5 Things You Need To Know Before Going to the 2024 EPCOT Food and Wine Festival

We’re less than a month away — yes, the countdown is almost complete!

On August 29th, the EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival will FINALLY open after nearly 3 months of no festival in the park. We can’t wait to experience all the food booths, try all their delicious offerings (eagerly awaiting those menus, Disney!), and take in the general atmosphere of Food and Wine once again. If you’re heading to the festival this year though, there are some things you REALLY need to know!

It Could Be VERY Crowded

Food and Wine is one of the most popular festivals of the year, meaning crowds can be quite high on normal years, but this isn’t a normal year. After a 3 month drought of festivals in EPCOT, we could see some higher crowds than normal for this festival!

However, it’s also possible that the opposite could be true! Recently we’ve seen quite the dip in wait times and overall crowd levels in EPCOT and the rest of Disney World, and that could continue through the festival. Disney also reported that park attendance was down at the Q3 earnings call. However, this festival is a huge draw to the park, so we expect to see long lines at opening day and on the weekends!

Bottom line — expect the unexpected!

There Are Going to Be Bees

This may sound a little silly, but it’s NOT. The beginning of the Food and Wine Festival takes place at the end of summer. August (and quite honestly, part of September) is still HOT in Disney World, and that means the bees are THRIVING. 

And you know what that means? They’re going to be all around the booths, and potentially you while you eat. There’s really no foolproof way to escape this, unfortunately, so it’s best to just be prepared for them.

However, you can avoid wearing overly bright colors and getting sweet items (especially those drinks with sweet syrups). It won’t keep them away completely, but it’s a good start!

Invest in a Tray

Another thing that may sound silly, but trust us — we’ve been doing this for YEARS, and we’re telling you that you need to invest in a tray if you’re planning on trying multiple different things at different booths.

There aren’t many tables around the majority of the festival booths, which may end up meaning you’re eating on a trashcan. And that’s totally fine! But it’s much more enjoyable when you’re resting your TRAY on a trashcan rather than your actual food.

Plus, it’s so much easier to take your food elsewhere and find somewhere to sit down without having to balance it all in your hand. Just pretend you’re back in grade school and pick up a tray from online — most of us did it for 13ish years in school, we can do it again!

Grab one right here!

Have A Plan

We’re begging you, if you listen to nothing else we say, PLEASE listen to this — you need a PLAN before you step into that park! And that doesn’t just include food, that also means factoring in regular EPCOT entertainment, festival-specific entertainment, merchandise lines, and more.

However, if you’re mainly focused on the food, this is actually where you need a plan the most. There are a LOT of booths to experience, and it’s so easy to get overwhelmed. We’ll have all the booths and their menus listed here on the blog before the festival begins (as soon as Disney announces them), so we highly encourage taking a look at them and making a list of the items you’d like to try BEFORE stepping food on EPCOT property.

Not only will it save you from spending tons of money you don’t need to (especially if you aren’t going at the beginning of the festival and can read our reviews of each and every booth before you go!), but it’ll save you from having to zigzag around the parks grabbing items from different booths in an order that’s less than ideal.

The Disney Dining Plan is BACK

This is also the first Food and Wine Festival that has seen the return of the Disney Dining Plan since it went away after the 2020 park closures!

So what does this mean? Well, lots of food booth items may qualify as snack credits for those using the Disney Dining Plan. This can be fantastic for those wanting to experience the festival without breaking the bank, HOWEVER it’s easy to use up your snack credits for your WHOLE trip without realizing it!

Remember that the amount of credits you see in your My Disney Experience app is for your WHOLE trip, not just for that day. So if it says 7, that’s how many you have left in total, you don’t have 7 just for that day. For that reason, it may be best to save the Food and Wine Festival for the last day of your trip so you can use up your leftover snack credits on festival eats with no worries about not having any left for the rest of your trip.

We can’t wait to experience everything this festival has to offer in just a few short weeks, so be sure to stay tuned to AllEars for all the latest Disney World news!

This is the ONLY booth you need to know about at this year’s Food and Wine Festival

What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Food and Wine Festival? Tell us in the comments!

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