Disney mug of the month: Orange Bird Flower & Garden 2023

I really thought that I had probably featured 6-7 orange bird mugs on this blog before… but apparently I was only at 3! It’s time to change that with another orange bird mug this month. Because I definitely own at least 6-7.

For this month I’m throwing it back to last year’s Flower and Garden festival. Orange Bird has had a huge presence at Flower and Garden for the past 5ish years, with tons of new merch there. In some ways I think he fits well. In other ways it’s an interesting choice because he’s a Magic Kingdom character, not Epcot – and his signature dessert, the citrus swirl, is only available in Magic Kingdom.

Let me get on my soapbox for a minute about things which don’t really matter but I am very passionate about anyway.

The orange bird is the mascot of the citrus swirl.

A citrus swirl is not a dole whip. It is not orange soft serve swirled with vanilla, even if that is what they try to promote at the Sunshine Tree Terrace these days. It is an amazing, incredible mixture of frozen orange juice and vanilla soft serve which is far superior to any dole whip and is almost guaranteed to give you a brain freeze. The orange bird was created to promote the Florida Citrus Commission and the citrus swirl.

They don’t list it on the menu but it’s typically still available. Sometimes it’s on the mobile app to order, sometimes it’s not. 95% of the time if I go to the window and ask if they have it, they do. I don’t know why they don’t want us to know about it, or they try to pass off some other orange nonsense.

Thank you for bearing with me through that rant (or skipping it if you didn’t care). Back to the mug!

This one is interesting because it’s a somewhat different style than some of the other orange bird merchandise. They went with a slightly different color pallette for the 2023 Flower and Garden merch. Insetad of a bright orange, he’s a more muted, darker orange. And while he’s usually accompanied by vibrant yellows and greens, this time it’s more browns, dark yellows, and a sort of olive green.

A lot of the orange bird merch from that year had a more 70s vibe to it (this mug may not be as obvious, but in many of the shirts and such I definitely got a 1970s feel given the flowers he’s depicted with).

What I really love about this mug is the background, or the mug itself. Instead of just printing the artwork on a plain mug, it’s designed to look like a tree. It has texture (you can see the knots in the tree truck). The handle is also designed to look like a tree branch.

There are two different pictures on each side of this mug. On the one side we have just the head of the orange bird with some flowers. The other side is super cute! Our orange bird is seated on top of what looks like an orange tree. But look closer, and that orange tree is actually designed to look like Epcot’s Spaceship Earth! I’m a big fan.

What’s in my mug: I’ve been trying to drink more tea in general – I do like coffee, but my body has not always reacted positively to it lately. Plus my allergies are bad and I tend to get a sore throat this time of year, so tea it is! I enjoy flavored black teas, but a favorite I’m drinking lately is actually one from Joffrey’s, where I get much of my Disney coffee. While it’s not a Disney tea, it’s called Savanna Sunrise. The name reminds me of being at Animal Kingdom Lodge in the morning, so I still get a Disney feel when I drink it!

What I’m currently reading: Disney has released a series of “Little Golden Books” in the last few years, and I was pretty excited to see an Orange Bird book! The orange bird isn’t just an mascot – he has a whole story (that was originally told through short films and commercials back in the 1970s). It’s a super cute story about a bird who is a little bit different from his friends but still able to save the day. Oh, and they eat citrus swirls in the story too.

Are you a fan of the orange bird and citrus swirls? What mug are you currently using?