The Epcot International Festival of the Arts is one of Epcot’s newer festivals, which transform the park with limited time offerings of food, merchandise, entertainment, demonstrations, seminars, and decorations.
Festival of the Arts sort of flies under the radar. It’s short—only about a month long—and overshadowed by the bigger name festivals—particularly Food and Wine Festival and Flower and Garden Festival. But it’s definitely not a festival to ignore.
The Epcot Flower and Garden Festival will be held February 28 - May27, 2024.
The Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival is one of Epcot’s oldest and most beautiful festivals. The entire park is transformed with stunning floral displays. Specialty food, beverage, activities, and entertainment are offered throughout the park.
The highlight of Flower & Garden is the transformation of the park itself, anchored by the addition of beautiful topiaries and gardens throughout the park. Past lineups had nearly two dozen (24) topiaries themed to Disney Characters and about twenty (20) gardens!
The festival typically hosts a changing lineup of exhibits. These are tables or small booths offering tips or education on flowers, gardening, and other sustainable topics. Past lineups included the Simple Living Institute, University of Florida Master Gardeners, and Florida Federation Garden Club.
Like every festival, the Flower & Garden Festival has a pay-to-play scavenger hunt. Purchase your map for $7.99+tax to play Spike’s Pollen-Nation Exploration. Find Spike the bee throughout the park, and return your completed map for a special surprise.
The Epcot Food & Wine Festival is the most popular of Epcot’s festivals, which transforms the park with limited time offerings of food, merchandise, entertainment, demonstrations, seminars, and decorations.
While all of Epcot’s festivals have some exclusive food and alcohol offerings, Food & Wine is the festival with the most food booths, over thirty
Eat to the Beat Concert Series, Scavenger Hunts and More
As evening falls, chart-topping musical acts and Orlando’s top talent will take to the stage as part of the Eat to the Beat Concert Series presented by Florida Blue. Performances will take place nightly in the America Gardens Theatre. Eat to the Beat Dining Packages will also return, ensuring you get a seat for your favorite acts.
At any Epcot festival, you’ll want to grab the Festival Passport. This small booklet includes checklists for every booth at Food & Wine as well as information on some of the other festival offerings. Here is the 2022 Map:
Most everyone who enters the park is already going to grab a map. Guests can purchase a map (while supplies last) for Remy’s Ratatouille Hide & Squeak and search to find their favorite little chef hidden throughout World Showcase. Epcot maps are sometimes updated during festivals to have booth locations.
CommuniCore Hall will open on June 10 in the heart of World Celebration.
And, once the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival begins, the new space will add exciting fresh elements to the festival.
Halloween is one of the best times of the year to visit Walt Disney World with so many delicious treats, events, and decorations. There is so much to do and enjoy, but the hallmark experience is Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. This ticketed event grants you access to all the special Halloween entertainment, trick or treating, Halloween meet and greets, and more! Tickets start at $109 – $149, plus tax for August/September nights and $149 – $199, plus tax for October/November nights, and $199, plus tax for Halloween.
Prices subject to change as determined by Disney
This year's event kicks off Aug. 9 and will take place on select nights through Oct. 31 starting at 7PM until midnight at Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World Resort. Ticketholders will be allowed to enter Magic Kingdom as early as 4:00 p.m. on event nights. These date-specific event tickets do not require an additional day theme park ticket or theme park reservation. Tickets go on sale for guest staying at select Walt Disney World Resort hotels, Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotels, and Shades of Green on May 8. For all other guests, tickets will go on sale May 15.
The dates for 2024 are:
Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party features exclusive, themed events that you cannot experience anywhere else including a fireworks show, a parade, and special musical performances.
Guests can expect fan favorite characters to return like Disney villains and the Haunted Mansion graveyard gravediggers along with al focus on the to the infamous Hocus Pocus films with a “Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular” stage show!
Join the Sanderson Sisters from the cult classic film Hocus Pocus in their Halloween festival as they attempt to cast a spell over the audience with help from friends like Maleficent and Dr. Facilier. The whole family is sure to enjoy this event complete with music, dancers, and special effects.
Showtimes are offered at 8:15 PM, 10:45 PM, and 12:00 AM right in front of Cinderella Castle. The various showtimes will ensure you can work this frightfully fun event into your party plan.
Main Street favorites, The Dapper Dans, are ghoulishly transformed into The CADAVER DANS, and you'll find them performing haunting medleys throughout the party in Frontierland at 7 P.M., 7:45 P.M., 8:30 P.M., 9:50 P.M., AND 10:30 P.M.
DANCE PARTIES TAKE PLACE FROM 7:00 P.M. TO 12:00 A.M. Join all your friends from Monstropolis in a monster mash-type dance party. You'll find them in Tomorrowland at the Rockettower Plaza Stage.
This parade is unlike any you've ever seen at Walt Disney World, as it features rare characters, music, dancing, and floats. You'll be greeted by the Headless Horseman himself who rides down the parade route, inviting costumed Disney characters and villains to follow including Mickey and Friends, the Hitchhiking Ghosts, Jack Sparrow, Winnie-the-Pooh, Wreck-it-Ralph, and more. One of the highlights of the parade comes from the Haunted Mansion Gravediggers, who scrape their shovels along the pavement to create beautiful sparks.
You will also see a parade float featuring The Incredibles and designer extraordinaire Edna Mode followed by Buzz Lightyear and Alien explorers discovering crystalline treasures on the surface of a planetary playset float. And of course, a Haunted Mansion float will feature the spectral Bride.
This year, the fan - favorite parade will take place a full hour earlier, 8:15pm to be exact - perfect for those guests attending with little ones who want to enjoy the spooky fun before it's bedtime. You can watch the parade at both 8:15 and 10:15 PM, choosing between viewing areas in Main Street, Liberty Square, and Frontierland.
During the party you'll have the opportunity to meet your favorite characters that are decked out for Halloween. Lines can get long, but many of the characters are rarely seen in the parks so it's a fantastic opportunity to meet characters that you wouldn't normally get to meet.
For the Halloween party you can find characters at these locations:
MainStreet, USA
Mickey Mouse
Liberty Square
Jack Skellington and Sally
Fantasyland
Anastasia and Drizella
Rapunzel
Seven Dwarfs
Ariel and Eric
Winnie-the-Pooh and friends in costumes
Alice in Wonderland and friends
Belle and Gaston
Minnie Mouse in costume
Goofy in costume
Cinderella
Cruella de Vil
Daisy and Donald in costumes
Princess Elena
Princess Tiana
Tomorrowland
Lotso
Stitch dressed in an Elvis costume.
Adventurelan
Moana
Tarzan and Jane
Aladdin and friends
Captain Jack Sparrow
Costumes are welcome and encouraged at Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party! There are some rules that you'll want to be aware of. Keep reading for the current guidelines.
Guests 13 and Under:
Guests 14 and Up:
General Guidelines:
Also, don't forget that it may be rainy or extremely not, so you may want to plan accordingly as you put together your costume.
If you have any food allergies, you can grab a specially-colored bag at either the Town Square Theater or Heritage House. You'll then collect tokens at each trick-or-treat location that can be redeemed for allergy-friendly treats later at special locations.
*NEW this year: After you follow the treat trail, you can interact with the Monsters, Inc characters as they learn about the curious Human World holiday we call Halloween.
The sweetest part of the night is undoubtedly the delicious seasonal treat offerings available to guests. There are several that are only available during the Halloween party. In the past this has included the amazing chocolate Haunted Mansion portrait treats pictured above, Pumpkin Cheesecake Domes, white chocolate Jack Skellington desserts, pumpkin Mickey Waffle sundaes, Worms and Dirt Gravestones, Candy Corn Ice Cream, and special rice crispy treats and brownies.
Dessert parties are offered with reserved viewing for the Halloween entertainment- these specific offerings typically change annually but always include fabulous dessert offerings and prime spots.
Disney's Not So Spooky Spectacular Dessert Party at Tomorrowland Terrace
This dessert party features reserved viewing of Disney's Not So Spooky Spectacular at the Tomorrowland Terrace.
Disney's Not So Spooky Spectacular Dessert Party with Plaza Garden Viewing
This dessert party features reserved viewing of Disney's Not So Spooky Spectacular at the Plaza Garden.
Cruella’s Halloween Hide-A-Way
This event features reserved seating for Mickey’s Boo-to-You Halloween Parade while you eat and mingle with Cruella De Vil herself.
31st 2023.
All of these events are extremely popular, be sure to secure your dining reservations in advance!
Do the rides stay open during Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party?
Select rides in the Magic Kingdom remain open during Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. You'll have full access to these rides during the Halloween party. Since it's a special event, that usually means shorter lines which is one of the major perks of attending. Also, many guests are focused on the candy and other entertainment options during the event.
Here are the available rides:
Be aware that some rides will close sporadically though, just as they do throughout regular operating hours.
Main Street, U.S.A.
Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom
Hosted by Jack Skellington from Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” this firework show features fireworks, lasers, and lighting above Magic Kingdom. The storyline goes that Jack has come to tell a not-so-scary story about how anything can happen on Halloween night. Jack’s ghost dog, Zero, then flies off carrying everyone along on a trick-or-treating adventure, where four friends – Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy – find themselves drawn into a mysterious haunted house. Their journey takes them from one room of the house to another, encountering dancing skeletons, waltzing ghosts and a whole series of troublemaking Disney villains.
The firework show typically kicks off at 10:15 PM during the party and lasts about 12 minutes. It can get fairly congested, so you'll want to line up early for the best views.
Exclusive hauntingly real PhotoPass Magic Shots will also be available in different locations throughout the park during the Halloween party.Some locations will even have special props to make the scenes even more interactive and realistically fun.
If you want to take advantage of these, you may want to consider purchasing Memory Maker before the party. At $69 for one day, you'll receive unlimited downloads of PhotoPass shots and discounts on prints.
While there is a Christmas celebration at Hollywood Studios (Flurry of Fun) and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party at Magic Kingdom, there’s no simple “Christmas at Epcot” event.
Instead, Epcot seizes on its international and festival talents to throw together the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays, celebrating various holidays (including Christmas) from around the world! (Before it was a formal festival, the event was known as Holidays Around The World.)
The festival is essentially a holiday transformation of the World Showcase, along with select areas of Future World. There is unique holiday food, decorations, entertainment, and merchandise.
Is a scavenger hunt featuring everyone’s favorite snowman, Olaf! Travel the World Showcase to help him find new traditions. Once you have found all of the traditions, visit a specified retail location to trade your map in for a gift!
The United Kingdom features storytelling by Father Christmas.
Although the typical gingerbread displays are back at the Deluxe Resort hotels. Epcot Festival of the Holidays is still making some big things happen at the Holiday Festival EPCOT. In previous years, guests have been able to stare in awe over a realistic gingerbread city created by Disney Chefs.
Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party is a seasonal Magic Kingdom event requiring a separate ticket for entry. In 2023, the Party will be held on 25 select nights from November 9th through December 22nd.
Once inside, guests enjoy plenty of festive fun only available at the Party!
Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party features special shows like Mickey’s Most Merriest Celebration! Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade is another merry highlight of the Party (complete with Santa Claus and the famous Marching Band of Toy Soldiers), as is the Holiday Fireworks spectacular: Minnie’s Wonderful Christmastime Fireworks! Guests can also get their holiday groove on at dance parties like Club Tinsel, and Disney Junior Jingle Jam.
Access to Magic Kingdom attractions* and photo opportunities with characters in their finest holiday garb are also included. And be sure to stop by all of the tasty cookie and cocoa spots offering complimentary snacks and drinks to enjoy throughout the party!
*Select rides also feature festive holiday overlays! These include Space Mountain — Holiday Run!! and the Jungle Cruise (which will transform into the JINGLE CRUISE!)
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