First Impressions & Review: 2019 Epcot Food & Wine Festival
In this post, I’ll offer a preliminary review and first impressions of the 2019 Epcot Food & Wine Festival from our visits opening weekend. While still likely fun for first-timers, in a couple of ways, we found the event to be a disappointment as compared to years past, which we’ll cover here. (Note that we’ll be updating our Ultimate Guide to Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival and Global Marketplace Menus & Food Photos posts very soon, too!)
My perspective on the 2019 Epcot Food & Wine Festival stands in contrast to opening weekend of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which was handled with near-flawless execution. The amazing results over at DHS are actually a bit surprising, especially for August in Florida…with an approaching hurricane. That park has had a palpable energy among guests and Cast Members alike and was a truly joyous experience. It’s almost as if WDW management diverted resources and focused the entirety of its energy on Star Wars Land’s grand opening.
If that’s the case, you can’t really blame Walt Disney World. The opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is the big thing of the year, if not the decade, at Walt Disney World. On the other hand, Epcot just had the substantive details of its massive transformation announced, and the park is going to be a veritable construction zone by week two of the 2019 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival…
Nevertheless, Epcot is a park that’s charging full admission, so I think critique here is fair game. For the 2019 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, the iconography, in-park photo ops, decorations, and logos are all pretty much unchanged from last year…which were unchanged from the year before. That means more of Chef Remy, doodle-style foods, and a slightly modified logo.
Displays, logos, graphics, etc., all used to change every single year of the Epcot Food & Wine Festival, and the fresh look for the longest event of the year was something we always appreciated. Three years of mostly identical stuff for Walt Disney World’s longest seasonal event just feels tired at this point.
Above is how all of that looked last year and the year before in the secondary display behind Spaceship Earth.
Here’s how the main display looks this year:
In fairness, the design refresh should’ve happened last year, in which case the visuals would’ve made sense to recycle again this year, for only the second year instead of the third. I’d be a lot more forgiving if that were the case, as Epcot is about to gear up for major construction and most of the best photo ops will be eliminated by that, anyway.
Still, would new banner designs and a few visuals be too difficult? Why not add a topiary display or big photo op over along the new pathway near Journey into Imagination? Then again, I haven’t seen any conversation about this online, so perhaps others simply don’t care, and Epcot’s International Food & Wine Festival is all about the…food & wine for them.
Speaking of which, most of the new dishes and the new Global Marketplaces are unambitious. Even the booths that are technically new have menu items ‘imported’ from previous locations, and others that miss the mark.
While trying samples, we often found ourselves saying, “this is good, but not interesting.” (For instance, I found the Frozen Apple Pie pictured below to be unexplainably delicious, but hardly ambitious.) A lot of things that we enjoyed are more of the ‘comfort food’ variety, which isn’t what I’d expect of a foodie event.
Now, this isn’t to say that the cuisine at the 2019 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival is bad or subpar. For the previous two years, we’ve commented on how food quality has been improving, and most exemplars of that remain as almost all fan-favorite dishes have returned.
It thus becomes a matter of expectations. Food & Wine Festival has always been a popular event with annual or returning Walt Disney World guests. As such, it has followed a roughly 75/25 rule, with about 75% of the items being classics, and another 25% new items that have the potential of becoming future favorites.
This approach has allowed Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival to cull and refine its menus into greatest hits, while still feeling fresh by testing out new ideas and inventive concepts. It has been a best of both worlds approach, appeasing those who want to revisit familiar favorites, annual guests who want “new stuff,” and first-timers who will likely enjoy both.
For returning guests, most of the familiar favorites are still here. Flavors from Fire continues to fire on all cylinders, the Next Eats area showcases the future of festival food at Epcot, and both the Islands of the Caribbean and Hawaii continue to deliver great tropical flavors.
There are great meats to be found, including at Australia, Africa, and even Italy. Speaking of Italy, half of its dishes are abysmal. (Would it really be an Epcot festival without something awful in Italy?!) Meanwhile, the Maple Bourbon Boursin Cheesecake and Liquid Nitro Chocolate Almond Truffle remain the best desserts of the event. That’s all good news.
Other long-running booths and returning dishes that are fan favorites also remain solid. We’ll have individual Global Marketplace reviews soon and will detail each dish in those. This is more of a broad event review, so I’ll save the specifics for those posts.
The only big losses, from my perspective, are the Greece Global Marketplace and Light Lab. Greece was a fan favorite that ran for over 20 years. Light Lab, by contrast, was a really clever concept that they never got right. Those aside, almost all of my top booths and dishes appear again.
That’s good news for first-time visitors to the 2019 Epcot Food & Wine Festival, who will see all of the displays and logo with fresh eyes, and also get to enjoy a dozen or more items with fresh taste buds. For these visitors and even returning guests more concerned with Epcot “playing the hits,” this year’s Food & Wine Festival will not disappoint.
Where it’s a problem is for annual visitors who are primarily interested in experiencing and trying new things, rather than eating Epcot’s greatest hits. (And let’s be real, this is snack food from temporary kitchens; even at its best, it’s not exactly the culinary equivalent of Led Zeppelin.) Personally, I’ll take something new like Light Lab that swings for the fences but strikes out over the tried and true but pedestrian offerings of the Canada booth.
Of course, reasonable minds may vary on that, and I’m guessing a lot of you will disagree. We know plenty of Walt Disney World fans who love Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival because they enjoy revisiting familiar favorites. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, and we’re not suggesting otherwise. We, too, enjoy doing that to an extent.
However, we prefer the new and interesting aspects of Food & Wine Festival. Special events are one way to easily liven up a park, which is why festival season is crucial to Epcot. These temporary offerings are something new and different, which is essential in the park that has largely stagnated since the 1990s.
Of course, you may want to take my perspective on the 2019 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival with a grain of salt if you’re a big fan of this event.
As I’ve said repeatedly, Food & Wine is my least favorite of the Epcot festivals. For years, I’ve felt this event has been substantively lacking and far too reliant on people spending money on undersized and overpriced samples of food and alcohol, slowly eliminating the “edutainment” aspects of the festival.
While it’s our least favorite Epcot festival, it generates far more coverage than any of the other events at Epcot because there’s more reader interest. I’m still not totally sure why that is, but Walt Disney World hype built over time usually takes years to undo (for example, Le Cellier remained popular for several years after the Disney Dining Plan eroded its value).
To us, the Epcot International Festival of the Arts is the best Epcot event of the year, and it’s so good that I’d recommend planning a trip solely around it (and we’ve done exactly that). On the other hand, Food & Wine is a distant fourth/last place and we wouldn’t go out of our way to visit Walt Disney World this time of year for the event. At this point, I’d actually rather visit a week before it starts and take the lower crowds of Diet Epcot.
Overall, how much of this review of the 2019 Epcot Food & Wine Festival with which you’ll agree truly depends upon your perspective and priorities. We can only review things based upon our personal experiences and opinions, but hopefully we’ve qualified this enough so you know what you can disregard.
Even with all of this said, we’re still looking forward to the October 1 refresh/phase two (or whatever you want to call it) of the Food & Wine Festival. That’s when the Donut Box, Epcot Experience, and Epcot Forever all debut. It’s also shortly after the Disney Skyliner gondolas start operating, and much of Future World closes to make way for the park’s new neighborhoods. I’m optimistic that with all of that, the 2019 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival will get a much-needed shot in the arm.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Anything you’re excited to try at the 2019 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival? Disappointed that the look of the evnet is pretty much identical to the past two years? What do you think of the lineup of Global Marketplaces? Special or premium events you’re doing during Food & Wine? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
This was my 7th year in a row going to F&W. It may be my last. I found the beverage offerings to be very interesting with some very good beers that I have not sampled prior. The food – I on’t know, same as usual and to me, very mundane. I was there on a Thursday in October 19 from 3pm till closing. Saw a wonderful concert (Taylor Dane) and had a nice time. Here is my beef (pardon the pun) – We went back on Saturday from 4pm till ??. All that was missing was Snookie and the cast from Jersey Shore. Drunk 20 somethings all over the place. People being served who had no business being served. Drunk young women on the steps to the Japan restaurant, guys screaming, we saw a young mother put a few ounces in a kids sippy cup… You could feel that something will happen. We left early, we had enough. Im not a puritanical by any means but there are standards. We saw some folks be served who would not be served in a bar… Does anyone police the parking lots? It just wasnt comfortable to the point of irresponsible.
Your comments are exactly what I have been saying for the past few years. My husband wrote an email to Disney 2 years ago and they called him. He ripped them apart. It was right around the same time that Alex Morgan (women’s soccer player) was banned for life for drunken behavior. They tried to assure him of undercover security in the crowds but there is no way that people are being policed enough. And we even saw a PhotoPass Photographer taking a picture of two people so drunk they could barely stand and the guy had his hand down the girls shirt, let’s just say very inappropriately. We have AP’s and we just don’t go Friday or Saturday nights. That keeps us away from 75% of most of that behavior. If we go on a weekend at all we make sure we leave by 3pm. There is nothing attractive about a parent pushing a stroller drunk. And this year we have seen lost kids 2 separate times. Not cool. This is just not Disney to us. This festival should just take the Disney and the Food out of the title. It is a shame because for years this event and the MNSSHP made Fall our favorite time of year to visit.
Well we visit every year for the past 9 years. W are annual pass holders. The food in the past three years has become more and more disappointing, it used to be you could split the portion between two so you could get a taste of more than one place, so my husband and I would literally hit about 8 places trying food, but not only did the portion get super small, buy prices for that extremely small portion are ranging around $10. That is rediculous an as another reader said there are no more seminars that used to be free, now you have to pay for everything. Apparently Disney must be in serious financial trouble especially with Universal studios making huge waves. Our annual passes continue to increase in past three years and they keep taking away more benifits. The whole thing with food and wine as well as garden show are huge disappointments. We always loved disney but more and more we end up leaving disappointed and we leave property to eat since there just isn enough excitement with the food there anymore.
Thanks for the review, Tom. My family is headed to F&W for the first time ever. There is so much that we want to try during the three days we will be at Epcot. It is helpful to read what various reviewers did not like to knock some items off our list. I have been looking at various reviews to find the consistent top picks and pans. I am looking forward to your reviews of each booth.
I’ve visited WDW at least 40 times and this will be my FIRST F&W! Since I have nothing to compare it to, I’m sure that it will all be amazing (except the bands that are playing while I’m there). I do have a few questions:
1) What is on everyone’s top 3 of things to sample?
2) What should I not miss?
3) Can DDP snack credits still be used for the samples?
4) What is the average cost or range of the samples?
All replies appreciated!
Jeff,
Most items are between $4 and $8. I would suggest printing a map ahead of time and using online reviews to target what you want to try the most. If travelling with a spouse or friend, I would suggest splitting items so you can try more. You can easily start to fill up after just a few items – and there are so many to try! If you can choose a time of day to visit. Daytime is less busy. Weekend nights are extremely busy, because the locals seem to come over to enjoy the food and music. I don’t do the dining plan so can’t comment on that. Some people buy a gift card so they can just use it around the world and not mess with money, etc.
95% of the F&W offerings are DDP snack eligible. The best value is the $6-9 range.
Jeff,
We went for the first time today. We enjoyed what we had and everything was cooked to perfection. The park was slow today all rides were walk on we didn’t use any of our fast passes. There were no lines for the food, so the meals weren’t laying around becoming over done.
We had Lamb chops at Australia and Filet Mignon at Canada
We finished with frozen apple pie at the Apple Orchard in Canada which was very refreshing on a hot day. We would not have known about this drink if it wasn’t for his review.
Jeff,
The Lamb Chops from Australia was $7.50
The Filet Mignon from Canada was $10.00
The Frozen Apple Pie from Canada was $4.00
We visited F&W festival on day 1, went to the Belgian booth and were surprised that
nobody could explain the belgian beer or food. There simply was not anybody from
that country that represented their ‘cuisine’ or drinks… All staff was american and
while they are great and kind, we feel there’s something missing about this… Just an
opinion though…
I have to agree about the overall feel and theming. I was just so disappointed when we attended yesterday. With all of the construction it was just so blah to also have the same tired decor for Food&Wine. I have a hard time at the festivals in general because I have a food allergy. All of the festivals are not friendly to those with allergies. Although this year I actually ran out of fingers when counting the options for GF! lol. I generally take food reviews with a grain of salt as everyone has different tastes but the overall feel of this festival has just gone down over the years. The food isn’t as interesting, the theming is non existent, and I have to agree what you are calling edutainment. Originally from NJ we came every year for “Jersey Week” and have watched Food & Wine and MNSSHP change over the past 20 plus years. I can’t say it is for the good. My daughter and I attended our first Festival of the Arts in 2019 and we enjoyed it so much! The way we used to feel about Food & Wine. I think your review is spot on!
As Australians we don’t get to visit often but our last visit to Food & Wine was 2016 when they first trumped out the current logo and theme and I’d have to agree that I’m disappointed to see essentially the same logo and theme rolled out for our next visit. The other thing I’m really disappointed about is a real lack of seminars and low cost events this year as well as a total lack of festival centre. Granted there are a lot of changes and construction occurring at EPCOT but in 2016 there were literally daily seminars taking place but this year the seminars have been pretty much limited to weekends which is when we’re trying to avoid due to the drunken hoards that seem to descend on EPCOT. There’s also a complete lack of any free seminars which is really really disappointing and frustrating. I’d completely agree that Disney has lost the shine off this event.
Maybe the hurricane will take care of the cardboard decorations â€â™€ï¸
I am taking the tack that this is Tom’s opinion and he asked what yours was. Telling your opinion is not a bash someone else’s opinion.
So my impressions. One since I was up there to kind of take a break from tracking Dorian since I had a full tank of gas and would be left with over 1/2 tank on the round trip drive I felt I could justify a visit while stilling being prepared in case the track changed I might have a different perspective on things.
I got my magnet but it isn’t a big deal to me either way since they stay on the refrigerator. But as a passholder I like the idea of a special photo spot with the replica of the magnet. I like the different food choices although there will always be things I like better than others. I like that there are so many different pens to choose from. I like the rich variety of different merchandise even though I can’t really afford any of it. I like to look at it.
It wasn’t as crowded Sunday so I got to do several of the photo spots and I love my photopass pictures with the special effects.
I was disappointed that I could find Remy figure anyway. I heard later they were all placed inside. Not sure if that is where they will stay or if it is a hurricane precaution.
I like being able to spend about the same $20 to eat but get to try a bigger variety of tastes. I had 4 different things yesterday. I was working on getting my 5 cheese stamps for the free cheesecake. (I got 3 of them so far).
So overall I think there are enough new things to try along with being able to enjoy old favorites. I like the little contest of earning the cheese stamps. I want to look for Remy for the fun. It was a fun day and of course, I will be back. Got to get those coasters. 🙂
I appreciate Tom’s candid perspective on this festival and the food offerings. If he seems harsh, I’m reminded that being opinionated is one of the critical attributes of a blogger. So many other blogs would have just declared everything either “yummy” or “amazing”. (Captioning photos would be nice.)
After attending the F&G this past spring, F&G is my favorite festival (never attended the Arts) because I love the topiary, classic Mickey and Minnie F&G themed merchandise and the Easter egg/Spike the Bee hunt. During my Fall trips, I may purchase one or two snacks at F&W stands and that’s the extent of my F&W participation. Cost of the F&W snacks and alcohol are not worth it to me. I will purchase a regular size craft type beer at the year round beer stands and enjoy the jovial atmosphere of F&W. I wish there was a way to control the rowdiness from the drunken imbeciles.
I think Disney has figured out they don’t need to do much to get AP holders to the parks other than offer up a new magnet,
We visit annually. We love new and different foods. Some of the original Countries are no longer here. Some of the newer areas are just there. We miss Poland. We miss the Florida booth. We are glad France returns. In the past few years, the Festival seems mediocre. Very crowded, but mediocre. There are no items that we can’t wait to try. A lot of the dishes lack imagination.h fun for us was trying something different. We would prefer the booths were Countries and not things like chocolate, cheese, etc. We go out of our way to find foods that we have never tasted. We enjoy Elk, Kangaroo, and Ostrich. We have never tasted Bear. Couldn’t that be Canada’s offering?
I agree with your Festival rankings – we avoid Food & Wine (too much focus on drink, less focus on food) and rank it last among EPCOT festivals. Festival of the Arts is absolutely our #1 event – we find the food to be the most fun and creative and live the art booths and broadway concert series! Our new annual tradition is January visit to Beach Club to enjoy it!
Really wish you would caption your food pictures with the name of the dish and the location.
That’s a great idea!
I agree. I love Festival of the Arts, with the Broadway concert series and art booths. Having young kids, we struggle with the vibe of Food and Wine in the evenings. One of our worst experiences at Disney was meeting characters with our kids during Food and Wine. The inebriated adults in front of us were totally inappropriate and took forever. It could just be the nights we visited but we appreciated the vibe at Festival of the Arts much more. I will make an effort to visit Festival of the Arts in the future, with or without our kids.
I appreciate this review and the fact that you offer your true opinion on things – not just what you think your readers will want to see. You also do a good job of giving context for why you see things a certain way, which is helpful for each reader to anticipate how they might react.
Personally, I share some of the disappointments you mention (logos, not a lot of “new”), but as an infrequent visitor, I’m still really exited to be visiting for this event.
I really appreciated this review. It states exactly why the author didn’t like this years incarnation of the event, and who should maybe ignore the advice.
It also referenced Led Zeppelin on a Disney blog; that’s a win.
Well maybe you go there too much? You can’t expect them to do something new just for you. You have an exceptional life style and don’t realize that some don’t visit 8 times a year I love your blog but please don’t start sounding like “you know who” I’ve sent so many people your way for advice Keep up the good work
Perhaps my criticism is unfair or too harsh, but this is an event that draws a lot of return visitors (it’s an incredibly popular time of year for DVC bookings). You don’t have to visit 8 times per year for this year’s Food & Wine Festival to feel stale–just twice in the last three years.
Even with that said, I understand reasonable minds may vary on this, and some people may be perfectly satisfied with this year’s Food & Wine Festival.
We’re not “frequent flyers” to this event, but we did go last year for the first time. That said, while I understand the frustration for frequent visitors, I’m kind of glad there’s a lot repeated from last year because I feel like we were woefully underprepared.
We can do things we didn’t know we’re available and try dishes we did not previously have budget for or weren’t brave enough to try (I will woman up and try the escargot this year!). Basically, it’s kind of nice to get a mulligan since we don’t usually go.
Avoid the crab cakes at Coastal Eats; they were shite. Other than the trace of stale crab flavor, they had no other flavors that were remotely noticeable. Truly awful. All in all, we were disappointed in the dishes that we tried, and we were mainly targeting the stuff that was on the “ambitious” side of things (for a certain definition of ambitious).
We are in agreement on Flavor of Fire; all around good, with a lot of flavor coming from the accent condiments, not just the meat. I was pleasantly surprised by the meat pie from the Africa stall. I ordered it as a crapulent indulgence, but was surprised at how much I ended up liking it.
While they could certainly address the “undersized and overpriced” aspect, I have to wonder what could possibly constitute “over-“dependence on food and alcohol by a “Food & Wine” festival?
That would seem inherent in the topic, only changeable by abandoning it and substituting a different festival altogether.
The over-dependence is in the Global Marketplaces, specifically.
Not too long ago, Food & Wine Festival had a ton of no-cost demonstrations, educational seminars, displays, etc. It had elements of edutainment, not just the commercial component of spending a lot of money on food. That’s pretty much all it is now, whereas all the other festivals still have the edutainment component.
In other words, you can attend one of the other festivals, not spend any extra money, and still have a blast. I don’t think that’s possible with Food & Wine Fest.
But what about “The Chocolate Experience – From Bean to the Bar Hosted by Ghirardelli”? It was one of the most informative three poster panel “walking tours” I’ve ever experienced. I guess it was technically free, but it was one of the weakest pretenses to get folks into a lame chocolate shop.
I COMPLETELY agree with you Tom on the festival decor. I can’t stand the “cardboard cutouts”. They look cheap & uninspired. I used to really look forward to seeing what the new theme was going to be. The last decent display I remember they had Mickey & the gang in topiary form having a cookout. When you got close you could see Mickeys grill glowing red, hear the sizzling & best of all smell it! It was so cool! It was so Disney.
I also agree about the food. We loved the Festival of the Arts & the Flower & Garden, but the F&W, has become well, predictable & boring. (not to mention increasingly expensive for what you get in both size & quality)
We used to plan our trips in the fall specifically for the festival, but after last year of the same old, same old, we decided unless something changed we didnt have any desire to return.
Ah– if that’s the case I’d probably agree (if I was there this year). But you may have “buried the lede” as journalists say– if Food Network & other “celebrity chefs” are no longer giving demos left, right and center, as they were the last time I was at this particular festival, then that’s your headline and the festival really has lost its center. Much like Epcot itself is about to, perhaps…
Maybe it’ll change if Food Network is next on Disney’s acquisitions list. 😉
This is not a review. It’s a blathering rambling complaint and the worst thing I’ve ever read on this site. You should delete this, it’s embarrassing.
Look, I love this site and I thoroughly enjoy the content and feel that, for the most part, Tom reviews restaurants how I would as well. But this really made me smile, in a ‘you just saw your friend get burned’ kind of way.
I’d agree that this post lacks info on anything positive from F &B. In general it’s all overpriced food at Disney so no surprise there.
The review is that he wasn’t impressed because it’s a retread of a festival with little new and interesting. How is that embarrassing? You should delete your “comment”, that’s embarrassing.
Tom does a fantastic job of honest reviews from all around Disney, just because you don’t agree doesn’t make it blathering.
Jasmin you are an embarrassment. If you want a rosy guide of Food and Wine festival then visit articles on the ParksBlog.
Wow. Deep breath… It is a review. Take it as u will. Also Tom as a long time reader I applaud you for not sugar coating. Also stay safe thru the storm.