When to attend food and wine

[GWhitten98]

I am trying to plan a surprise trip for DH and Myself to attend this years Food and Wine Event at Epcot. It will be a short 2 or 3 day trip (with a travel day on each end). We are pretty open on dates, as long as we stay in Sept/Oct. We were thinking if we got park hopper we could hit a park and do the highlights for a few hours in the morning and then hit F&W from 2pm till a dinner reservation at 6 or 7.

So now on to my questions...

Is there a reason to be at WS from the time it opens?
How many days would you suggest spending?
Is there particular times that are better/worse then others?
If we plan the trip for weekdays only, will there be things we are missing out on?

 

[MakiraMarlena]

1. yes. the lines at the booths are much shorter then.
2. I could not tell you. It is up to you how many days you want to spend.
3. Monday-Thursday. Avoid Fridays after about 2 PM, these are a good day to use a park hopper. Avoid Saturdays entirely unless you are good with dropping in for an hour or two right when they open. Sundays, not as crowded as the other weekend days but weekdays will be better.
4. Only thing I can think of is that the demos by celebrity chefs are usually weekends. And of course weekends are more crowded.

 

[GWhitten98]

Thank you the information. This would be an adult only trip, hence the short time period. I am definitely leaning toward the majority of our trip being Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Is there any real difference between how early date wise you go and how busy it is?

On a more budget related question, how much do most people budget cost wise for food during food and wine? If we get one or two things to split from each both over a 2 or 3 day period for example?

 

[MakiraMarlena]

makes no real difference what week you go with a couple of exceptions. Columbus Day is a holiday weekend and might be more crowded. I'd avoid the half marathon weekend (November 6-8). Saturdays will be slammed no matter what week you pick.

I don't budget, I just order what I want. Sharing is a good way to get to taste more items. The samples are not big if you are planning to fill up on them. You will not get to taste every item from every booth in 2 days. And you may want to rethink those TS dinners. Remember you can't just decide that you won't show up for a restaurant reservation without paying a penalty anymore.

 

[elgerber]

My one comment would be, I could never eat a full dinner after spending a few hours at F&W. When we go for F&W that is our dinner. And we are stuffed and can't sample it all, even over a couple of days.

 

[cgattis]

I don't think you'll want dinner if you start eating around the booths at 2...? I would recommend starting around the booths at 11--then maybe a very late sit down dinner, if you really want that. We actually don't do sit down during F&W--just the booths. Maybe go one evening just to re-do faves or hit anything you missed. You can figure $5-7 per item, so it can really add up. Using a gift card or MagicBand is much quicker than cash. And my personal thought--if you realllly love something, have another one right then! You may never make it back around.

 

[cgattis]

Looks like three of us posted in tandem . Guess you really got input on that sit-down LOL

 

[PSUGuy]

First, we hit a park at rope drop then hop to WS every day, F&W or not. As for F&W, we get to WS a little after noon and it works for us. Of course when we do FW at rope drop we tend to wander to WS as soon as it opens. Avoid WS on Sat unless you like feeling like a sardine, as mentioned weekdays are the best. Be sure to check out the concert series, 3 performances every evening. We tend not to do tables service meals as we 'Graze Around the World', we'll hit Raglan Road on Sat because we won't be doing WS that day and one ADR for Cape May and that's it. They have gift cards on a bracelet, small credit card-like things. You pre-load one with cash or credit card $$ then when you make a purchase at a food kiosk you just swipe it and go. Your receipt tells you how much is left on the card every time you use it. You can use this card for all other WDW purchases as well and it never expires. I've got a few bucks on mine from last Oct and I'll just add to that when we go. If you pay cash for your F&W samples you'll soon have a few pounds of change on you or else you'll lose time counting out pennies at the booths.

BillFromPA

 

[palavra]

1. yes. the lines at the booths are much shorter then.
2. I could not tell you. It is up to you how many days you want to spend.
3. Monday-Thursday. Avoid Fridays after about 2 PM, these are a good day to use a park hopper. Avoid Saturdays entirely unless you are good with dropping in for an hour or two right when they open. Sundays, not as crowded as the other weekend days but weekdays will be better.
4. Only thing I can think of is that the demos by celebrity chefs are usually weekends. And of course weekends are more crowded.

I agree with all of the above. My husband works for WDW, and this year we went to F&W on three different occasions. Earlier is better all around. September is usually a little less crowded than October, and November is very busy because F&W is ending.

 

[emilymad]

We like to go late afternoon/early evening. We tend to go in September and the sun and the heat can be a little much with all the food for us. We also like having a little bit of a line at each booth. We feel the food is fresher and it spaces the food out a better. On our first time around we split almost everything. We found that 2 nights let us try everything and a 3rd night we redid all our favorites. This is definitely a dinner replacement for us. Even when it is crowded it is really fun.

 

[ktlm]

F&W gets far more crowded in the late afternoon and evenings. We find that the best thing for us is to go over to WS when it opens and hit F&W for snacks and lunch from that point until mid-afternoon. We do make a dinner reservation for around 7:00, so then we spend the time when F&W is crowded and congested enjoying ourselves inside a restaurant. If you don't start eating at food and wine until 2:00, you probably are not going to want dinner. There are a lot of foods to try. We have also done dinner at 6:00 or so, and then moved over to Future World for the end of the evening to enjoy the shorter lines for rides while everyone is over in WS at F&W, and that worked out nicely. Here are the menus from last year to give you an idea:

http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2014-...val-marketplace-booths-menus-and-food-photos/

As 2 adults, you might want to check out some of the seminars and events too which may determine whether you want to set dinner ADRs and if so when. We have always had our DD with us, so we have not done any of them. Here are some lists of events and seminars from last year to give you an idea of what is offered and the schedules:


http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2014-...-costfree-events-seminars-and-demonstrations/

http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2014-epcot-food-and-wine-festival-culinary-demos/

http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2014-epcot-food-and-wine-festival-beverage-seminars/

http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2014-epcot-food-and-wine-festival-mixology-seminars/

http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2014-epcot-food-and-wine-festival-special-events/

 

[GWhitten98]

Wow thanks for the great information. When do dates and info this years event start coming out?