We Did EPCOT’s NEW $45 Behind-the-Scenes Tour. Here Are 3 Things That Surprised Us.

EPCOT is all ready for the holidays!

The EPCOT Festival of the Holidays began on November 29th, bringing traditional holiday foods from around the world, festive storytellers, and joyful entertainment. The holidays also bring a festive ride overlay returns that makes one of our favorite rides even better, and this year, a new behind-the-scenes tour is being offered for that ride! We absolutely enjoyed the new tour and wanted to share three things that pleasantly surprised us about it.

You might be familiar with the Living with the Land ride at the Land Pavilion in EPCOT. It’s a boat ride that takes you “around the world,” offering up important information about our ecosystems, vegetation, farming, and growing systems. The ride focuses on conservation and sustainable practices, while still being able to feed the populations of the world.

The boat ride ends with a tour of the Disney World greenhouses which uses new and innovative ways of growing vegetation, fish, and other seafood. The food grown here is used at restaurants around the resort and particularly at Garden Grill.

During the holidays, the greenhouses, which you can tour all year long in a tour called Behind the Seeds, become the Glimmering Greenhouses with a festive overlay! Disney adds fun holiday decorations, including lots of lights, all around the greenhouses. It’s an adorable overlay that we look forward to each year.

Now, this year, Disney has added an extra special addition to the greenhouses! While you can take the regular backstage tour, Behind the Seeds, during the daytime, you can also now take an evening holiday version, Behind the Seeds: Glimmering Greenhouses! Unlike the regular version of this tour, you get to see the greenhouse Christmas lights all lit up and not only learn about the special farming practices Disney uses, but also about festive uses for the vegetation and spices that are grown there!

We learned all about holiday traditions and foods from around the world and how Disney is using sustainable practices to grow that food right there in the greenhouses! It was really amazing, but there were three things in particular that surprised us.

You’re Let Loose Backstage to Your Favorite Ride

This particular surprise is true during both versions of this backstage tour. If you take either of the Behind the Seeds tours, you’ll get to go literally behind-the-scenes of Living with the Land. This is probably the most backstage you can get on a ride unless a ride has technical difficulties and you get walked off.

You get up close and personal with the vegetation and fish that Disney is growing in the greenhouses. You literally stand amid the gardens and over the fish tanks that you just float by on the ride.

You certainly aren’t hidden from those on the ride, either. In fact, at some points in the tour, you’re close enough to the boats you could high-five them as they float by!

You’re just let loose backstage to your favorite ride, and it feels wrong and like you’re getting away with something you’re not supposed to, but it’s also amazing!

Our Glimmering Guide

Our Cast Member guide for the Behind the Seeds: Glimmering Greenhouse tour was glimmering herself! She was incredibly informative about the holiday cultures she was discussing and about the greenhouses we were looking at.

She was very friendly, open, and happy. It was easy to ask her questions if we wanted, and she was ready with great answers. She was a glimmering as the tour promised to be.

It Felt Like a Show

The regular Behind the Seeds tour only happens during the daytime when there is daylight shining through the greenhouses. This regular tour continues throughout the holiday season as well, but it’s not focused on holiday flavors, foods, or traditions. But the Glimmering Greenhouses tour, brand-new this year, now takes you into the greenhouses after the sun has set and they turn on all the holiday lights!

It is so magical; it’s like being in a show rather than just on a tour. The lights seriously enhanced the experience into something MORE. We still love the regular Behind the Seeds tour for what it is, but the nighttime version is even more exciting. As Breedlove said, “all of these amazing different lighting elements turned it into like a Broadway show of agriculture.”

It is a marvelous experience and is one of the least expensive backstage tours offered at Disney World. We highly suggest checking it out if you’re there for the holidays.

Behind the Seeds: Glimmering Greenhouses is available at 6:00PM and 7:00PM until December 30th for $45. The regular Behind the Seeds tour is offered year round at various times for $39-$45. Both variations of this tour is lots of fun and very interesting! Check them out if you’re headed to EPCOT.

For more Disney news, keep following AllEars!

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Have you done either of the Behind the Seeds tours? Let us know in the comments!

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