Tips For Epcot International Food And Wine Festival

Updated for 2021!

I was so excited on our last trip to Disney that we were finally able to go to Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival. This yearly event first started in 1995 and has been growing ever since.

Basically Epcot is turned into a food lovers playground with food booths set up all over the World Showcase. Most booths offer 3-4 tasting portions of food, along with 3-4 drinks that complement the food.

What is Food and Wine Festival?

This year the Food and Wine Festival runs from July 15th through November 20th 2021

You don’t have to pay any extra on top of your theme park ticket, however you’ll have to pay for any food and drinks. Most of the booths are themed by country and are located in the World Showcase. A few booths are located throughout the park. There are also culinary demonstrations, talks by celebrity chefs, wine tastings, and so much more! The Disney website is a great place to explore all the options.

Eat To The Beat Concert Series

Eat To The Beat Concerts are now called America Gardens Bandstand

The concerts take place in the small amphitheatre in the American Adventure pavilion. Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday evenings local bands take the stage to play songs that you know and love. Get the schedule on the Disney Website

My Advice For First Timers At Food and Wine Festival

Since this was our first time at the Food and Wine Festival, I wanted to share with you the most important lessons we learned for future visits. If you’re planning your first visit (or your 10^th and you just need to get better at planning) this advice is for you!

Wondering what else to do on an adults only trip to Disney? Check this post out!

Look at the Menus in Advance

My number one piece of advice is to look up the menus online before your trip. Disney Food Blog has a great resource for this! I made a list of what I wanted to try and what booth it was from. If you wait until you get there you’ll find yourself wandering around wondering what to eat, and that’s just going to waste time and money!

Photos from Tips From The Disney Diva

Pick up the Passport and Map

Even if you know the parks like the back of your hands, you’ll need to grab a map to know where the food booths are! The Food and Wine passport have the menus in a small book that you can carry around, complete with stickers so you remember what you’ve tried!

Don’t Expect to Eat Everything

There are SO MANY booths! Over 30 booths are set up, so there’s no way to try everything unless you are an annual pass holder and can go all the time! On our week long trip we visited Epcot 3 times. We ate a few small plates for lunch and were able to try a few different things!

A lot of the best snacks around Disney are found at Epcot and the Food and Wine Festival. Check out the Best Snacks at Disney

Check out the Festival Center

The Festival Center, besides being a great place to sit in the air conditioning, has a few booths, as well as merchandise, and is the place where you take part in any special tastings or demonstrations. While we were there, a mixology demo was happening, you have to pay extra to take part in the tasting.

Using the Dining Plan

The Disney Dining Plan is on hold currently – It should be returning soon!

The Disney Dining Plan is an optional add-on to your Disney vacation. Every level of the Disney Dining Plan entitles you to 2 snack credits per person per day. The best part about the Food and Wine Festival is that you can use a snack credit on most of the small tasting plates that are offered! This is an amazing use for snack credits as the small plates mostly range from $4-$8 in price. The Disney Dining Plan is easy to use, they just scan your magic band! Unfortunately the alcoholic drinks are not included, so you’ll have to pay out of pocket for those.

Food & Wine with Food Allergies

Disney has been amazing with food allergies, especially the Top 8. My husband is allergic to nuts and shellfish, so we weren’t sure what to expect at Food and Wine. Any time we had questions about ingredients they would check their binder, or call a chef to make sure it was safe for him. Unfortunately the potential for cross contaminations seems to be higher in the booths than the table service restaurants and the small plates are usually already made, so there’s no way to special order. The menus are marked for gluten friendly and vegetarian items.

We called to inquire about doing a pastry demonstration at the Festival Center, however they would not tell me exactly what would be made, or if it could contain nuts. We ultimately decided not to book it, because if it contained nuts we would not be able to stay/ eat. I do wish they would announce exactly what would be made ahead of time, but of course they say that they cannot guarantee that cross contamination did not occur.

Overall we had a positive experience, but it is certainly more challenging than eating at a table service restaurant.

Read about our experience at Disney with food allergies

Have You Visited?

Epcot Food and Wine Festival is SO MUCH FUN! I 100% recommend checking it out if you are in town during the time it’s on. Similar festivals happen throughout the year:

Epcot International Festival of the Arts – Mid January to mid February
Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival – End of February to end of May
Epcot International Food and Wine Festival – End of August to mid November
Epcot International Festival of the Holidays – Mid November to end of December

What was the best thing you’ve eaten at the Food and Wine Festival?