How to visit Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival without regret

There are two kinds of regret common to the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival: There’s the longing for that one microbrew or African bobotie you didn’t get to taste; and there’s that hazy feeling that maybe you shouldn’t have had that last flight of beers or cup of Canadian cheddar cheese soup.

© Steven Liebman

But regret — and extra pounds — shouldn’t be among the souvenirs you bring home from your trip to Disney World. We have a few tips for taking in the Food & Wine Festival without either missing anything crucial or over-indulging along the way:

1. Plan ahead

These days a trip to Disney World can have the air of a military operation: Make your dining reservations six months in advance, plan which park you want to visit and line up your FastPasses two months in advance. Spreadsheet optional.

Without putting too much additional stress on your family’s primary vacation planner, it really is helpful to think ahead about exactly what you want to get out of your time at the Food & Wine Festival.

If you’re primarily in it for the food and drinks, you can find complete menus online, including at the fabulous Disney Food Blog. You’ll also get a map and a Marketplace Discovery Passport when you get to the park, which will help you plan your attack. You don’t have to do this in advance; you can look at the map when you get to the park and figure out what booths you won’t want to miss.

In addition to menus, think about whether you want to take in any of the seminars available. Disney offers a lot of information online. Here are some shortcuts to some of the more important schedules:

• Beverage seminars (primarily wine, but some beer and spirits) 
• Mixology seminars (think gin and vodka)
• Culinary demonstrations
• Eat to the Beat concert series lineup (scroll down for a chronological list of performers)

2. Don’t bother with dining reservations

Sure, you might want to plan for a character breakfast or a special dinner at the California Grill, but in general, if you plan to nosh your way around the world you won’t need a sit-down dinner at the end of the day.

If you’re on a dining plan, you’ll find that most of the small plates at the festival are available for one snack credit. We wouldn’t recommend the dining plan if you’re going for the Food & Wine Festival, but a lot of people swear by it.

One caveat: The last time we spent a week at Food & Wine, by the end of the week I was dying to sit down somewhere, inside, and eat a leisurely meal without having to wait in line for it or juggle my plate and drink. So if you do want to make a few reservations, consider doing it toward the end of the week.

3. Don’t try to do it all in one day

If you have the time, consider spending a few hours a day over several days at Epcot. That way, you won’t feel the need to try everything at once — a feat which seems physically impossible. Instead, you can cobble together lunch one day and dinner the next from the variety of food booths.

And if big crowds aren’t your thing, this plan of attack will let you visit the festival at lunchtime, missing the dinner-time rush (and it really can be an unbearable rush).

4. Share

Naturally you’ll want to try a bit of everything, so your best strategy may be to split everything with a friend. We’ve tried this tack, but often end up going back for more of one thing or another.

5. Stick to a budget

This is probably the most difficult thing to do, especially now that you can just flash your magic band to get one more Kahlua pork slider — and choke down the bill later. One way to force yourself to stick to a budget is to buy a festival gift card and use that — and only that — to pay for your food and drinks. Once it’s gone, that’s it.