Cancel Chefs de France for food booths?

[Heffalump12]

As someone who has only been to WDW once during Food and Wine festival, I did not realize that food booths occur at every festival until I recently read about it on DFB. I currently have a reservation at Chefs de France for our one Epcot day but I am now thinking about canceling it and just enjoying various foods at the booths. We are staying at BCV so if we want to take a load off and can’t find tables we can always bring to go containers with us and take it to the room. One thing that makes me second guess this decision are the food booth lines. Are they crazy long? I don’t want to spend a lot of time waiting in lines like I saw at the F&W in 2019. In your opinion is this a good or bad idea? Thanks for the input!

 

[lockets]

I canx my ADR at Epcot and did this. It was fine! Not all have lines and when they do - the lines go fast. It’s fun to walk around the park and casually pick what to eat from the booths.

 

[Her Dotness]

Great idea!

The lines do move pretty speedily, and the foods are fab.

 

[MICKIMINI]

We ate at Chef's a couple months ago. Service and atmosphere was surprisingly bad and the steaks we had were tough (filet). I'd skip it!

 

[Heffalump12]

Thanks so much for the replies! You all have helped me in my decision. I’m going in early April during the F&G festival on an EE night so hopefully I don’t shoot myself in the foot.

 

[lockets]

Have fun! Keep in mind the booths don't stay open during EE. Others can chime in on this if I'm wrong? I just read this in another thread. Don't have direct experence as I never did EE there.

 

[Her Dotness]

We ate at Chef's a couple months ago. Service and atmosphere was surprisingly bad and the steaks we had were tough (filet). I'd skip it!

We were there in November and were horribly disappointed.

Both of us had badly cooked food but were so hungry we ate what we could rather than sending it back. DH's steak was rare when he'd ordered medium and a bad cut besides. Servers seemed to have too many tables and to be struggling to give decent much less good service.

Chefs has long been a must-do, many wonderful meals there. Sometimes, we did both lunch and dinner in one stay. It'll be a while before we try it again, like losing a good friend.

 

[Heffalump12]

Sorry to hear about the bad experiences. It seems the negative or meh reviews I’ve read miss the authentic french servers as well as the good food. At least Les Halles and the Fleur De Lis booth look good. I would hate to waste time or money on an unpleasant experience. It’s unfortunate because so many people used to speak so highly about CDF.

 

[miamimama]

The festival food booths have never stayed open for any extended evening hours or the previous extra magic hours in my experience. We loved chef’s for the atmosphere but haven’t been since 2019.

 

[Heffalump12]

Thanks for the info! I only mentioned us going on an EE day to help describe the crowd level on my Epcot day. I have no plans on looking for food during EE time.

 

[CynBeth]

We ate at Chefs during Thanksgiving week and it was as wonderful as it always had been I would keep the ADR.

 

[Beer Me]

Nothing to share from experience but we are headed to festival of the arts next weekend. It’s our first time for any epcot festival but we purposely did not make dining reservations so that we are free to (over)indulge on the festival offerings.
If we decide we need a meal there are a few good quick service in World showcase or try our luck with walk up.

 

[Heffalump12]

Yeah there are a lot of recent good reviews on the food at Chefs but I have to agree I want to spend as much time as possible soaking up the beauty of the F&G fest. I’ve also been reading that I’ll need to get to a good spot early to see the projections at Harmonious. I don’t want to sacrifice most of the evening for an ADR and staying in one spot to view the show. Thanks so much for everyone’s input!

 

[Disturbia]

The France booth was really good during Food & Wine. The lines in the morning were about 15-20 mins (there are 2 queue sides in the inner circle) but once park hopping started, the line got real long (40 mins) and spilled into the walkway. I would wait 30 mins for that one again. Try to eat before 2 pm or an early dinner. The other long lines are usually in the China and Italy area. We usually split up and have rider switch for Test Track so the person with the stroller can go grab food nearby (and put it on the stroller cover for transport).

In Nov our Space220 meal took 2.5 hrs and we missed the fireworks (check in day). Our flight was changed to a later time one day before so we arrived late and could only do our 2 LLIA$ rides (we did go to the Canada/UK area booths) after Remy. If you have 2 hours+ in between dining and fireworks then you should be ok doing a sit down (notify server that you want to see the fireworks) and I would keep the ADR. At BOG our server gladly packed our sons dessert to go as they sat us 40 mins after reservations (be careful with reservations around 6pm).

For our upcoming trip we chose to not book any dining on check in day and will probably cancel dining on check out day as we only have 3 hours in the park due to flight changes (originally 6).