Epcot Food and Wine Festival- Bleh..

wedway71

wedway71

Well-Known Member
Have to preface by saying I love everything Disney. My favorite park is EPCOT. Now, being said, was thinking about going back down for the Food and Wine Festival this year. This is why I am on the fence:

We went last year in October. We have always wanted to go. All of the marketing and advertising drives this event as an upscale event. All of the pics show a nice couple drinking some Wine etc.

Now to reality... We went last year, and was pure and total chaos. Each line was about an hour or longer for literally any and all food booths. We managed to get something from one booth the entire day.

What was worse was the large amount of goobers who were beyond drunk walking around seeing who could carry the largest number of empty beer cups. Some were flat out obnoxious bumping into to people and screaming woo Hoo every 30 feet.

Now I am not a prude or snobby at all and if it was a Beer Fest at my local bar, no problems... I would more than likely be one of those goobers screaming myself... just expected something less tacky and more upscale..

Was this just a bad day.. or are most of the days like that???
 
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erwinalber4

erwinalber4

Well-Known Member
I've only had pleasant experiences with it. The lines haven't been long or anything. Last time I went was October 2011 before Halloween Horror Nights at Universal. The food was great and no drunk spottings.
 
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wedway71

wedway71

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
erwinalber4 said:
I've only had pleasant experiences with it. The lines haven't been long or anything. Last time I went was October 2011 before Halloween Horror Nights at Universal. The food was great and no drunk spottings.
Click to expand...

I wonder if it had to do with being there on a weekend... more locals came there to party..
 
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CP_alum08

CP_alum08

Well-Known Member
Like above, I've only had good experiences with F&W. if they made it "upscale" (not exactly sure what you mean by that) but then it couldn't be an open thing, it would have to be ticketed or something...and then people would complain. Bottom line, you can't and won't please everyone.
 
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luv

luv

Well-Known Member
People say it is just weekends, but it isn't.

This thing with the drunks gets worse every year. Mornings are MUCH better than evenings/nights. If I wanted to avoid drunks, I'd go in the morning.

I don't judge the way people raise their kids and don't think people who take kids to F&W are bad parents! I will say, though, that if you're the kind of parent who doesn't want their kids around drunks, you might think twice about taking them to F&W.

F&W has it's fans, but I'm not one of them.
 
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llrain

llrain

Well-Known Member
don't let anyone tell you otherwise, if they say they had a "slow sat or sunday" then they too were drinking too muc to notice. Its much better during the weekday...

I'd say the only reason to NOT go this year is cause there really isnt anything different happening this year compared to last year, and those NEW semiars, meh, they are all a rip off anyways.


wedway71 said:
I wonder if it had to do with being there on a weekend... more locals came there to party..
Click to expand...
 
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wedway71

wedway71

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Was marketed as this...
images


Got this..
images


:) lol
 
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mergatroid

mergatroid

Well-Known Member
To be honest we go every year and have done so for the last 10 years and we've never seen any problems, bad behaviour, loudness or even long queues. I honestly don't know if we've been on weekends as when on holiday the days don't matter to us, however I'd hazard a guess the law of averages say we must have.
 
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deanaandrich

deanaandrich

Well-Known Member
I don't know why any time there is a drunk person at F&W festival they are presumed to be a local. Head to Rose and Crown any day of the week- most of the drunks you talk to- not locals.
Yes its going to be more crowded on the weekends and in the evening. There is always an obnoxious group but the F&W events aren't the only times you see those groups- they're year round.
I've never waited more than 10-15 minutes in a line. And I go every year, at Lear 3-4 times during the festival.
 
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D

DisneyDebNJ

Well-Known Member
We have been to the Food and Wine festival just about every year since its conception, and I have never had experiences like yours, in all honesty. Ive seen more inebriated people in June, than I did in October. The weekends and evenings are busy yes, but not so crazy we weren't able to get whatever we desired inside of 10-15 mins. We have seen several people *feeling good* but not nasty, sloppy or rude. Just the opposite actually.
 
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disneygirl76

disneygirl76

Carey Poppins - Nanny and Disney Enthusiest
wedway71 said:
Have to preface by saying I love everything Disney. My favorite park is EPCOT. Now, being said, was thinking about going back down for the Food and Wine Festival this year. This is why I am on the fence:

We went last year in October. We have always wanted to go. All of the marketing and advertising drives this event as an upscale event. All of the pics show a nice couple drinking some Wine etc.

Now to reality... We went last year, and was pure and total chaos. Each line was about an hour or longer for literally any and all food booths. We managed to get something from one booth the entire day.

What was worse was the large amount of goobers who were beyond drunk walking around seeing who could carry the largest number of empty beer cups. Some were flat out obnoxious bumping into to people and screaming woo Hoo every 30 feet.

Now I am not a prude or snobby at all and if it was a Beer Fest at my local bar, no problems... I would more than likely be one of those goobers screaming myself... just expected something less tacky and more upscale..

Was this just a bad day.. or are most of the days like that???
Click to expand...

Were you there on a weekend? Avoid the weekend. For any of the events - the MK parties like MVMCP and MNSSHP - or Food and Wine or the Flower Festival in the spring - avoid the weekends. We were there on a Thursday during the day and had the most amazing lovely time - minus the rain. The lines were not long. I would give it another chance. :)
 
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copcarguyp71

copcarguyp71

Well-Known Member
We went last year and although it was our third trip during F&W it was the first time we gave it an honest shot. To be honest I found most of the offerings to be salty and rather tasteless. We did get offerings from Japan, American, Norway and Morocco. We both felt as though it was just meh and not a whole lot to write home about. We like to go during F&W because it is when our anniversary and we were married the same year as the festival started so we like getting pics in front of the "Celebrating xx Years" banners because so are we but other than that I would not feel cheated by missing it. We booked a little earlier this year for a Sept trip as the bouncebacks were tastier than the draw of the F&W.
 
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ajrwdwgirl

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Never been to the Food and Wine Festival, but there are alwasy some drunken groups at Epcot. I usually see these more at night, so you might want to do the festival stuff earlier in the day.
 
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