Epcot's Egg Hunt & Flower and Garden Festival, 2016

Every year Epcot hosts an "Egg-stravaganza" Easter Egg Hunt around the world showcase, but in the past it's been less of a "hunt" and more of a "so obvious it'd be harder to miss them" kind of deal. Still cute, of course, but very little challenge.

This year, however, was SO MUCH BETTER. So now that the hunt's about to wrap up for the year (you have 'til 3/27, Dizgeeks), let's take a quick tour!

One of the best parts of the Hunt is that it falls during Epcot's Flower and Garden Festival, so you get eye-candy galore in the form of colorful topiaries and flower beds.

Anyone can look for the eggs, of course, but if you want the special map and Easter egg prize, you'll have to shell out (see what I did there?) about $6.

And this time the map was ORANGE! I approve.

You're supposed to put the egg stickers on the map as you find them, but you get your prize whether you complete the map or not. Here's Disney's official photo of your prize choices:

It's nice that they change up the eggs each time. Last year I got Donald:

 And this time we chose Cheshire for John.

More prettiness:

 

Btw, all of today's pics were taken on my iPhone 6. John convinced me to upgrade last year just for this camera, and I gotta say, I'm impressed. I've been leaving my Canon 7D at home more and more!

Now, let's talk eggs!

I knew something had changed with the Egg Hunt at our very first stop in Mexico, when 2 other guests asked for our help finding Chip's hiding spot:

He was tucked waaaay up high, opposite Mexico's main building.

Goofy was more obvious:

But look how far out Donald's egg was from the walkway:

Donald took us an extra few minutes; we kept searching the country pavilions instead of looking out towards the lake.

Germany:

Italy:

The hardest egg to find (by far) was America's. I bet there's a lesson in there somewhere...

Anyway, it took us a SOLID 10-15 minutes of combing every inch of the area before we *finally* overheard someone yell, "there it is!"

In the blinding sunlight, Mickey's dark egg blended into the shadows of those overhanging trees. Well played, Disney. WELL PLAYED.

Another easy find in Japan:

And you could see Pluto from the path while walking into Morocco:

Figment's egg was so high up in Italy, he was mostly a purple blur:

And Ditto for Thumper in the U.K.:

This was another mega-hard one to spot - so John found it first. Even with him describing exactly where to look, it took me a while.

And finally, here's Minnie's egg on another rooftop in Canada:

All in all, I love that the Hunt was more challenging this year, and I hope Disney keeps it up!

Now let's look at a few more pretties from our walk around the world:

(You already saw several of these if you follow me on Instagram. Hint hint.)

Orange poppies = squealy, happy Jen.

After dark all the colorful spot lights turn on, which brings a whole different feel to the topiaries:

 I like the blues on this Cinderella one:

And one last panorama:

Hope you guys enjoyed the tour!