 2013 they had 3 playgrounds, conveniently spaced out between Future World and World Showcase. Although the playgrounds are usually always there for festival, they change their themes and the climbing structures they have inside them slightly.
Playground #1 is located on the walkway on the right side of the Park between Future World and World Showcase, close to where the Imagination Pavilion is. This is the biggest and usually most popular playground of the three.

                                     Playing with something noisy on this playground in 2012
The playground equipment can get really hot in the heat of the afternoon even though they added a small canopy to cover the main structure. Around the perimeter there are a few shaded seating areas for parents to relax and watch their kids play.

In 2013 the playground is themed to the movie Oz, the Great and Powerful. There are some carnival games that even toddlers can play and some fun photo ops on the path leading up to the playground.

The playground equipment is geared towards five to twelve year olds but in front of it are a series of domes to climb on and crawl through that are geared towards two to five year olds. My experience is that kids of all ages play on everything so if you have a toddler, you really need to watch them closely. It also can get pretty crowded at times, which can make it a little hard to keep track of an active toddler.

My two year old really enjoys this playground and would play here all day if I let her!
Not too far from this playground in World Showcase there are a few different stands that sell frozen fruity drinks (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic). I usually entice my toddler to leave the playground by offering her one before she gets too hot and overtired. The passion fruit punch is one of our favorites!

Very close by to where the Oz playground is you will find the butterfly garden. My toddler enjoys running around in here trying to catch the butterflies. For 2013 it is themed to Tinker Bell's Garden. Scattered throughout are several topiaries and little fairy houses my toddler enjoys looking at. You are allowed to bring your stroller in, but I usually leave it parked outside so she can walk around and explore easier. It is a lot easier to keep track of her in here than it is in the playground area!

After we leave the butterfly garden we usually head to the other side of Future World, which is where you will find playground #2.
On our way to the other side of Future World, however, we make a stop at the table they have set up for the kids to make a mask at for the Flower and Garden Festival. Kids can make a Duffy or Agent P "mask" (more like a character on a stick) year round at the Kidcot stations in World Showcase but this table is set up on the pathway near the Fountain of Nations specifically for Flower and Garden. The station is called Pride Rock Fun Spot on the map because it is close to the Lion King topiary. It is set up at a few picnic tables off to the side of the topiary. They also have coloring sheets if you don't want to make a mask and one nice thing about this craft station is that unlike the Kidcot stations in World Showcase that have sharpies to color with, this station has fat crayons to use. The masks are rather big so if you do not want to carry it around with you all day the Cast Member said you could make one and stick it in the plant at the front of the picnic tables for passer-bys to enjoy.

This station is also next to the splash pad area my toddler usually enjoys playing in but you must have shoes on to play in the splash pad area and with a cast member stationed at the craft tables they are really enforcing that so we skipped it today since Alyssa was wearing socks and sneakers.

When she was happy with her mask we continued on to playground #2.
Playground #2 is a much smaller one themed to the movie Cars. Around the outside you will find topiaries of the Cars characters and a little scavenger hunt you can play where if you find certain things hidden within the Cars displays you can earn a sticker. My two year old doesn't usually last through the entire list of objects because she is eager to get to the playground, but she will look for the first few and they will still give you a sticker or stamp (if they have them on hand) anyways.

Playground #2 has some steering wheels to drive, a rock climbing play structure with some slides, and a circle of tires sticking out of the ground in the back.

For my two year old the hit of this area is the circle of tires. She likes to "bounce" on them and try to jump from tire to tire without falling off. When you are back there they have some stoplights set up and she is entranced by the changing colors on them and listening to the sound effects they play from the Cars movie. The play structure itself is geared more towards slightly older kids but she does like climbing across the rock with help. I do recommend watching your toddler very closely if you let them play on it because there is nothing to keep them from falling off!
This playground is also not very well shaded so if it gets too hot the slide will be closed.

The steering wheels in the front only hold her interest for a few minutes and then after that we are off to walk around World Showcase.

World Showcase is where you will find many of the topiaries they put out especially for the festival. My daughter loves pointing out familiar characters as we walk past them. Sometimes we will stop for a photo, but at two I find it is easier to keep her in her stroller because she often wants to try and pick any flower that is within reach.

Occasionally you will pass by characters posing for photos in their respective countries (Mulan in China, Aladdin and Jasmine in Moracco, etc.) and if the line isn't too long I recommend stopping for a photo because the Flower and Garden Festival makes for some very pretty backdrops (my toddler, unfortunately, seems to have a been there, done that attitude towards meeting the characters these days).

As we walk toward the back of the Park we stop briefly at the coca-cola/drum display that is right over the bridge past China. There are several different types of drums and pounding on them for a little while is always a hit.

We also stop briefly to see the miniature train set-up next to Germany (it has miniature topiaries added to it just for the festival!) and then head to the final playground, which is at the very back of World Showcase between Morocco and France.

For 2013 the playground at the back of the Park is called the Backyard Imagination Garden, presented by GoGo Squeeze. It is divided into two parts, a display area that shows different ways you can incorporate fun elements into your garden (like a handprint stepping stone path) and the play area. The play area has a playhouse and several drums scattered throughout.
This playground is fairly small but my toddler finds it to be very enjoyable. In addition to climbing on the playscape, she enjoys pounding on the drums. One of her favorite activities is putting handfuls of the woodchips used as covering in the playscape area onto the drums and pounding them off.

The playhouse doesn't have anything indoors but the fruit painted on the windows make for a really cute photo op.

After she plays on the playscape for a little while my toddler will wander over to the decorative garden part. She loves running up and down the path of paved stones and sitting in the little wooden three bears chairs.

Walking around the Park and visiting the three playgrounds takes up a good part of our afternoon. They have little food kiosks set up selling different small tastes of food and drink in each country, so we often find a snack and a frozen drink to share before we call it a day.

My toddler absolutely loves spending the day at Epcot when they have the playgrounds set up, and I only wish they would keep them set up all of the time!