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Universal Orlando Resort: Where to Stay & Play for a Few Days

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My recent stay at Universal Orlando Resort was so much fun and I’m going to share and highlight my favorite moments with you. First and foremost, I stayed at the Cabana Bay Beach Resort on the property which allowed me early access (one hour) to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™. It was my first time experiencing Diagon Alley™. I took advantage of the complimentary shuttle service to Universal Studios Florida and was able to … [Read More...]

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Navigating Disney World During a Pandemic

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Navigating Disney World During a Pandemic

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My one-day EPCOT Food booth crawl during Flower and Garden Festival

When I set out to sample every single food booth during EPCOT's annual Flower and Garden Festival, I knew it was going to be ambitious. The festival runs for several weeks each spring, scattering more than a dozen outdoor kitchens around World Showcase and a few pockets of Future World, each one themed around fresh herbs, edible flowers, and seasonal produce. A full day of grazing sounded romantic on paper, but after eight hours, sixteen booths, and roughly thirty different dishes, I realised I had wildly underestimated both my stomach and the Florida humidity.

I came at this from an Australian angle, which probably explains why the whole thing felt a little like competing in one of those big agricultural shows back home. The Royal Melbourne Show and the Sydney Royal Easter Show both have sprawling food pavilion sections where you wander from stall to stall sampling lamb rolls, dagwood dogs, and locally-grown berries. EPCOT's version is fancier and more internationally flavoured, but the spirit is the same: small plates, big decisions, and a constant battle between curiosity and fullness. My body was still half-convinced it was the middle of the night, thanks to the sixteen-hour time difference between Sydney and Orlando.

Plotting the route before I even left the hotel

I spent the night before hunched over my phone, mapping out a rough walking loop that would minimise backtracking. EPCOT's layout is essentially a big loop around a lagoon, which sounds easy until you realise the outdoor kitchens are scattered like garden beds between the country pavilions. Some years the booths cluster near the entrance, other years they hide in tucked-away courtyards, so a quick screenshot of the official festival map is essential. I dropped pins into my notes app, colour-coded by region, and tried to group anything from the same culinary neighbourhood so I could share a drink between bites.

The Disney app was helpful for menu previews, but I still wrote down a shortlist of must-try items from the official festival passport. Coming from Australia, I also did a quick mental conversion from US dollars to AUD so I could budget honestly. At the time, one Aussie dollar was buying roughly sixty-five US cents, which meant a seven-dollar US plate worked out to about eleven Australian dollars once the conversion and the bank fees both took their cut. That context matters, because once you start doing the maths on thirty dishes, the totals add up faster than you would think.

I packed a lightweight backpack with a refillable water bottle, sunscreen, a portable phone charger, and a small notebook for jotting down scores. I considered bringing anti-nausea tablets, which is something I always pack for the Royal Melbourne Show food pavilions after one particularly reckless year involving three different types of deep-fried butter. In the end I left them in the room, a decision I would later regret.

Starting strong at the World Showcase

I arrived at the park just after rope drop and made a beeline for the Mexico pavilion, where the outdoor kitchen was already fragrant with churros and tequila-lime chicken. The first few booths always feel like a victory lap. You are hungry, the lines are short, and everything looks photogenic under the spring blossoms. I ordered a little bit of everything, including a hibiscus lemonade that tasted like summer in a paper cup, and lingered longer than I should have watching the gondolas glide across the lagoon.

By the third booth in Norway, the novelty had worn off slightly and I started thinking strategically. Sharing dishes with my partner turned out to be the single best decision of the day, because most portions are designed for two or three bites anyway. We divided and conquered, one of us ordering while the other scoped out the next queue. The Florida sun was already fierce by mid-morning, the kind of sticky, airless heat that makes Sydney's harbour-side humidity feel like a cool breeze. I kept refilling my water bottle at the public fountains and doused my hat under a tap every couple of hours, which is exactly the kind of behaviour I picked up after years of watching cricket at the SCG in February.

Midday madness when the crowds peak

Around lunchtime the festival really opens up. School groups pour in, food bloggers appear with enormous cameras, and every queue suddenly triples in length. This is also when the price-per-bite maths starts to sting, especially once you convert everything back into Australian dollars in your head. A small cup of potato pancakes with house-made applesauce ended up costing around fourteen AUD, which is more than I would normally pay for a sit-down lunch at a suburban café in Brisbane.

The lines forced me to slow down, which actually helped. Standing in the queue gave my stomach time to settle between booths, and watching other people eat their way through the festival was half the entertainment. I overheard a family debating whether the new bee-themed honey cake was worth a repeat visit, and a teenager loudly ranking every booth by how Instagrammable it looked. There is something very communal about a festival crawl, even if you are doing it solo.

Booth region Standout bite Midday crowd level (1-5) Worth the queue?
Mexico Tequila-lime chicken 2 Yes
Norway Schoolbread 3 Maybe
Germany Bratwurst with sauerkraut 4 Yes
France Macaron au citron 3 Yes
China Honey sesame chicken 4 Skip
America Honey-glazed carrots 3 Yes
Italy Mini cannoli 2 Yes

Tipping came up more than I expected, mostly because the festival still uses Cast Members at some booths and quick-service registers at others. The rules here in Australia are the opposite of the United States, where gratuity is baked into the culture. Back home we mostly only tip for table service in nicer restaurants, and even then a dollar or two is plenty. Because the festival can blur the line between quick service and sit-down, I found myself pulling up a quick refresher on how to handle things at all-inclusive spots, and this Caribbean tipping guide helped clear up the etiquette for the rest of the trip.

The afternoon slowdown and late discoveries

By two in the afternoon I was genuinely full and slightly grumpy. The cheese-laden dishes from the dairy-heavy booths were sitting heavily, and I was starting to dread anything involving fried dough. This is when the festival's lighter, plant-based offerings became my saviour. The citrus-forward plates, fresh fruit cups, and herb-crusted salads were exactly what I needed to reset, and I ended up ranking several of them higher than the more elaborate mains.

A few standout items surprised me in this stretch. The little potted succulents used as serving dishes for desserts were adorable and completely impractical, and the rosé flight poured from a tiny garden tap became my personal highlight of the afternoon. I also discovered that the festival merchandise, those little topiaries shaped like Disney characters, makes a much better souvenir than yet another keyring. The afternoon queue behaviour also shifted, too, with people seeming more patient, more willing to chat, and far less likely to shove past you for a photo.

I struck up a conversation with a couple from Adelaide who were doing their own modified crawl and swearing off anything with blue food dye. We swapped notes for a good twenty minutes while waiting for the same dessert, which was honestly one of my favourite memories of the entire festival.

So, did I actually manage every booth?

The honest answer is almost. By the time the sun dipped behind the tree line, I had ticked off sixteen of the eighteen listed outdoor kitchens, plus a couple of extra seasonal pop-ups that were not even on the official map. The two I missed were both in tucked-away corners near Future World, and I simply ran out of daylight and energy before I could squeeze in another three courses.

Would I recommend the full-day crawl to anyone? Only if you are travelling from a far enough time zone that jet lag has turned your internal clock upside down anyway. The Australians in particular seem to thrive on these marathons, possibly because we are used to fitting a thousand things into a single weekend back home. If you do try it, share your dishes, pace yourself with water, and keep a small notebook for scores. Most importantly, leave room for one last honey cake on the way out, because dessert after dark tastes twice as good.