Disney: Epcot Food and Wine Festival

[Marti Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Marti]

Anyone going to Central Florida in October?

Epcot Food and Wine Festival

Epcot Walt Disney World Orlando
Sept 27, 2013 until Nov 11, 2013

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

If anyone does plan on going, find out when the British school holidays are and avoid that time. It gets a bit crowded.

[Luanne Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Luanne]

We'll be there at the end of October.

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

It gets a bit crowded.

Gets crowded on weekends with locals as well, especially the first and last I believe.

One of the big "crowd calendar" sites, the Unofficial Guide guys, gets grief just about every year because their crowd calendars are based on wait times, and wait times often go down when the Food and Wine festival is most slammed. People are there for the food, not the rides.

So people go to Epcot for their "lifetime Disney vacation," thinking the crowds will be light, and it's wall-to-wall people in World Showcase. Ouch.

[Luanne Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Luanne]

Gets crowded on weekends with locals as well, especially the first and last I believe.

One of the big "crowd calendar" sites, the Unofficial Guide guys, gets grief just about every year because their crowd calendars are based on wait times, and wait times often go down when the Food and Wine festival is most slammed. People are there for the food, not the rides.

So people go to Epcot for their "lifetime Disney vacation," thinking the crowds will be light, and it's wall-to-wall people in World Showcase. Ouch.

So would you suggest avoiding Epcot during this time?

[bnoble Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bnoble]

Dr. Noble and I went last year on a no-kids trip. We had a *great* time, sampled something from every booth, did a few specialty events, and just generally had a great time in Epcot and elsewhere in the parks. It helped that we were staying in the Beach Club Villas, so were "close to home" if we needed to duck out of Epcot, but we did not find it too horrendously crowded. We were there in late October into early November.

[GrayFal Silver Contributor and supermoderator Find all posts View Profile Close GrayFal]

I just .love Food and Wine. It is a great time to go.

[Nancy Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Nancy]

I've been twice during this time. First time, wasn't crowded at all. Last year, more crowded, but I've seen it worse.

Nancy

[Luanne Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Luanne]

I suppose I could look it up, but do you get into this with just the regular admission to Epcot?

We're going to be in Orlando for a few days and were talking about going to Epcot only, none of the other Disney parks. Is that a good idea?

[GrayFal Silver Contributor and supermoderator Find all posts View Profile Close GrayFal]

The food options are pay as you go. You wander from country to country and try different foods and wine. It is really a lot of fun. Prices for food probably range from $2.50 to $8-10.00. You can see the menus online so can decide what you want to try.

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

I suppose I could look it up, but do you get into this with just the regular admission to Epcot?

We're going to be in Orlando for a few days and were talking about going to Epcot only, none of the other Disney parks. Is that a good idea?

Sure, it should be a whole day park.

[ArtsieAng Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close ArtsieAng]

I really like the F&W Festival. I was there last year the last week in October, and it wasn't too crowded. We had great weather, and enjoyed sampling all the different foods & wine.

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

We're going to be in Orlando for a few days and were talking about going to Epcot only, none of the other Disney parks. Is that a good idea?

It depends on when you go and what you want to do there. The booths are set up all through the World Showcase, so if you mostly want to do rides in Future World, the Food and Wine Festival won't make much of a difference except maybe in terms of the rush after the fireworks show. The real issue is if you want to explore World Showcase -- there are food booths all over, which have an impact on traffic flow if there's any crowding at all. People who look forward to the usual quiet and slow pace of World Showcase often don't think the food makes up for that, but people who like summer fairs and things and often find World Showcase boring think it just adds to the appeal.

Weekends and (to a lesser extent) evenings are what people most complain about; some weekends are mobbed and some aren't, but aside from the first and last (which tend crowded), I don't know if there's much predictability to that from year to year, since a fair percentage of the crowds are local and it probably depends on weather trends as much as anything. A weekend after a couple of rainy or miserably hot weekends will be more crowded than one where the weather's been nice the last few, because when the weather's bad local people who'd planned on the last two may wait for the third. If you're going during the week I wouldn't think you'd have a problem; on a weekend it might or might not be an issue.

And I think a lot of people who get upset were just not prepared -- October and November are usually slow crowd times, so if someone expects a lovely emptyish park, they're more upset about the extra people than someone who just expects WDW to be kinda crowded. The overall crowds in WDW off season have gone up a lot in the past 5-10 years, so people who went in October before Food and Wine, or when Food and Wine just started, are also shocked at the difference. You've been forewarned, so if you're okay with festival-type crowds and aren't particularly looking for quiet times, I expect you'll be fine.