EPCOT Food and Wine Festival Strategy & Thoughts - PREP315

The WDW Prep School Team attended EPCOT’s 2022 International Food and Wine Festival, where we ate and drank every available item, and participated in Remy’s Ratatouille Hide & Squeak, and Emile’s Fromage Montage. After compiling all of our data and experiences, I’m here to share our thoughts on the festival.

There is much more info included in the audio, so be sure to listen to the episode for a better explanation.

In this article

Planning Ahead

A lot of people who attend Food and Wine Festival do not plan much, they just attend and get what they want. However, the quality, price, and portions can vary so dramatically that a little bit of planning can really help your experience.

Choosing Food Booths

Research what you want to eat. Beware of things that look great on instagram. Choose items that actually taste good!
You can use the app WDW Food and Wine. In this app you can mark the items you might want to eat and it will plot them on a map.

Choosing other activities

Plan what you might want to do outside of the booths! There aren’t as many activities as there used to be, but there are still lots of things to do like 2022 Remy’s Ratatouille Hide & Squeak Scavenger Hunt. This scavenger hunt comes with stickers and a map and costs $9.99. When you complete the scavenger hunt, you can redeem it for a prize.

If you happen to be traveling September 29-October 31 you can also play Pluto’s Pumpkin Pursuit, which is a similar scavenger hunt. This is a new opportunity this year.

A Meals Fromage Montage this is included in the Food and Wine Festival Passport in the back. You can have it stamped at various locations and redeem that for a prize.

Eat to the Beat Concert Series at 5:30 p.m., 6:45 p.m., and 8 p.m. This can be a lot of fun and are typically bands that used to be popular and are still touring.

There are a lot of different options and dining package. You can book dining packages before your trip. These are available Friday through Monday. There are also same-day that you can get by walking up that day at Regal Eagle and Spice Road Table.

Dining packages aren’t necessarily needed but can be helpful if it is a more popular performance.

There is also special festival merchandise that you can purchase at Food and Wine Festival. There is festival logo merchandise, Chef Mickey and Minnie Collection, Princess Tiana Collection, Chef Figment, and special Remy merchandise for Annual Passholders.

Spaceship Earth also has a special light presentation just for Food and Wine Festival. It is a very pretty presentation. For Food and Wine Festival the light show is Beauty and the Beast themed.

How to pay for items on your trip

Of course you can use cash or a debit or credit card to pay for purchases. However, a lot of people like to use different forms of payment. You can do this for budgetary reasons and convenience.

The most popular way to do this is a wrist gift card. You can purchase these at the festival, wear them on your wrist, and use the gift card to pay for purchased. This is convenient because you do not need to worry about pulling out your wallet with each purchase.

Shannon and team prefer to purchase an e-gift card prior to the trip. When you purchase an e-gift card you can add them to your Apple Wallet. You can also charge purchases to your room if you are staying onsite.

However, there are a couple of booths that sometimes has issues with digital payments or room charges. Those are the Funnel Cake Stand and the France booth. They do accept these payments but often have issues. You will need a backup just in case.

When should you plan to go to Food and Wine Festival?

This festival is very popular for locals at night and weekends. If you do not want to deal with rowdiness or crowds, you should focus your time during the week.

There are pros and cons to whenever you go because of crowds and weather. If you could pick anytime during your trip, a weekday evening is wonderful because it is cooler temperatures but lower crowds.

If you happen to go when it is hot, be sure to drink a lot of water. You can also use the Odessey Building for air conditioning and tables. Connections Eatery or Regal Eagle are also a good place to stop. You can get drinks at Regal Eagle and enjoy booth food with air conditioning. The fountain drinks are refillable as well, which is wonderful.

Tangerine Café has interior seating and exterior covered seating with lots of great booths nearby. The Canada Far and Wide theatre also has air conditioning and space for eating. Just outside the theatre there are tables as well.

There is a two-drink per person maximum when ordering from booths. If you are ordering for multiple people or want more than two drinks, remember to bring someone with you.

What supplies should you plan to bring?

We love bringing fans to keep cool. Plan to bring some kind of fan with you. The best kind is a personal fan that can also go on the table while you eat. We even brought a table-top fan with us this time!

We also brought body wipes. They were very large and minty which was very refreshing! Likewise, we had gel packs to help us keep cool. Anything that helps cool off!

We found that trays were too cumbersome because they cannot collapse. We use cardboard boxes to help carry items and then we put them back in our bags.

You might also consider bringing utensils, napkins, straws, etc. with you so that you do not need to worry about that while you are getting food at the booths.

Planning Food and Wine into a Disney World Trip

Avoid the crowds by going to Food and Wine Festival on a weeknight. It will be cooler and less crowded. If you are staying at a Boardwalk hotel or resort with skyliner access, it’s very convenient to enter the International Gateway.

You can visit another park during the day and hop to Epcot if you have park hopper tickets for the evening. This is great to catch a concert, have cooler temperatures, and enjoy the festival.

Quick Tip

Maria called in to encourage everyone to put an air tag in each of your pieces of luggage. This will help bring you peace of mind because you will know where your luggage is at all times.

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