Food & Wine Weekend Selection Help!

[kimmyg26]

Hi All:

I've been lurking for quite awhile but this is my first post! My BF and I are Disney regulars but we have never gone for the Food & Wine Festival. We are traveling with another couple and at least part of our visit will have to be during the weekend. I have read many posts about how horrible weekends are during F &W. I need some suggestions as to what weekends may be better than others.

Here are the weekends we are debating on:
Sept 22-25
Sept 29-Oct 2
Oct 20-23
Nov 3-6 ( I believe there is a marathon that weekend but Christmas decorations are out)

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[loves to dive]

I don't think any weekend is going to be better than another, most advise if you are going on a weekend to go early when it opens and clear out around 3 or so. I was there on a Friday last year and will admit around 8 pm it started getting a little packed and on Saturday, which was my day to leave, I left around 1:30 and it was more crowded than on a week day but certainly not unmanageable.

 

[PSUGuy]

In 2014 a CM on the monorail told us that the final F&W weekend was horrendous, we told him we were coming in Oct/Nov of '15. Other than that as the previous poster said the weekend will be uniformly busy. We'll hit WS on a Fri afternoon, crowds will build and we bail if they get crazy, we stay at BW. Sat., in our experience, is crazy from 11 am on. We stopped in at that time on a Sat in 2013, grabbed a Fisherman's Pie and Guinness and people watched from the R&C patio. We were glad to leave before noon. Since then we make Sat our downtime day. We hit a non-Epcot park at RD then back to the pool by 1pm, Raglan Road in the PM.

Bill From PA

 

[rwdavis2]

Don't go the last weekend they offer it. Did it in 2012 and Epcot was packed.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

Avoid the marathon.

The last weekend this year is November 11-14. I would not hesitate to do that weekend. As it turns out I'm going on the marathon weekend but that's the weekend I could go.

Saturdays will be mobbed no matter which weekend you choose. If the Saturday turns out to have perfect weather it will be even more mobbed.

 

[kimmyg26]

Marathon weekend would be my first choice but I'm not sure I can handle all of the extra folks.

 

[kimmyg26]

Our game plan would be to be at F & W early on those days. I want to do the other parks while we are there so I would plan to be out of EPCOT by around 3pm each day.

Thank you all for your help!

 

[BeerMe]

We come for several weeks of F&W every two years. We were there for four weeks in 2013. This year we are coming back for 7 weeks 9/16 through 11/4. We were originally coming a week later but we changed it so we would not miss Starship. All condos are booked and paid for. Annual passes won't expire until December. I'm really looking forward to this. It helps that we are retired. We'll spend some time at Universal too.

 

[disneyfan0031]

We've been going every year at the last week of September which looks like it would be the Sep 29-Oct 2. It tends to be busy sometimes but it will always be different each year but in general, the last week of September tends to be a more quiet time. Those dates happen to be the dates we are going too!

 

[elgerber]

Based off of my several F&W trips in years past, I think I would probably try late September this time.

 

[kimmyg26]

We come for several weeks of F&W every two years. We were there for four weeks in 2013. This year we are coming back for 7 weeks 9/16 through 11/4. We were originally coming a week later but we changed it so we would not miss Starship. All condos are booked and paid for. Annual passes won't expire until December. I'm really looking forward to this. It helps that we are retired. We'll spend some time at Universal too.

Wow! What an amazing amount of time of time to spend in the World! Our longest trip has been 11 days and we certainly could have stayed longer.