Sure, the Food & Wine festival isn’t even over yet, but with winter setting in around the country you may want to dream a little about spring on those cold nights. This year spring starts the earliest ever at EPCOT with a March 3rd launch of the The 17th annual Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival.

The event will continue for 75 days through May 16, 2010, and bring bold strokes of seasonal color and brand-new topiary whimsy. Donald Duck and his topiary pals will set up camp in full floral color to celebrate the Great Outdoors at the Epcot front entrance. The elaborate topiary with a North American theme, live waterfall and pond features Goofy in a fly-fishing misadventure, Daisy Duck roasting marshmallows over a campfire and Pluto in his “pup tent.” It will be a a must-stop photo op for guests as soon as they pass through the park turnstiles.

“The advantage of starting earlier is that we’ll be able to feature more brilliant color than ever, with richly hued petunias, violas, snapdragons and other hardy flowers,” says festival horticulture manager Eric Darden. “By starting earlier and going through mid-May, it allows more guests than ever to experience the festival and to plan ahead for their spring and summer gardening.”

Follow below the jump to find out what will be new this year as well as other highlights:

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Monorail Teal was spotted parked outside the maintenance bay sporting a Teal color strip. Looks almost ready to return to service. Having one more train on the beam will certainly help when the holiday crowds arrive.

Previously: Monorail Teal testing at Walt Disney World.

Disney has recently converted one of its merchandise carts into a much more permanent location on one end of Main Street USA at the Magic Kingdom. Is this an example of Disney doing something right and ditching the tacky temporary cart or have they gone too far in the pursuit of sucking that last penny from your wallet?

Hats, mouseears, autograph books, suntan oil, and cameras. The sort of things that is a quick pick up at the end of Main Street before you make your way into the heart of the park. However, all this stuff is available in the Emporium at the start of Main Street at in stores in each land. Is this location really necessary?

As you can see above this merchandise location looms large at the end of Main Street. Which is my biggest problem with the location. I think it’s too tall and interferes with the view of the castle. It’s the first thing I saw when I passed the end of main street.

What do you think? Have they gone too far?

Sparrowmen now have one of their own to pose for pictures with at Pixie Hollow inside Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom theme park. The world’s most beloved fairy, Tinker Bell, has welcomed her friend Terence to the photo meet & greet area. The pair star in the new motion picture “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure” now out on DVD/Blu-ray.

Terence will be available to pose for pictures with Disney Parks guests in Pixie Hollow at the Magic Kingdom in Florida and Disneyland park in California. (Photo courtesy Disney. Diana Zalucky, photographer)

Princess Tiana appears in a horse drawn carriage fit for an American Princess.

Yesterday marked the official opening of a 15 week run for Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. As I posted earlier, the show envelopes guests into being part of the show, a great experience for the guests involved, but how would it play for the rest of the park attendees? Turns out, pretty amazing.

For the special ceremony New Orleans dancers led Princess Tiana to the castle.

The Princess and The Frog is an American story at its root and it features the first African American Princess. The park is really excited about promoting the first new princess in 12 years, so they rolled out some big guns for the press event. One of those was Bruce Smith, the lead animator on Dr. Facilier, the main villain of the movie.

Characters representing current inhabitants of the Magic Kingdom welcome Princess Tiana to the fold.

There was also a wonderful display of merchandise that Disney spent the last two years creating. Some of it, like the theme park exclusive Princess Tiana dress, has been for sale in the park for two weeks and is already flying off the shelves.

A royal proclamation is read.

But the focus of the day was the introduction of Princess Tiana to the park and the official debut of Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee. TSJ has three distinct parts, and while it’s possible to catch all three, if you can only pick one, make sure to choose the middle part performed on the Liberty Belle when it stops in front of Splash Mountain.

The regular show will take place three times daily on the Liberty Belle with a procession leading to and from the boat before and after each performance.

The show is currently only scheduled to run through January 3rd, 2010 as a tie-in to the movie’s launch on December 11th. It’s my hope they extend this show at least through the summer. The show was already drawing huge crowds without the benefit of the movie even being in theaters, I imagine it will continue to grow once it’s seen by the public.

Lots more photos below the jump, so come on down

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Have a couple big posts I’m working on for later, so here’s another roundup of Disney news for today.

• The 180 day window for Dining reservations at Walt Disney World returns today. That means there are 80 free days of reservations to fill. Might be a good time to book that restaurant you’ve always wanted to try.
• Those last two years of playing at EPCOT must have really affected Los Lobos. Well, that and their SoCal roots. They’ve now come out with a Disney themed CD. Listen to a sample at The Oregonian.
• It’s not so easy to bring an Animated Feature to the stage on Broadway. Disney has had its failures (Tarzan and Little Mermaid), and now Dreamworks joins them as Shrek will be closing soon.
• Intellectual property Law students at the College of William and Mary examine Disney’s treatment of copyright when it comes to the Pirates of the Caribbean’s next movie.

Disney has provided a cute little video of Mickey and Goofy helping to refill the California Adventure Lagoon:

Blooloop continues its series of movers and shakers at Walt Disney World, both past and present. This week, we meet Brad Rex who was Vice President of EPCOT from 2001-2007. Brad dishes a little inside ball on two major events of his reign, 9/11 and the 2002 blackout.

When we closed the park, our Cast Members, without being told, went out and lined the promenade. They knew what had happened, and the tough reality many Guests would soon face. As the Guests left, the Cast smiled and waved goodbye, to give our Guests one last positive memory of the day. When I saw this, I knew we had very special people working at Epcot, and I had much to learn from them.

It sounds like Rex still holds a special place in his heart for EPCOT and its cast members.

‘Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee!’ is a new concept in entertainment for Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. The show will introduce park guests to the characters of Disney’s next animated hit – The Princess And The Frog – and it will give select guests a taste of showbiz as they become part of the show.

For more than 6,000 Walt Disney World guests, a 10-week limited engagement of the entertainment spectacular “Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee!” in Magic Kingdom will be an opportunity to get a taste of showbiz – or in Disney parlance, “be part of the magic.”

The swinging musical show being presented in conjunction with the upcoming Disney animated feature, “The Princess and The Frog,” will treat theme park guests to a rousing revue of song and dance from aboard the Liberty Belle riverboat. Three times daily, Oct. 26 through Jan. 3, 2010, the riverboat will pull away from the dock in Liberty Square with a live six-piece jazz band, 22 dancers and 30 theme park guests who have been randomly preselected earlier in the day by Magic Kingdom cast members.

But the park guests will not be “just along for the ride.” As the Liberty Belle glides along and the band plays “Down in New Orleans,” the guests and dancers will be waving hankies along to the music. And when the riverboat, festooned with green, purple and yellow bunting and sparkling beads, stops in Frontierland, the guests continue their role: Dressed in choir robes, they move large musical notes in time with the music, and then shake and rattle tambourines.

When the show concludes and the Liberty Belle resumes its travels on the Rivers of America, the theme park guests are treated to a meet-and-greet with the newest Disney royalty, Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen – the stars of “The Princess and The Frog,” which premieres in late November.

Three performances of “Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee!” are planned daily. Viewing locations are in Liberty Square and Frontierland. I’m getting a first hand look at the show on Monday and will report back after that.