The Epcot International Food and Wine Festival is an annual festival event at Epcot typically held from the end of August to mid-November featuring specialty food, entertainment, and merchandise. In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about the Epcot Food & Wine Festival.
2024 Dates Released
The 2024 Epcot International Food and Wine Festival will be held Aug. 29 through Nov. 23. We’ll update this post with more details as they roll out!
Other Epcot Festivals
Epcot International Festival of the Arts (Jan. 12, 2024 through Feb. 19, 2024) (2025 TBD)
Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival (Feb. 28, 2024 through May 27, 2024)
Epcot International Food & Wine Festival (August 29 through November 23, 2024) (you are here)
Epcot International Festival of the Holidays (November 24 through December 30, 2023) (2024 TBD)
If you’re completely new to the idea of Epcot festivals, we have an Epcot Festival Calendar and Tips post that is a good place to start.
2023 Food and Wine Information
The 2023 Food and Wine Festival will be held from July 27 through November 18, 2023. Besides the later start than the last two years, we’re not expecting any huge changes this year. Disney has released the “Foodie Guide” to the 2023 Food and Wine Festival, which includes menus for all the booths.
Another Great Resource
This post is around 1600 words, or only about 5 pages. While that’s enough to get you a good grasp of what to expect from the festival, you might want more—a lot more—information about this great festival. For that, I’d recommend the WDW Prep School Food and Wine Guide. It’s got over 200 pages of information, including pictures and reviews of every item, “best seating areas (indoor and out), overall fave booths, and tips for how to plan your festival time.” I even bought it for family who will be visiting the festival this year.
Epcot International Food and Wine Festival 2023 Basics
Here are some things to know as we head toward the 2023 Food and Wine Festival…
What is the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival?
The Epcot Food & Wine Festival is the most popular of Epcot’s festivals, which transform the park with limited time offerings of food, merchandise, entertainment, demonstrations, seminars, and decorations.
While all of Epcot’s festivals have some exclusive food and alcohol offerings, Food & Wine is the festival with the most food booths, over thirty.
When is the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival?
The 2023 Epcot Food and Wine Festival will be held from July 27 through November 18, 2023.
How much does the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival cost?
The festival itself is included in the price of admission to Epcot. This isn’t a special ticketed event. If you want to enjoy the special food, merchandise, demonstrations, etc., those come at an extra cost.
What Do I Need To Do Ahead of Time?
In the past, Food and Wine had several activities that were bookable ahead of time and that often sold out. As of 2023, these have not returned. The only thing you’d potentially want to book in advance is the Eat to the Beat Dining Package, which gets you priority seating at the Eat to the Beat concert.
Where should I stay to visit the Festival?
Any Disney hotel will do a fine job of getting you to and from Epcot. That said, some are better-situated than others if you’re spending a lot of time at the Festival. It’s a short walk to Epcot from Boardwalk Inn, Yacht Club, and Beach Club.
Riviera Resort and Caribbean Beach are just a single, pretty short ride on the Disney Skyliner away from the park. Pop Century and Art of Animation are also on the Skyliner, but you’ll have to transfer at Caribbean Beach.
We cover this topic in more detail in our post on the Best Hotels for Visiting Epcot and Hollywood Studios.
Crowds and Those Crowds During Food and Wine
Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival is beloved by many locals around Walt Disney World. For this reason, Epcot often sees high crowds in evenings and particularly on weekends even while the rest of the resort might be relatively calm.
This doesn’t impact your ride touring strategy (our one day Epcot Itinerary is easily completed even on Food & Wine Saturdays), but it can impact your overall experience, and we’re not just talking about lines…
It’s undeniable that Food & Wine brings an increase in bad behavior at Epcot. Is it exaggerated online simply because people like to blame Food & Wine? Sure. But there’s no doubt you’ll see more intoxicated people and intoxicated groups (and more of those t-shirts) on a Food & Wine Saturday night than any other time in Disney World (New Year’s Eve maybe excepted).
The thing is…you really just don’t want to be at Food & Wine during the evening or weekends too anyways because the crowds are an annoyance. Obviously it’s likely you’ll have one night of your trip at Epcot…make it a Tuesday.
Navigating Food and Wine Festival
Food and Wine can be overwhelming, both because of the crowds and the amount to do. There are three essential items to help you navigate the festival.
Most everyone who enters the park is already going to grab a map, anyways. Epcot maps are sometimes updated during festivals to have booth locations, but Disney has been doing this less in the recent years, presumably in favor of the next two things we’ll talk about.
At any Epcot festival, you’ll want to grab the Festival Passport. This small booklet includes checklists for every booth at Food & Wine as well as information on some of the other festival offerings. It looks like this:
Don’t confuse this with the World Showcase’s toy passport available throughout the year. The Festival Passport is a free booklet available widely throughout the park.
Finally, there is now a digital festival guide in the My Disney Experience app. If you go to your app home screen and scroll down, you’ll eventually see a festival box with a “Learn More” button that takes you to the main page of the digital guide:
Food and Wine Food & Beverage Booths
Depending on exactly how you count, there are around thirty (30) festival booths at Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival. This compares to, for example, under 20 at the Festival of The Holidays. And they come with a wide variety of options and styles.
These are basically pop up booths (though many of them are permanent now) around the park that offer small portions of food and beverage for around $5-$10 an item. Most of these items count as snacks on the Disney dining plans, and these are one of the best ways to use your snack credits.
Some booths are themed to specific countries, like Spain, Belgium, and India. Almost every World Showcase country has its own booth (the only booth in United Kingdom is Ireland, but it isn’t clear whether this is named after the island “Ireland” or the country “Republic of Ireland”).
Some booths are broader regions (The Alps, Africa), and some booths just have a theme (Flavors from Fire, Earth Eats). For the most part, each booth offers at least one food item, one dessert, one alcoholic beverage, and one non-alcoholic beverage.
Food & Wine Festival Entertainment
Select dates of the festival features a performance at the America Gardens Theater as part of the “Eat to the Beat” Concert series. The 2023 lineup includes artists such as Hoobastank, Boyz II Men, and Sugar Ray. On off days, local bands perform in the theater, too.
You can queue and wait for these shows, but they’re also available as part of the Eat to the Beat Dining Package.
Food & Wine Activities
There are a few special activities offered as part of the festival, too.
Remy’s Ratatouille Hide & Squeak ($)
Remy’s Ratatouille Hide & Squeak is a park-wide scavenger hunt. Maps cost $9.99+tax and can be purchased at major shops and festival marketplaces around the park. Complete the scavenger hunt (match the 15 stickers of Remy and a food item to the 15 locations on the map), and you’ll earn a prize—a collapsible lunchbox
Pluto’s Pumpkin Pursuit ($, Select Dates)
Pluto’s Pumpkin Pursuit is a halloween-themed scavenger hunt (same style as Hide & Squeak) available September 29 to October 31. Guests will search for hidden decorative pumpkins and then exchange their map for a prize.
Emile’s Fromage Montage ($)
Found on the final page of the Festival Passport is Emile’s Fromage Montage. Purchase the indicated cheese items from the five listed booths (collecting stickers along the way) and you’ll earn a mini cheesecake and souvenir cup.
Food & Wine Merchandise
Like every other event at Disney World, Epcot International Food and Wine Festival has unique event merchandise. Most of the merchandise is found at the start of the World Showcase, in Port of Entry (the store on the right if you’re coming from Future World). There are also smaller Festival Marketplaces scattered throughout the park. Here’s a look at some of the merchandise from 2022 (use the arrows to navigate the gallery):
Former Food and Wine Offerings
Prior to 2020, there were a few more specially ticketed offerings at Food & Wine. These have not been offered in 2021, 2022, or 2023. We’re keeping this section around partly as notice of that fact, and partly in hopes these will one day return.
(Unavailable 2023) Demonstrations and Seminars ($)
(Note: These offerings did not return in 2021, 2022, or 2023.)
Food & Wine has a lot of demonstrations and seminars, and most of them will require you to book in advance. You can see a complete listing of these at the Disney website here (or visit TasteEpcot.com), but they include things like:
45 minute wine / beer / spirit tastings ($19 per person)
Culinary demonstrations ($19 per person)
“Fun” food and drink technique lessons ($29 per person)
90 minute cheese seminar ($95 per person)
These activities are mostly held in the World Showplace Events Pavilion, an event space you may have never noticed (because the wall is usually closed) down the path between the UK and Canada pavilions:
(Unavailable in 2023) Food and Wine Party for the Senses ($)
(Note: Party for the Senses was not held in 2021, 2022, or 2023.)
Held on select Saturdays, the Party for the Senses costs $229 to $359 per person and includes over 20 tasting stations and exclusive entertainment. We’ve never done this, but here’s a 2017 review from Disney Food Blog.
You can learn more about the event and make reservations here.
Do you have any questions about Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival?
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