The calendar may still say September, but Walt Disney World guests planning a holiday vacation already have another date to circle.
Disney has confirmed that a limited-time EPCOT experience will return later this year, offering visitors a way to see part of the park from a perspective they won’t get during a typical visit. It arrives alongside EPCOT’s larger holiday celebration, but this experience has limited evening times and requires guests to plan ahead.
The actual return remains more than two months away. Reservations, however, will become available much sooner.
Holiday Plans Are Coming Together Across Disney World
Walt Disney World celebrates the holidays across all four theme parks, with each destination offering its own seasonal atmosphere.
Magic Kingdom brings holiday decorations to areas such as Main Street, U.S.A. On select evenings, Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party adds a separately ticketed celebration to the park.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios also receives festive decorations and entertainment. Disney Jollywood Nights takes over on select nights with another separately ticketed holiday event.
At Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the season features decorations and entertainment, including the Merry Menagerie. The experience brings artisan-sculpted winter animal puppets to Discovery Island.
EPCOT rounds out the four parks with a celebration heavily influenced by cultures from around the world. World Showcase plays a major role as international pavilions feature holiday traditions, food, entertainment, and decorations.
Another returning experience will give EPCOT guests an additional way to spend a holiday evening in 2026.
Disney Confirms When Reservations Will Open
Behind the Seeds: Glimmering Greenhouses is coming back to The Land pavilion at EPCOT.
The limited-time walking tour will be offered from November 27 through December 30, 2026, with reservations opening September 24.
Disney has scheduled three tours each evening. Guests can choose from 6:00 p.m., 7:00 p.m., or 8:00 p.m.
The experience takes place inside the greenhouses featured in Living with the Land during the attraction’s holiday transformation.
While regular riders can see the seasonal displays as they travel through the attraction, tour participants get to explore the greenhouse environment on foot. That provides a closer look at the colorful lights and festive displays that appear during the holiday season.
There’s an educational component as well.
Guests can learn about crops and plants associated with familiar holiday foods as they walk through the greenhouses. The combination brings together The Land’s focus on plants with the festive setting of Living with the Land’s seasonal overlay.
Those nighttime tour times also allow the holiday lighting to become a larger part of the experience.
Another EPCOT Holiday Event Shares the Same Dates
The timing of the tour isn’t random when viewed in the context of EPCOT’s broader holiday calendar.
EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays will also run from November 27 through December 30 in 2026. As a result, Behind the Seeds: Glimmering Greenhouses will be available throughout the festival’s entire run.
Festival of the Holidays brings seasonal experiences across EPCOT. World Showcase plays a large role, offering traditions, entertainment, and food inspired by holiday celebrations around the world.
The greenhouse tour gives guests an additional seasonal experience outside World Showcase.
Located in World Nature, The Land has already become part of EPCOT’s holiday atmosphere through the Living with the Land overlay. Guests aboard the attraction can see the greenhouses filled with colorful lights and festive displays.
Behind the Seeds: Glimmering Greenhouses takes that experience beyond the ride vehicle. Participants can walk through the environment, view the displays from a different perspective, and learn more about the surrounding plants.
For guests already planning to attend Festival of the Holidays, the matching dates make the tour another activity they can potentially add to an EPCOT evening.
Planning Starts Well Before November
Behind the Seeds: Glimmering Greenhouses may not begin until November 27, but interested guests have a much earlier date to remember.
Reservations open September 24, more than two months before the first tour.
Once the experience begins, Disney will offer three evening times through December 30, matching the complete run of EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays.
Between the seasonal lights, walking-tour format, and a closer look inside the greenhouses, the returning experience offers a different way to see a familiar part of EPCOT during the holidays.
For anyone hoping to include it in a late-November or December visit, the first step comes this September when booking officially opens.
