Food and Wine Festival. Is it all that?

[gjdjud]

So next year will be our first time going in August so it means we will be there for the Food and Wine Festival. We are normally there for the Flower and Garden. We sometimes get a couple of things from the booths but not much. We tend to have a t/s meal instead. Would you recommend forgetting the table service and just doing the food booths? If so what recommendations, assuming they are roughly the same items? Some of it looks great, some of it looks overpriced!

Ps is it still avoid at the weekends?

[DisneyDaffodil]

We really enjoyed our evening eating from the food and wine booths in 2018 but we had the free dining plan so used snack credits. It was great fun and we shared each snack between the two of us and still felt very full at the end of the evening

However, I don’t think I would pay out of pocket for eating at the booths. Each snack is around $6-9, we stopped at 5-6 booths and had 2-3 snacks/drinks at each. That’s close to $100-150 for the evening for snacks and drinks which is very expensive for what you get. It’s fun, and if you’ve never done it then you may feel it’s worth it, but we would only do it again with free dining

The queues for the booths were also quite long, this was an October midweek evening. However, we returned on a Saturday for a ts meal at Chefs de France and failed to stay in Epcot after our meal as it was so crowded and there were huge groups of people drinking and spilling drinks everywhere, not a pleasant experience at all. So I would avoid weekends if you do want to eat at the booths, or in Epcot at all

[DisneyDaffodil]

Also to answer your what to try question, our favourite was the cheddar soup and pretzel roll from Canada

[loldis]

I was last there during F&G as well which I love for the scenery but not that bothered by the booths. My next trip is during FotH and I plan to eat at Regal Eagle instead of the booths. F&W doesn't appeal at all. This isn't much help.

But yes, I would still avoid on weekends where you can - especially the evenings.

[sully301]

Yes, we love it. We like having little tastes of things.

[Claudette]

I didn’t think we would be that bothered and had booked a TS for our Epcot day when we were there for the festival. Anyway when we got there we got caught up in it and decided to cancel the reservation and do booths instead. It was nice to do and we would do again, we enjoyed Germany and Italy the best.

[Gill H]

It is all way overpriced and tiny portions so you just have to put your Disney goggles on! But so great.

Last time we maxed out our snack credits, which of course isn’t an option currently. But we also had a wristband with a Disney gift card on as part of a special F&W package. That helped lessen the sting too! But not running currently either.

We spent an entire day sharing one dish from each booth. But because we had booked the special package, we were able to sit in reserved areas and order from 4 booths, and the CM brought our food. So relaxing and worth every penny, shame they don’t offer this any more.

[sha9]

It’s great when you have free dining but we would tend to do it instead of lunch. I wouldn’t do it more than one or two days in place of a meal.

[Mexy02]

It’s pretty overpriced and the weekends are full of stags , hens and large groups . How they afford to Get drunk is beyond me at $15 a pop . We think The portions seem to get smaller each visit as well.

[Mazascouser]

DD and myself love it. DD is now 21 and was looking forward to drinking around the world ( well some of it). We don’t hit every booth but get the F & W booklet on the way in and pick our favourites. We go before 6 pm when it’s not too busy and head out at about 9pm mid week.
It is wise not to do the weekends as there is some antisocial behaviour from the drinkers.