Butterfly Landing Offers Peaceful Retreat at EPCOT

 by Beth Keating

Park Visit

DisneyBizJournal.com

April 17, 2024

 

Whenever we travel, it’s a sure bet that we’re going to step into the butterfly tent at the regional zoos or botanical gardens where we are visiting.  It’s always a colorful and peaceful respite in what is sometimes a hectic round of airline flights, business obligations, or family events.

EPCOT is currently hosting the 2024 International Flower & Garden Festival, and tucked away near Figment’s Imagination! pavilion is a delightful butterfly garden. The enclosed tent is home to dozens of different butterflies in various stages of their life cycles, flying freely and occasionally landing on delighted guests.  Disney is usually a loud and boisterous place, but stepping into this tent, it’s as if someone turned the sound off.  It’s quiet and peaceful, an oasis in the middle of park craziness. People find themselves whispering to each other.

It's a beautiful place with winged creatures all around you, but Butterfly Landing also harkens back to EPCOT’s original mission – that of “edutainment.”   You can certainly enjoy these delicate creatures just for their beauty, but you also have the chance to learn about their role in the environment.  Placed strategically throughout the walkways are small signs that introduce some of the flora needed for each stage of the butterflies’ lives, as well as ways that you can encourage butterflies to make their homes in your landscape.

  

There are a number of nesting boxes for the chrysalis along the walkways, so you can see the hatching butterflies as they make their way into the world, but there are also markers helping you learn what plants are necessary for each step of the butterfly life cycle.  Other placards give you details about individual species of the creatures.  

While this is a fascinating spot to visit during your trip to EPCOT, it isn’t just for the “oohs” and “ahhs” (though there are quite a few of those happening!). Disney has been very involved in breeding Atala butterflies, a species thought to have been extinct in Florida.  Helping these delicate flyers make a comeback, Disney has been breeding the Atala and releasing them back to their native habitat.  Atala butterflies only lay eggs on cycad plants, and Florida happens to have a native plant, the Florida Coontie (Zamia integrifolia), a fernlike looking plant, which is attractive to the butterflies as an egg site since it is an important food source for the caterpillars.

In fact, Disney’s Vero Beach Resort, on Florida’s east coast, is very involved in the efforts, and the Vero Beach climate is perfect for these special butterflies (and the Florida Coontie).  Vero Beach has reported promising new Atala butterfly populations as a result of Disney’s efforts.  (They aren’t just about the Loggerhead Sea Turtles at Vero Beach!)

The butterfly pavilion hours are different than EPCOT’s daily hours. The tent closes at dusk, and cast members will also limit the number of visitors in the tent as needed so that everyone gets a great visit with the butterflies.  The EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival runs through May 27, 2024.   

 

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Beth Keating is a theme parks, restaurant and entertainment reporter for DisneyBizJournal.

 

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