Food and Wine Festival

Hey UL! Food and Wine Festival takes place throughout Epcot. There is a "Festival Center" in the Wonders of Life pavilion in Future World that has some free attractions (cookbook author signings, a wine and merchandise store, a movie, etc.) as well as a few less expensive seminars and demonstrations that you should pre-book. AP holders and DVC members can pre-book these seminars on August 26th.

Over in World Showcase, you'll find the 27 marketplace booths. Each one represents a different country or region, and they have small portions of food for sale at around $2-$7 per item. It's fun to schedule a meal just "eating around" at the booths. These are free to wander around, and you always have the option to buy something. Each one has a cash register set-up and works like a mini counter-service location.

There are also free demonstrations set up throughout World Showcase. Just take a look at the timing boards to see when they're available.

The Special Events should be pre-booked, and these are expensive. They include signature dinners with celebrity chefs, wine tastings, tequila tastings, food and wine pairing dinners, culinary demonstrations, cheese seminars, and other stuff. Tickets for these go on sale on July 20th. These run from about $45 up to $450 per person.

Not sure if you've been following the Disney Food Blog's posts, but there's a Food and Wine Festival preview on that blog today that might be helpful:

http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2010/07/12/2010-epcot-food-and-wine-festival-preview/

This is the Disney Food Blog's official 2010 F&W Fest page with lots of details:

http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/about/2010-epcot-international-food-wine-festival/

Wow - when I'm a world famous novelist, I'm going to spend SO much money there.

Bali pretty much told you everything I could ever think of..but I will pipe in and say that it is just SO much fun! The F&W combined with the Halloween decorations going up around the world made that trip one of the best ever!

Have a great time!

I just read the 2010 Epcot Food and Wine Festival Preview on the Disney Food Blog and I have a question.

I noticed reservations are open July 20th and Seminars/Demos open Aug 26th.

What are the reservations for?

Reservations are for the events. They'll have wine tastings and other events that can only take a set number of people and usually have a fee (usually somewhere in the $5-$25 range if I recall correctly).

The July 20th reservations are for the expensive events: wine schools, cheese seminars, Party for the Senses, Signature Dining with celebrity chefs, etc. These run from $40 per person to $450 per person I think.

The August reservations are the ones Brad was talking about. They're for the less-expensive events that cost $8-$13. Usually culinary and wine demonstrations.

food and wine was amazing last year, we thoroughly enjoyed it

Robyn -- any suggestions or "best of" advice? Things you particularly enjoyed.

We didnt know about it until we got there last year (i had never been an internet kind of person dso hadnt rell looked around at what would be on) We jus took a leisurly walk around sampling all the different foods - I cant drink and hubby was the driver.

I always feel like the food is more impressive than the wine anyway.

I have a question about the World Showcase booths.

We were looking at the menu and couldn't believe how many things looked good! We were going to spend a day walking around and tasting everything but that looks like a TON of food. Can we do it in one day or is this a two day event?

Thanks!!

Depends on your taste(. If there are dozens of things you'd like to try, you're going to run out of room. For us, we were able to see and taste most everything we wanted in one afternoon. The cost (of the food and wine) can add up but it is so worth it.

I would schedule at least 2 meals of "eating around world showcase" if you have a lot of things you want to try. My average is about 5 appetizer-sized plates of food per meal, but I'm sure you can pack in more

Plus, as you wander, you can take in a lot of the fun additional free activities set up around the World showcase like the free beer seminars, ice cream demos, informational/educational food stuff, etc. It's definitely worth budgeting a couple of afternoons in World Showcase to see it.

I'm so glad you guys are thinking of adding the F&W Fest to your plans! It's SO much fun.

Truth be told - one of the reasons we set the wedding date the first week of November is so we could attend the wine and food festival on our honeymoon. lol.

We did it this on our honeymoon and it was wonderful!

We did it all in one day but we didn't do anything else that day! We woke up..went to the countries..ate..and got in the hot tub because we were worthless! Don't make any ADR's for that day either because you will not be hungry!

We also split a lot of things. We would typically get one thing from each country and split it. The portions aren't large so this usually means each person gets a few bites. If you were going to order more than one thing from every booth this might take you more than a day...my advice is just to start and then stop when you're stuffed! If you have more to go you can always pop by the booths again when you're back in Epcot.

Thanks Bella.

I know this is food suicide, but we will have ADRs at CA Grill that night. I love that place and cannot wait to go back.

We were thinking of hitting the park at 11am (we will be at Universal the night before so it will be easy to check in and go to Epcot in time) and taste our way through the wine and food festival. We will definitely split things.

Our ADRs will be for 9pm. Think it's doable?

Oh gosh..food suicide is right!

This is just totally my opinion but I think I would split it into two days for sure then. If you hit the parks around 11 and snack until 3 or so then I think you'll be plenty hungry for California Grill. It usually takes us a good chunk of the day (like 10-4) to snack around the world without the festival.

We didn't have a problem fitting everything in in one day, then had Teppan Edo that night. If you have time though, I don't think you could go wrong going twice.