4/5/10 – Mexican Cantina Construction Photos, Flower & Garden, and Easter at Epcot and Magic Kingdom

Hi everyone!

We have photos of the Cantina de San Angel construction, as well as Easter photos at the Magic Kingdom and Epcot ! I had never seen the MK Easter pre-parade, and thought it was great. I also am sharing an EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival seminar here.

Remember also that I have about 600 photos of the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival from opening week! The Festival goes through changes all during it’s run, it’s always fun to see what is new and different.

Here are photos of Cantina de San Angel, starting with one of the work inside the walls:

Ridley Pearson is at Epcot’s Mousesgear on Wednesday. His new book, Kingdom Keepers III just came out!

Construction in Italy:

Some photos of Tony Orlando in concert on Saturday.

We did another Flower and Garden Festival seminar (on Easter Sunday), this one was the one I’d been most looking forward to – “Former Festival Favorites”.

This is a demonstration of a flower wall, which aren’t really used anymore since they are harder to keep up:

Festival artwork from 2007:

These seminars are hands-on, and an Epcot Flower and Garden Festival reusable bag is given out, as well as guests get to take home whatever they create. On each table was also a photo of one of the former Flower and Garden Festival front topiaries:

We were told that the train set in Germany originally was part of the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival. When it was taken down and guests called to complain, it was set up the next year and hasn’t left since. It is a full time job to maintain it! (and it wasn’t until after this seminar that we noticed that the train set was decorated with small signs and flowers for the Festival, pictures will be later in the update).

A topiary frame, and images from past Festivals:

The floating gardens are now self-watered, we were told they used to be watered by hand (cast members rowing out to each plant!)

More images from various festivals:

About 80 people are able to get into each seminar:

Our project was to put these plants into the ceramic container in the shape of Mickey Mouse:

We not only took our finished project home, but we were also given a nice plant to celebrate Easter!

Some more photos before leaving:

I’d had the opportunity to be at the unveiling of this new fairy house on Saturday – inspired by a design from 15 year old Zoe Periale for a Disney Online contest to promote the upcoming Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue , and we stopped by on Sunday to see where the fairy house had been placed.

Congratulations Zoe!

The Magic Kingdom wasn’t too busy on Sunday afternoon, I expected larger crowds for Easter day. I’d never seen the Easter pre-parade, and was pleasantly surprised by it! Ahead of the parade, there was Streetmosphere actors dressed in their Easter finest, and I took a few photos of the decor. The ice cream shop is also now uncovered from it’s facade:

Three high school marching bands preceded the parade, including this one from West Milford, NJ. I just took a few photos, including this one – how often do you see bagpipers in a band?:

The Easter Pre-Parade was terrific – not to be compared with the full Easter parade which ended in 2000, but it’s still nice to have something unique for Easter day. The Easter Bunny and Mrs. Bunny are part of the procession, as well as characters such as Rabbit, Chicken Little, the White Rabbit, Thumper, and a character from Chicken Little, Abby Mallard.

The line was long for the Easter Bunny, but we already had taken photos earlier in the week:

An Easter Egg Hunt was going on near Innoventions West. At the end of the photos of the hunt, you can see the brilliantly yellow trees near the Imagination pavilion shedding their leaves:

And a smaller one at the America Adventure pavilion:

The Easter Bunny and Mrs. Bunny were also appearing here on Easter:

Here are a few more photos of Tony Orlando, from Sundays concert. The woman singing is Toni Wine, she is part of his band but also composed songs such as “Groovy Kind of Love”:

Due to the Epcot Flower and Garden seminar, we noticed the changes made to the train display in Germany for the Festival. Included are small signs, flowers, topiaries, and a greenhouse with flowers being loaded onto a truck: