Illuminations Dessert Party on a Sat. during F&W ?

[Luckybee]

Dh and I don't like crowds. That said our first few nights are at the Dolphin which is walking distance from Epcot and we've never seen Illuminations. In the following 2 weeeks once we're at our Marriott timeshare we'll have plenty of time to do the food booths on week nights. We have more days on our tickets than we need and they're hoppers (we used airline points for our tickets).
On our first Sat. we're planning HS for rope drop, pool for the afternoon, and we've booked Via Napoli for 7 pm followed by the dessert party at 8:45pm. If we do anything else it would only be perhaps Maelstorm if we can fp it. (really only 3 rides we want to do at Epcot in total.)
If we just come over to the park for dinner and the party would the crowds still drive us buggy ? I'm assuming that we wouldnt have much of a wait anywhere since we wont do the booths that night, is my assumption correct ? We'd have a reserved area to watch illuminations . Did I say we hate crowds and lines
What do you think ?

 

[Msmithmd]

Weekends during food and wine are incredibly busy at Epcot. Don't go to that park on the weekend if you don't want to be a part of a huge crowd.

That said, by all means visit Epcot. Just avoid Fri-Sun during food and wine if at all possible.

 

[ChadsGirl]

Do not go to Epcot on a Saturday night during F&W if you hate crowds. Particularly crowds full of partying people. Even if you won't be going to the booths. We popped in one Saturday in the early afternoon and it was already a mob scene. We turned right around and left.

If you have other opportunities to go to Epcot during the week, go then and pick something else for Saturday night.

 

[Redwitch]

You will need to walk around and through the crowds to get from the "back" entrance to VN for dinner and then work your way through them again to get to the dessert party. Certain areas seem to bottle neck. My advice is hold hands and snake our way through the crowds. Even without standing in lines, you will have to be in and deal with a crowd on a Saturday night. Do a search on Epcot Food and Wine Crowds and look at the images.
If you decide to brave the crowds, you might consider an earlier dinner. If VN is running behind schedule, you'll be cutting it close to finish dinner and get to the dessert party.

 

[Hopefully]

As the others have said, DO NOT go to Epcot on a Saturday night during F & W if you do not like rowdy crowds. You will be shoulder to shoulder getting to Italy.
I also do not think a 7 PM Via Napoli will allow you time for your Illuminations dessert party. It is likely to be backed up. I waited 45 minutes at Biergarden just to get to the podium to check in on a Saturday during F & W a few years ago.

 

[Luckybee]

We're going to try to make this work. Obviously Im not getting the timing thing though. If dinner is at 7 and we're just doing pizza and a salad that cant take us more than an hour or so can it ? And we've allowed 1:45 between the two.
Are you thinking that Illuminations is at 9:00pm ? Illuminations doesnt start until 10:00 pm that night. The dessert party only begins at 8:45 pm. Even if we didnt get there until 9 or 9:30 we'd still be ok . Given that do you still think the dinner res time is still an issue? We really wanted to do VN and I just looked and the only time available earlier is 5:45 pm which is pretty early for us.

If you guys think that we shld take the 5:45 we'll do it, but keep in mind we dont mind getting to the dessert party late (dh is diabetic and I wont do many desserts in any event ). I just liked the idea of a more private area to watch Ill.

Thanks all, the info is really helpful.