Mid January through early February 2026 saw frigid lows and high winds across almost the whole state, and the record-breaking Freeze has caused visible damage to the Central Florida theme park and tourism district, and disrupted general operations in a number of ways.
Weather has largely stabilized since the second week of February, but the damage to landscaping has been done and the effects of the Freeze on foliage and green spaces around the parks are becoming increasingly visible with each day.
Just something to note:
The recent freeze blast has absolutely decimated the plant life around the North campus. It's the most noticeable in Jurassic Park. They've removed some trees and have replanted flowers, but it seems like it's going to be an ongoing work in progress for the next couple of months.
I'm planning to visit VB next week to see how it fared, but I'm curious as to Epic, since a lot of the trees and plants weren't as mature as USF/IOAs.
A decent amount of the plant life around Epic has wilted as well. Young trees completely yanked out and browned foliage.
I am unsure on this myself, but I'd be interested if anyone has videos or photos of the little trail by Atlantic from 2025. They had the path blocked off for a solid number of weeks, and only recently reopened the path, with plant life that to me looks different, but I could just be mistaking things. If anyone has photos I'd be very curious to compare.
For any Where We Parked listeners, I'm definitely curious in checking in on Palmtalk Forums and seeing what they have to say about the Freeze haha.
I've checked in on the fine people over at Palmtalk.org and they've got some solid coverage of the Freeze so far. Here are some pictures of notable spots in the parks and tourism district that got hit fairly hard compiled from their larger threads.
Here are the relevant Palmtalk threads. You can always count on these guys for very in-the-weeds (in-the-fronds?
) discussion regarding niche events in the world of Floridian landscaping haha. For them, this is essentially like if all of the attractions at EPCOT got submerged in 15 foot tall flood water for a week, so keep them in your thoughts.
2026 Florida Palmageddon Observations and Damage Photo Thread
2025-2026 Florida Winter
There are lots of really interesting photos and thoughts in those threads I wasn't able to post here. Disney's Polynesian got hit hard, among others. I would recommend checking it out if you're interested.
I can personally attest to the Oak and Star - Celestiki area on the left side of Celestial Park having totally bare trees. The vines climbing over the tunnel entrance into Stardust Racers looking about as Copper as the statues they are adjacent to. What little landscaping was in Mario Land saw some damage, downed trees and browned foliage. DK got hit much harder, with the (what I believe to be) bamboo essentially acting as the boundary wall of the right side of the land also being visibly browned, same with palms all around the small jungle. I'll try to see if I can get pictures at some point soon.
Definitely hoping for landscaping heavy areas like Pandora and Volcano Bay to come out of this as clean as possible.