No Louisiana at FW Festival??!!??

[TinkerbellinLouisian]

Wouldn't the participants in the FW Festival have been decided a year plus ago?

I agree with PP's.... this is NOT some "Newsworthy" thing to tie to the Coastal Crises....

DH and I have eaten Louisiana Oysters, Crawfish and Shrimp ... ETC.... since the Crises... and had NO problems with Freshness...

There are PLENTY of Fresh Louisiana Seafood Options out there... I'm sure the "lack of" Louisiana Participation had NO connection.

Have a fun time !
Mary

 

[BriarRosie]

I would suggest editing this to remove "collective" and replace it with "alleged".

No, "collective" is the appropriate word. Disney is like the Borg. Resistance is futile.

 

[Planogirl]

I would suggest editing this to remove "collective" and replace it with "alleged".

I think that they are missing a major food group if there's no Louisiana booth. I adore that type of food!

 

[Donut23]

The special booths are dependent upon someone being willing to pay for sponsoring them. I attended a special event in May where they told us that the representative from the Puglia Region of Italy would be in attendance again this year yet there is no mention of it in the guidebook. They had a special area set up for their food demos in past years. Personally I miss the Australia Walk-about set up more than the Louisiana one. They also had a special Booth for Spain a few years back that I didn't really get a chance to visit. I think a lot of former and/or prospective sponsors are very hesitant to commit to a 6 week sponsorship in today's economy. I'm hoping that there will be some unannounced surprises for this years festival but I'm not counting on it. The special exhibits appear to be totally nonexistent this year. In past years they had special exhibitions that didn't run for the entire festival but would only be there for a week or two.

The "perks" to participate in F&W were changed last year.

You are absolutely right. It can be a very big commitment to attend for that long and Disney tried in the past to offset this by offering incentives for their families, for example. These were not offered last year.

A couple of our favorites, and after a few years friends, commented it would be there last year participating.

 

[Disneyfriend]

Well, I definitely noticed . . . I commented on it a few days ago on the post discussing which booths everybody is most looking forward to.

I am crushed. DH will be even more crushed, since he is a native Louisiana man.

That crawfish etouffee was our most memorable F&W taste from our 2008 trip, and we had maybe 5 different meals "eating around the world" that fall. I am very disappointed.

 

[~tinkerbell~]

Do you suppose it does any good to write or comment to Disney about it? For next year? I wrote a couple of times about the big Mickey wand on the Epcot geosphere and it went away...

 

[redzinner]

Do you suppose it does any good to write or comment to Disney about it? For next year? I wrote a couple of times about the big Mickey wand on the Epcot geosphere and it went away...

Any good? It won't hurt, that's for sure. You might get a real answer. I wouldn't assume in your letter that Disney is the bad guy here, as others have mentioned. Try writing the Louisiana Tourism Board to see if they pulled out because they didn't want to ante up the hefty kiosk fee of $15K.

 

[oybolshoi]

Any good? It won't hurt, that's for sure. You might get a real answer. I wouldn't assume in your letter that Disney is the bad guy here, as others have mentioned. Try writing the Louisiana Tourism Board to see if they pulled out because they didn't want to ante up the hefty kiosk fee of $15K.

Exactly. The point I tried to make earlier is that in this economy any state taking funds from its allocated tourism budget and then handing it over to the Walt Disney Company in the hopes that it drums up some tourists would not play well.

I get that people are upset by something not being offered at the F&W Festival as opposed to other years (I still miss that ham & cheese crepe from France they were selling in 2004) but honestly, there will be more than one hundred other food items to choose from - is it really that big of a deal?