msk, you are going to have a blast! My sister, sister-in-law, niece (of legal drinking age) and I went for our first F&W trip last November, and it was awesome. Here are my recommendations based on our experience:
- Try to avoid the weekends, or if you can't, hit up the F&W booths early in the day. It gets crazy in the evenings.
- We put money on a gift card wristband and it saved so much time - no digging for money, no "whose Magic Band are we using for this one" discussions... We all put money on the card and used it solely for the food booths. It worked out great.
- Get the little passport book so you can mark off what you tried and any wine or beer you really liked; I've looked at mine several times at home and bought the stuff we liked for home consumption.
- Pace yourselves on both the drinks and the food - it's a lot, so I recommend getting park hoppers so you can visit several times. We split it up in three visits but we probably could have even done 4.
- We skipped booths each visit (i.e. went to every third booth around the World Showcase), which helped us pace ourselves and not get to full or too tipsy too quickly.
- We split everything we tried four ways, except for the Kahlua Pork Slider and a couple of the desserts that we split two ways. The portions are small, but not as small as you would think! If you want to taste lots of different things, this is the best thing to do - it gives everyone a taste and you save money if you don't really like something (although we liked pretty much everything!). If someone really likes something, they can always go back and get their very own. You could also split just between couples if splitting 4 ways bothers anyone.
- Beer and cider flights come with four different tastings, so they are great to split four ways, and it's cheaper than buying four separate tastings.
- Have two people look for a table or place to sit/stand and two people go to the booths to get the food and drinks. We put one person in line to order while the other grabbed utensils and napkins, and then met up at the booth again to grab the food and drinks.
- The craft beer building is a nice spot to get out of the sun for a while, and there are bathrooms there, too.
- Unless you really love the "Eat to the Beat" band, don't bother with preferred seating or anything like that... you can hear just fine outside of the theater near the booths.
- Another nice place to cool off is the Festival Center, and they have food and drinks there. When we wanted to purchase wine to take back to the room and some souvenir merchandise, we went there at the very end of the evening on our way back to the buses, and then we didn't have to carry anything around with us.
- If you have a Chase Visa card (doesn't have to be Disney), go upstairs to the Chase lounge in the American Adventure Pavilion. They have nice bathrooms, wine and beer for purchase, free Coke Freestyle machines, and charging stations for your phones, plus some other stuff. It's another nice place to get out of the crowd for a bit.
Let me know if you have specific questions; I'll check back on the boards! Have a wonderful time!
