Groot joins the party at Walt Disney World's annual flower festival

January 16, 2024, 12:18 PM · Well, that seemed an obvious choice, didn't it?

Walt Disney World today announced more details about its upcoming EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival. Leading the news, Disney will be adding a new character topiary outside the park's Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind attraction. And, of course, it will be the Guardian most obvious to express in topiary form - Groot.

I am Groot
Concept image courtesy Walt Disney World

The flora colossus, as Disney calls the Vin Diesel-voiced character from the popular Marvel films, will be joined this year by new topiaries depicting characters from this year's "Wish" film at the EPCOT entrance and topiaries of Miguel and Dante from "Coco" in the Mexico pavilion.

This year's EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival will run for 90 days, starting February 28 and continuing through May 27. The festival's Garden Rocks concert series also will return this year, with dining packages that include reserved concert seating going on sale February 6. The full line-up and package pricing will be announced later.

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Replies (2)

January 16, 2024 at 2:29 PM

Why the Guardians aren’t meeting at their ride baffles me…

January 17, 2024 at 10:56 AM

They do meet at their ride....in California.

I think Disney is hesitant to create a meet and greet location near the attraction because they still don't have a path forward with Wonders of Life/Play Pavilion. I do think it was short sighted that such a massive attraction has such a small exit retail and practically no post-show area. To me, that indicates that Cosmic Rewind more or less occupies as much space inside the park's border as possible, even though the massive new show building extends into what was the parking lot. There's very little space to expand the area to include a proper WDW character meet and greet, which typically includes climate controlled spaces and backstage CM support areas.

I think if WDI ever finalizes the plans for Play Pavilion, they can then create a GotG meet and greet area between Cosmic Rewind and Play. Until then, I do think it would be valuable to create temporary meet and greet areas (more like the ones used in Disneyland and DCA), but I doubt they will ever do something like that in WDW.

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