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.

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)

This week yet another sexual assault incident at a Water Park, this time Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon, was covered by the local press. It may seem like there have been dozens of reports this year, but it’s really just a handful. That’s not to downplay the severity of any incident, but it shouldn’t be taken as a trend.

As it turns out, where you really have to be careful is crossing the roads. The Orlando-Kissimmee has been rated the worst for pedestrian safety. An average of 2.8 annual pedestrian deaths per 100,000 was cited. With 48 million tourists visiting the area each year, the numbers really start to add up.

At one time Las Vegas was known for its terrible pedestrian safety record. Particularly in the popular area of Las Vegas Blvd, aka The Strip. Then the region got serious about the safety of its customers, aka revenue stream. It made streets more pedestrian friendly and where traffic was very heavy, built pedestrian overpasses to totally remove people from the streets. It’s been a very successful strategy.

Maybe it’s time to look at this same solution here in Orlando.

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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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.

Monorail Teal, the new train that was made by combining the undamaged ends of Monorail Purple and Pink after the fatal accident earlier this year, has been spotted testing around the resort. In the video, the pink and purple stripes have been colored by some white tape.

Previously: New monorail to be built from damaged monorails.