2012 Epcot Food and Wine Festival *HAS ENDED*

[Horace Horsecollar]

I am thinking about doing a Wine Seminar. What exactly does this entail? Are you just given little glasses of wine to taste? How many and does it even total up to a full glass?

There are typically three wine glasses on a placemat when you sit down. Each has about one ounce or so of wine in it. In comparison, a typical wine pour in a restaurant is 5 oz (yielding 5 glasses per bottle) and a generous pour is slightly more that 6 ounces (yielding 4 glasses per bottle).

Normally, a presenter talks about the winery for around 10-20 minutes, usually showing PowerPoint slides, and then invites you to taste the first glass. The speaker continues to until you've tasted the three glasses.

The quality and qualifications of the presenters varies widely. Some are winery owners with great stories about how they got started. Other are distributors reciting canned sales pitches.

The seminars can be fun and worthwhile. Or not.

In either case, it's not a way to get a generous amount of wine.

 

[Wendy&Grumpy]

From what I understand, General Adminssion for the 3D Dessert party will be able to book online so that leads me to guess that the Sweet Seats will not?

I think I want to do the Sweet Seats so maybe I'll just end up calling anyway.

We want Sweet Seats too - last year we ended up at a table just outside the Sweet Seat area and felt like we were sitting at the kids table watching the grownups have fun without us!

Guess I'll be on the phone at 7am Tuesday!

 

[VictoriaT]

Woohooo just got Buddy Valastro for Tuesday November 6th.

Yay!! Got my Tix for Buddy Valastro!!

Congrats to you two! I'm just praying there will be a couple spots left when I can book on the 14th!

WHich times did you get?

 

[PNO4TE]

Brenda! Awesome to hear from you - Via Napoli has a four course food/beer pairing on Tuesdays for $55 - here's a review someone posted from last years event at the Disney food blog - food looked good:

http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2011/...d-wine-festival-beer-and-pizza-tasting-event/

Moretti beers ehh...too bad not Baladin.

We did this last year and enjoyed the Moretti beers. We were surprised but happy. This event was one of the high points of last year's F&W trip.

 

[PNO4TE]

Anyone know about the Jim Beam beverage seminars? Neither of us really like Wine but we both like whiskey. What mixed drinks the have and how the demonstration goes.

Thanks!

We did this a couple of years ago and it was good! there was a lot of liquor too! I had a TR back then and if you want to know more about it I might be able to find that post. Maybe...

 

[Wendy&Grumpy]

Congrats to you two! I'm just praying there will be a couple spots left when I can book on the 14th!

WHich times did you get?

3:00 for me.

 

[Dancind]

I got a very good DVC person this morning and booked what I wanted without a hitch. We are only doing three seminars, one of them on a Friday so full price. But it says "lobster"!

So envious of anyone that gets to go to PFTS on Oct. 27. The winery line up is all star if you like California wine! We don't arrive until Oct. 31. If you go, make sure you stop by Hanna. They have been making some 100 point wines. It's on our Must Do list for our next visit to Napa, and they are waaaay out in the boonies.

 

[onelilspark]

So envious of anyone that gets to go to PFTS on Oct. 27. The winery line up is all star if you like California wine! We don't arrive until Oct. 31. If you go, make sure you stop by Hanna. They have been making some 100 point wines. It's on our Must Do list for our next visit to Napa, and they are waaaay out in the boonies.

We're going on the 27th. I'll be sure to let my husband know!

 

[Snurk71]

Had a terrible experience this morning trying to get the Robert Irvine event.

I called FEST at 7:00 EST just in case, 15 minute wait on hold before the CM says the demos don't start booking until 8:00. No problem - I thought it was supposed to be 8:00. I call back at 7:55 in case there's a long hold again - get right in, hang up since it's not 7:00 yet. Call back at 7:58 just in case there's a wait - and there is - I'm on hold for at least 5 minutes.

DW calls DVC on her cell phone right at 8:00 (covering our bases) and gets right in, but gets a dud CM. The CM takes our DVC# as usual, then starts going over our acct info and says there's no email address on the account, blah, blah. I'm mouthing to DW to tell her to skip it and get the reservation since it's probably going fast. DW tells the CM the day, time, and that it's Robert Irvine. CM can't find it, then does, but says there's no name/description. DW tells her to just book the 1:00. CM says there's one for 2:00, not 1:00. DW tells her the food demos are at 1:00, 3:00, and 5:00 everyday. CM says that's what she thought too. CM puts DW on hold, can't figure things out, etc.

In the meantime I've gotten in to the FEST CM. She takes my name, DVC#, and email and pulls up the event. She clicks to make our reservation, but it's not taking - she says it looks like someone else has it locked. She keeps clicking it, puts me on hold for a moment, keeps clicking, we wait and we wait - and she eventually gives up and says it must be sold out now. Grrrrr...

DW is still on the phone with DVC and I'm overhearing that CM is booking the 2:00 event??? We get a confirmation#, they charge us the $36 (3x$12), DW confirms with the CM that we have the 1:00 Irvine and she says yes, but it converted it to 2:00 for some reason on her screen. I'm relieved that it looks like it worked out somehow, but a little nervous with as much trouble as she had, so I plan on calling DINE later at work to confirm the res#.

30 minutes later DVC calls back - yeah, we don't really have a reservation for Irvine after all (I didn't take the call so I'm not sure what all was said). 10 more minutes later DVC calls back again with our cancellation confirmation#.

So how irritated would you be after this experience? I'd like to call to complain since they boofed this one up, but the only recourse I'm interested in is getting the Irvine res. And I have some doubts anyone will be able to pull from the general stack to satisfy me.

 

[Dancind]

Snurk, sorry to say, but this is par for the course for F&W events. For the past three years, we have gotten up at 5am to try and book some very popular dinners. We have gotten through several times, were half way through booking what we wanted, and gotten disconnected. Or, we got a CM who had no clue. Call back for a 20 or so minute wait, the event is always sold out. Nothing anyone can do, really.

 

[PNO4TE]

Snurk - I suggest calling back again. This same type of thing happened to me last year and in the end, the event I was trying to book was NOT sold out and I got tickets a few days later. It is worth a call, I would think.

I also hope to see that there is availability on the 14th for full priced tickets for some of these major events. There usually is!

 

[WeeVee]

Had a terrible experience this morning trying to get the Robert Irvine event.

I called FEST at 7:00 EST just in case, 15 minute wait on hold before the CM says the demos don't start booking until 8:00. No problem - I thought it was supposed to be 8:00. I call back at 7:55 in case there's a long hold again - get right in, hang up since it's not 7:00 yet. Call back at 7:58 just in case there's a wait - and there is - I'm on hold for at least 5 minutes.

DW calls DVC on her cell phone right at 8:00 (covering our bases) and gets right in, but gets a dud CM. The CM takes our DVC# as usual, then starts going over our acct info and says there's no email address on the account, blah, blah. I'm mouthing to DW to tell her to skip it and get the reservation since it's probably going fast. DW tells the CM the day, time, and that it's Robert Irvine. CM can't find it, then does, but says there's no name/description. DW tells her to just book the 1:00. CM says there's one for 2:00, not 1:00. DW tells her the food demos are at 1:00, 3:00, and 5:00 everyday. CM says that's what she thought too. CM puts DW on hold, can't figure things out, etc.

In the meantime I've gotten in to the FEST CM. She takes my name, DVC#, and email and pulls up the event. She clicks to make our reservation, but it's not taking - she says it looks like someone else has it locked. She keeps clicking it, puts me on hold for a moment, keeps clicking, we wait and we wait - and she eventually gives up and says it must be sold out now. Grrrrr...

DW is still on the phone with DVC and I'm overhearing that CM is booking the 2:00 event??? We get a confirmation#, they charge us the $36 (3x$12), DW confirms with the CM that we have the 1:00 Irvine and she says yes, but it converted it to 2:00 for some reason on her screen. I'm relieved that it looks like it worked out somehow, but a little nervous with as much trouble as she had, so I plan on calling DINE later at work to confirm the res#.

30 minutes later DVC calls back - yeah, we don't really have a reservation for Irvine after all (I didn't take the call so I'm not sure what all was said). 10 more minutes later DVC calls back again with our cancellation confirmation#.

So how irritated would you be after this experience? I'd like to call to complain since they boofed this one up, but the only recourse I'm interested in is getting the Irvine res. And I have some doubts anyone will be able to pull from the general stack to satisfy me.

Unfortunately there isn't much recourse for you to solve this issue but I would still try to via email with customer service rep from DVC concierge.

You can try for the Robert Irvine demonstration still on Tuesday August 14 with the general public call in. I doubt if all the tickets were for different memberships but I don't know that for sure.

 

[TDC Nala]

You can try to get them on the 14th, I'm pretty sure they don't put the whole inventory on sale early, but I think I'd let DVC know that they need to train at least some of their reservationists. As these events are not refundable or cancellable I don't think they keep a waitlist, but the seminars may hold some tickets for same-day sale, they used to do that when they first started charging.

Honestly, somebody has this sort of thing happen EVERY year, I'm always worried that this will be my year. Last year there was someone who I think wanted a French Regional Lunch for 5 and the agent booked it for 4, then it sold out and they couldn't get the 5th person in. The customer didn't want to go without one person but couldn't cancel the other 4 and they couldn't add the 5th person no matter what they did. I am trying to remember if something got worked out eventually.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

If you have an AP/TiW/DVC/GO number, but were told today that Robert Irvine's culinary demo (of any other culinary demo) was sold out...

Call back and ask the CM if there are any full-price tickets left, even though you qualify for the $2 discount. I don't know if it will work this year, but it worked for me last year with a culinary demo that was "sold out" on the first day. It turned out that only the inventory eligible for a $2 was sold out.

If that doesn't work...

Call back Tuesday morning, August 14, ay 7:00 a.m. EDT sharp. They should release more inventory that morning. After all, they can't very well have no inventory available for regular, paying guests who just don't belong to any of the discount-qualifying programs.

If that doesn't work...

Line up at the Festival Center as early as possible on the day of Robert Irvine's culinary demo. Disney holds back some spots (around 25, I've been told) to be released on the day of the demos. There will probably be far more people who want tickets than available spots, but let's hope Disney will properly track the order of arrival.

If that doesn't work...

In past years, it's been possible to stand outside the seating area and watch the demo. Of course, you would be competing for a view with other disappointed guests, and there would be no sample -- but at least it would be free.

 

[Joan S.]

Hi, Do we get any kind of confirmation via e-mail after booking a DEMO?? I booked thru DVC and they always ask to verify my e-mail, but I noticed in a reply that the WDW- FEST line had ASKED for an e-mail. Thanks, Joan

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

Hi, Do we get any kind of confirmation via e-mail after booking a DEMO?? I booked thru DVC and they always ask to verify my e-mail, but I noticed in a reply that the WDW- FEST line had ASKED for an e-mail. Thanks, Joan

I received no e-mail confirmation, but my reservations all show up when I log into the official Walt Disney World website and check My Reservations, along with my other dining reservations and my room reservation. This may require you to run the Update function at My Reservations.

 

[PatriciaH]

Whew! I just caught up on the past few days of posts. I do not see any deminars I really like for our dates (10.27-11.4.) We did 2 Mixology deminars last year (Hendricks and 7 Tiki Rum) and they were both good.

We will probably do PFTS with reserved seating on 11.3 and I am happy with the wines and chefs listed for that date (that was nice seeing those listed way ahead.) Other than that we may do a Tequila lunch and an Italian Regional Food & Wine Luncheon. I did not see any Signature dinners I really like for the dates we are there (other than V&A and that is too much $ for us.) Might skip everything other than PFTS and the food booths and use the money to go to Discovery Cove

We missed out on the Grand Marnier (Mix it Shake it one) the first year they had it because the CM had no idea how to book it. It was pretty annoying and you think they would train them better for this time frame. I had the time, the location and the name of the event and she still could not find it.

And last but not least I am so glad they are not serving the salmon at the Canada booth this year. I like salmon but that whole area just stinks from the salmon cooking!

 

[musicmantrs]

We did this a couple of years ago and it was good! there was a lot of liquor too! I had a TR back then and if you want to know more about it I might be able to find that post. Maybe...

Think I found it, very informative. I kind of thought it would be mixed drinks based on whiskey (greatly underserved market unless you want a bourbon and coke). I like straight whiskey but the seminar times may hinder productivity for the rest of the day.

http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=33820430&postcount=334

 

[Candycane83]

Just a question about Party of the Senses... Do you need a park ticket to attend this event? I'm sure it's been asked somewhere but I can't seem to find it. DH and I will be at Universal on Nov 3 but am thinking this might be worth the trip. Thanks in advance!

 

[Kteacher]

Just a question about Party of the Senses... Do you need a park ticket to attend this event? I'm sure it's been asked somewhere but I can't seem to find it. DH and I will be at Universal on Nov 3 but am thinking this might be worth the trip. Thanks in advance!

yes you do need a park ticket to attend