We have always been too busy on our Disney vacations to bother with the mini golf courses. After finally carving out time to play one, we realized that we had been making a huge mistake. Fantasia Gardens & Fairways is a beautiful mini golf course!
Our MagicBands have always arrived in a cardboard presentation box with four tickets for miniature golf. We are a family of five, but it’s just one of those quirky Disney things that each family is presented with four, regardless of how many MagicBands are in their order.
Fantasia Gardens & Fairways, near the Swan & Dolphin Resort, and Winter Summerland, near Blizzard Beach water park, are the two courses that accept mini golf passes from a Walt Disney World package.
Fantasia Gardens & Fairways
Miniature Golf Course
Because Winter Summerland had just closed for refurbishment during our visit, Fantasia Gardens was the only option. Of course, we didn’t mind — it was all new to us!
Fantasia Gardens & Fairways does have two 18-hole courses to choose from: Fantasia Gardens and Fantasia Fairways.
The Fairways course looked too difficult for our family and wasn’t as extensively themed as Fantasia Gardens. I later learned that the Fairways course has been voted the most challenging mini golf course in the world by Golf Digest! We definitely made the right choice by avoiding it.
We did see bits of Fantasia Fairways while we played through Fantasia Gardens. It looked like an actual golf course was shrunk down! There are fairways, sand traps, and rough terrain, all shrunk down. It is, quite literally, a miniaturized golf course!
The Gardens course is a family-friendly course featuring characters from Disney’s Fantasia. It’s the more traditional mini-golf or “putt putt golf” style that our family is used to.
It is, as its name suggests, themed after the 1940 Disney film Fantasia. The course has 18 rhymes that introduce the holes and hint at the best strategies for each.
We saw several familiar faces as we made our way through the course. Some were statues and others were shrubs, but all were enchanting!
The kids loved spotting dancing hippos and swans, marching broomsticks… even a hungry crocodile!
We even found Chernabog in a cave — yikes! — and one of our kids let out a squeal at a motion-activated effect. (I won’t spoil the surprise, but it wasn’t too spooky.)
There are water features (including some you need to look out for), tubes and tunnels, bunkers, slopes, and an Elsa-style twist on the traditional mini-golf windmill.
We spent a lot of our time soaking in the sunshine and the view. We played this round of miniature golf on the first full day we spent in Orlando, so our excitement was really ramping up!
Can you spot the Hollywood Tower Hotel from the course? Because my kids sure did!
The course ends with the big guys on holes 17 and 18. Sorcerer Mickey and Yen Sid, the sorcerer who leaves his hat behind in Fantasia, bring a spectacular finale!
Most of the course is a par 3 and that seemed just about right. Admittedly, our 5-year-old tired out toward the end of the course and his numbers began to climb. For our 8-year-old and 11-year-old, though, it was the perfect length and difficulty.
Including the time spent getting our putters and balls and waiting for our turn to begin the course, it took us about an hour and a half to finish all 18 holes.
The cost for either course is $14.00 per adult and $12.00 per child (ages 3 to 9). Putters and balls are included.
Next time around, we’ll be trying the Winter Summerland course or, better yet, the FootGolf at Disney’s Oak Trail!
Plan Your Visit
Fantasia Gardens & Fairways
1205 Epcot Resorts Boulevard
Orlando, Florida 32836
website
