2021 Epcot International Food and Wine Festival - Concluded on November 20, 2021

[Elleinthecity]

I'm at Disney for a conference in September and was planning a pool day until I remembered F&W. I hate buying a one day ticket, but I also hated staying home in the middle of a pandemic. So there! Here I come!

 

[zdad59]

Mama and I will be coming in late September and this will be our first time being there during F&W. We are staying at Beach Cub and hope to spend one day "eating our way around the world". Being newbies for this event, what are some key tips and tricks that will help?

 

[jbrinkm]

Being newbies for this event, what are some key tips and tricks that will help?

I'd love to hear these, as well!

Also, where do you get menus? Can you print directly from the Disney website once they are released?

And, has anyone gotten one of the unofficial F&W booklets? They look really nice but a bit pricey for only being a PDF that you still have to print yourself. If you've gotten it before, what were your thoughts?

 

[VAtink]

Mama and I will be coming in late September and this will be our first time being there during F&W. We are staying at Beach Cub and hope to spend one day "eating our way around the world". Being newbies for this event, what are some key tips and tricks that will help?

So exciting, hope you have a fantastic trip!

As for tips…
-Sharing the dishes is a great way to be able to fit more in so you can try more.
-Being at the BC is awesome for F&W. If you can, it’s great to pop over to Epcot for a quick lunch or dinner at the food booths. (Although easier to hop over for lunch when you could park hop earlier than 2…hopefully they change that soon). Would recommend planning multiple days in Epcot if you want to try a lot of the food.
-If you’re traveling with others, have someone go grab a table while the other gets food. The tables fill up fast and sometimes it’s hard to find one. Also noticed in April there were a lot of tables set up in areas away from booths, so you may need to walk a bit to find an empty one, but they do have a lot more tables out now (or at least in April) than in the past so hopefully finding one isn't an issue.
-If you can’t find a table it is totally acceptable (although maybe not desirable) to use a trash can as a table.
-IF they bring back the special events this year (Tequila lunch, Italian Food and Wine pairing etc) I would recommend signing up for one. They are a lot of fun and have some amazing food!

 

[bookgirl2632]

Mama and I will be coming in late September and this will be our first time being there during F&W. We are staying at Beach Cub and hope to spend one day "eating our way around the world". Being newbies for this event, what are some key tips and tricks that will help?

I'd love to hear these, as well!

Also, where do you get menus? Can you print directly from the Disney website once they are released?

And, has anyone gotten the special F&W booklet from DFB? It looks really nice but a bit pricey for only being a PDF that you still have to print yourself. If you've gotten it before, what were your thoughts?

Stay hydrated. Drinking plenty of water is always a good idea, but especially during festivals.

The menus aren’t out yet, but should be announced sometime next month. There is an unofficial app that is really great. Once the menus are announced, I find it helpful to go through them and make a list of the things I really want to try. If going with others, share dishes. You’ll be able to try more. And if possible, plan at least two days at Epcot. Lastly, I don’t usually plan any reservations on Epcot days.

 

[CarolynFH]

I use an app called “WDW Food&Wine.” They update it for each festival - currently it’s for Flower & Garden. Not only does it list all the items at each booth, there’s a map with pins showing where each booth is, and you can click the ones you’re interested in so you can plan a route. Very useful!

 

[crazy4wdw]

Roughly 6 weeks until the festival begins. Hopefully info on the international marketplace kiosks and special events will be coming soon!

 

[2xcited2sleep]

So excited to be thinking about and planning for another festival. Based on various pictures I saw on social media this weekend, it seems the parks are pretty close to back to normal in terms of crowds and lack of distancing. I'm not thrilled about that, but if it means they'll consider some special events, that will be a silver lining.

Great tips above.

• Weekdays are less crowded than weekends. Friday night through Sunday afternoon can be pretty intense around World Showcase. Last year Disney threw a bit of a wrench in that approach by having some booths only open on weekends but hopefully that won't be the case this year
• Available at the gates with the maps and also in gift shops and at some kiosks will be a festival passport. It's a small paper booklet that lists all the booths and food items. We tend to use that to plot out our plan of attack. Assuming you have park hopper tickets, you could "pop in" from Beach Club (so easy) before your EPCOT day(s) and grab one (they will be just inside the International Gateway entrance). We bring a highlighter to mark the things we want to try and then check things off as we go.
• They sell small reloadable gift cards on an elastic bracelet of sorts that you wear around your wrist and, to me, it makes it easy to pay at the kiosks without digging in my wallet or punching in my code if using a magic band. They just scan the gift card.
• That said, I'd also bring some cash with you. The individual food booths can be persnickety, particularly if lightning is in the area, and sometimes they are accepting cash only. It's infrequent but nothing is getting between me and a food item I've been dreaming about.

Disney will post the menus but not in a very print-friendly format. So will various other blogs. The app mentioned above is useful and I think someone here usually does a spreadsheet they share via Google docs. As I said above, we tend to use the passport provided in the parks.

As for the paid guides some other sites offer, I purchased one many years ago. My personal take was that it didn't really contain any info or advice that I hadn't found for free here or on other sites but I also spent a lot of time researching and reading.

Another thing you may enjoy or find useful as you're planning are YouTube videos. There are a ton from various vloggers at past festivals (just search EPCOT Food & Wine) and they can give you an idea of how it all looks and works (of course last year was a bit of an anomaly).

Happy planning, everyone!

 

[HollyMD]

Can you add it new to a gift card with a credit card or just strictly cash? I can’t remember.

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Can you add it new to a gift card with a credit card or just strictly cash? I can’t remember.

Yes, you can use a credit card to add $ to a gift card. As I recall, the restriction is you can't use your magic band to charge the $ you're adding back to your room (even though likely going on the same credit card).

 

[HollyMD]

Thank you! I remembered I couldn’t use the magic band, but for the life of me, could not remember if the credit card was ok.

 

[Farro]

I use an app called “WDW Food&Wine.” They update it for each festival - currently it’s for Flower & Garden. Not only does it list all the items at each booth, there’s a map with pins showing where each booth is, and you can click the ones you’re interested in so you can plan a route. Very useful!

Thanks for this! I just installed it, this is great!

 

[emily nicole]

Really hopeful ETTB/Hanson comes back this year. If so, best believe I'll be quickly booking a solo trip! Come on Disney!

 

[cpep42]

will be glad and still praying that things will be back to some normalcy by October. Going to be there for two months at OKW and finally got my annual pass. Happy Happy. So now there's very little time in between the festivals at Epcot. Glad to have all the activity but can't wait until some of our old cast members get called back to work.

 

[Heather07438]

Easywdw does a good write up for each festival rating menu items on taste and value. It helps me pick out what I definitely don’t want to miss, and it’s easy to miss stuff because booths are everywhere.

We get a Festival Passport pamphlet and mark up the must try dishes, paying special attention to locations that aren’t on the main World Showcase path so we remember to seek them out.

Weekends get more crowded but many special events aren’t scheduled midweek. Some are free, some have a fee. Some run
Thurs-Sun, Fri- Mon, etc.

Payment- good idea to bring backup. We used our MagicBands and Apple Pay but encountered issues a couple times where I ended up just using a credit card or cash.

Eat to the Beat concert series. These are awesome! See who is playing on your trip, there may be a few choices. It’s a 45 minute set iirc, 3 times per day. We love them. Catch one!

Our plan of attack this year is staying at Boardwalk (rented DVC cheaper than a Value) and not making park reservations at Epcot, instead we’ll hop over 3 of 6 days.

 

[GAN]

Anyone use the WDW Food&Wine app? I've used it in the past and it's pretty handy -you can highlight the items on your radar, gives pricing, etc. It's set up for F&G right now....

 

[kerreyn]

Anyone use the WDW Food&Wine app? I've used it in the past and it's pretty handy -you can highlight the items on your radar, gives pricing, etc. It's set up for F&G right now....

I just downloaded it!

 

[CarolynFH]

Anyone use the WDW Food&Wine app? I've used it in the past and it's pretty handy -you can highlight the items on your radar, gives pricing, etc. It's set up for F&G right now....

I do - recommended it upthread (post #66)!

 

[GAN]

I do - recommended it upthread (post #66)!

Oooppps ...I missed it!

 

[crazy4wdw]

Canada's circlevision 360 theater may be closing in order to host some of the kiosks for the Festival:

https://www.wdwmagic.com/attraction...-canada-far-and-wide-closing-in-late-june.htm