Food & Wine Festival Question

[jdpip]

We have reservations for dinner during that time, but do we really need them? I don't know much about the festival, but from what I'm reading you can sample many different items. If that's the case, we wouldn't be hungry for the dinner.

Thanks!

[EpcotFan182]

You can easily eat a lot going around the countries and partaking in the tastings each booth has to offer - last year they had 31 booths so there's a lot to choose from. When I went during FWF last year we mainly sampled the booths during the day so we kept our dinner reservations.

You probably won't need dinner reservations if you're planning on visiting the festival around dinner time. Each tasting costs ~$5-6 so it's not too expensive.

[Ms. Mode]

We have been twice and both times 3 or 4 "samples" and I'm done. No ADR necessary!

[pox24]

We have been going each year for the last 6. Our experience after deciding to make it a dinner around the world trek on our first visit was to make it lunch instead. The dinner crowds are enormous and the alcohol consumption makes for some interesting moments. Don't get me wrong, we love a good time, but a late lunch around the world was perfect for us.

[NJGIRL]

I find lines at most booths to be very long. Portions are small but expensive for the size. You pretty much have to eat while walking.

These are all reason we don't make a meal out of the booths...only a light snack.

If you visit 4 or 5 booths and make this your meal I have found that you pretty much spend the same amount of time eating you would at a restaurant (because of the wait time in line), spend about the same amount you would in a restaurant (because of the portion sizes), and don't get to relax like you would at a TS restaurant (because there is no where to sit).

I know a lot of people make the booths their meal but I just don't find it as enjoyable. We do light snacks in order to sample one or two countries each visit.

[VWL Mom]

I know a lot of people make the booths their meal but I just don't find it as enjoyable. We do light snacks in order to sample one or two countries each visit.

[Hammer]

We substitute Food and Wine sampling for 2-3 lunches during our trip, but remember, the primary focus of the trip is the Food and Wine festival for my sister and I. We start soon after World Showcase opens and stop for the day around 2:30-3:00. We make late dinner ADRs (8:00-8:30) on these days.

The way we solve the seating problem is we find a bench and one of us takes a seat. We see which booths are near said bench and the other goes to the nearby booths and gets the food samples which interest us. Then we sit at the bench and share the samples between the 2 of us. We look at the next set of kiosks we want to try and find the next bench central to that location. If we are fortunate enough to grab a table in the seating area set up by the Belgium kiosk, that works out really well.

[EeyoresBestFriend]

We enjoy the sampling as well. We found the restaurants were pretty quiet and we didn't need ressies to get in. That also freed up some spontaneous dinner places and times which was quite nice.

Just something to note though, later in the day we find there to be an abundance of loud, drunk people around. As we are not hard core partying type vacation people, we have taken to staying away from Epcot, late day and evening, during this time frame. We find it quite ruins the atmosphere for us. If I wanted to vacation with partying idiots, I'd go to Vegas or Mexico.

[NJGIRL]

Just something to note though, later in the day we find there to be an abundance of loud, drunk people around. As we are not hard core partying type vacation people, we have taken to staying away from Epcot, late day and evening, during this time frame. We find it quite ruins the atmosphere for us. If I wanted to vacation with partying idiots, I'd go to Vegas or Mexico.

We went to the first Food & Wine and have only missed a handful in between then and now. We loved F&W, not only for the food but also for the entertainment, but saw a shift in 2010. So many drunk and loud people. So many rude "drinking groups". We went back in 2011 and 2012 and experienced the same problems. I watched drunk people throwing up in the flowers beds and Disney security doing nothing. We like to enjoy a drink here and there but I can't tolerate what they are allowing anymore. We have been going to Disney in October for almost 20 years but decided that October is now off of the table. I want to avoid the event all together. I know that Disney is making a tremendous amount of money selling alcohol during this event, but I think it has gotten totally out of hand.

[jdpip]

Thanks so much for all the replies. I think we'll keep our ressies at Tokyo Dining, especially since we have the meal plan!

[mrte62]

Just something to note though, later in the day we find there to be an abundance of loud, drunk people around. As we are not hard core partying type vacation people, we have taken to staying away from Epcot, late day and evening, during this time frame. We find it quite ruins the atmosphere for us. If I wanted to vacation with partying idiots, I'd go to Vegas or Mexico.

We have gone three out of the last fours years and have seen quite a change in behavior, especially on Friday and Saturday evenings. Crowds, pushy people and high alcohol consumption.

That being said, we found Monday through Thursday to be quite enjoyable although prices for the special dinning events are getting a bit steep.