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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As a kid, one of the joys of visiting my grandparents was knowing I would be offered a Werther’s butterscotch candy from the bowl beside my grandfather’s favorite chair. I’ve never lost that love of Werther’s and fully intend to have my own bowl to dole out to the grandkids when I reach that age.

Back in April, I saw a TV ad for Werther’s that seemed really familiar to me. It took me a few seconds to figure out why… it was filmed in the Germany pavilion at EPCOT. Unfortunately, I don’t have the ability to record off my DVR, but here’s a still shot from the TV.

I like that they didn’t even change the window displays. The toys are all still right there.

Keep your eyes open and if you do catch it on DVR, see if you can save it your PC and send it my way.

Update: Here’s a similar commercial. You can clearly see it’s the Germany Pavilion in the first few seconds of the commercial.

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.

Since 1979 Martin has been flying across the pond with his family to visit Walt Disney World. He’s been video taping his visits since 1990. The result is a collection of more than 150 videos documenting much of the resorts history. I’ve embedded a sample video documenting EPCOT’s “Tapestry of Nations”. Puts me right back at the curb of this fabulous parade.

Tapestry of Nations from Martins Videos on Vimeo.

Plenty of positive reports have been pouring in from the 14th annual Epcot International Food & Wine Festival where Walt Disney World guests can sip, taste and enjoy live entertainment all day long from Sept. 25-Nov. 8. But it’s hard to understand the scale of the event without actually being there. Disney just released a few numbers that might help.

Here are a few facts about the 14th annual event:

• More than 300 national and international wines
• More than 76 kinds of international foods, each appetizer-sized portion priced $2-$7
• More than 160 of America’s most celebrated chefs and Walt Disney World chefs
• 405 wine and beer seminars
• More than 1,200 fireworks rockets exploding each night over World Showcase Lagoon in “IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth” grand finale to the festival
• 135 Eat to the Beat! concerts performed
• 33,000 bottles of wine and champagne
• 1.2 million hors d’oeuvre plates
• 2.1 million Vanity Fair napkins
• 750,000 beer cups
• 690,000 sumptuous samplings
• 600,000 forks
• 338,000 wine glasses
• 100,000 miniature desserts including crème brûlée, traditional apple strudel, Grand Marnier parfait with Orange Coulis and warm chocolate lava cake with Bailey’s ganache
• 3,000 gallons of soup, including cheddar cheese soup (Montreal marketplace), chicken and coconut soup with mushrooms, lemongrass and ginger (Bangkok, Thailand marketplace) and Mealie soup with crabmeat and chili oil (Capetown, South Africa marketplace)

The six-week outdoor festival at Disney’s Epcot theme park serves up authentic cuisine, wine, entertainment and cultures of more than 25 international regions. Exotic marketplaces from Rio de Janiero to Shanghai offer exciting taste treats. The festival is the largest food and wine event of its kind in the world, beginning at the Festival Welcome Center in the Wonders of Life pavilion and fanning around the promenade encircling World Showcase Lagoon.

EPCOT’s International Food & Wine festival officially opens tomorrow, but if you head to the park this afternoon you’ll likely be able to experience some of the options during today’s test run. There are 70 new dishes this year and most of the old favorites (like Canada’s Cheese Soup). Look for more of an international street food feeling this year at the 27 food booths and showcases.

Orlando food critic Scott Joseph got to sample a few of the tasting sized dishes early this year and he has a review up on his blog. A downloadable guide and map are available at Scott’s blog or the official website.

Another change might come as a surprise to long time event attendees. The daily wine seminars and tastings are no longer be free. There is now an $8 fee. Tickets are sold through the reservation system. However, Disney is holding some tickets for sale in the park each day for guests who may not have heard about the change.

Food and Wine runs a long 45 days this year wrapping up on November 8th, which will make it a pretty tight turn around to get the Winter Holiday decorations up at the park.

One of my favorite parts of the Food & Wine Festival are the Eat To The Beat concerts. Plenty of big names this year, and, in what I believe is a first, an American Idol winner.

A full listing of which acts are scheduled below the jump:

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Back in the early days of the internet Walt Disney World featured live Web Cams at the parks. Then sometime around the turn of the millennium they went off line and never came back. It was a big loss for theme park fans who used them to keep a little of the magic alive in between vacations.

For a long time Fans consoled themselves with a weather web cam erected at the Swan & Dolphin that was pointed toward EPCOT’s Spaceship Earth. It wasn’t good for much, but checking weather conditions, and the status of the Yacht & Beach Club after a hurricane rolled through. Then last year, that web cam, too, disappeared.

Well, the Swan & Dolphin has turned it back on. But it’s pointed in a new direction, this time at the Dolphin Hotel. It is still useful for weather observations, but now features a view of the Starwood brand property instead of Disney’s.

This leaves a void for the Disney fan again. Something the folks at Disney Parks and Resorts can easily fill. All we ask is one camera at each park. They don’t even have to show crowds or sensitive areas. At Disney’s Animal Kingdom (or the Lodge) there should be a Savannah Cam. At Hollywood Studios show the Light’s Motor Action stage (with the big blue hat behind it, so we can keep an eye on the Imagineering promise that it will shortly go away). At EPCOT the beautiful shot from the top of the American Pavilion across the lagoon to Spaceship Earth would be perfect. At the Magic Kingdom a view looking from Splash Mountain to the Castle or from the Contemporary at the Magic Kingdom itself, would be perfect.

All these angles avoid showing guests or maintenance vehicles in the parks. None show backstage areas that might tip off unwanted actions from guests. But they all capture a part of the magic that means a lot to Disney fans for a very small cost investment.

What do you think? Should Walt Disney World flip the switch? Are there any other views you would rather see?