The EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival is full of great eats, amazing drinks, awesome merchandise, fun activities, and awesome entertainment. But wait…there’s one more ingredient you need to add to the mix — STRESS.

That’s right — despite all of the fun you can have at the Festival, a trip to this popular experience can also include a huge (read: overwhelming) amount of stress. What dishes are worth your money? How much do you need to budget? What is the best of the best to try? Where do you even start?! There’s a lot to consider — but take a deep breath. We can help!

Today we’re going through our top 15 tips to reduce the stress of your Food & Wine Festival experience. And we’ll start with a bonus — click the image below to download our EXCLUSIVE Festival map and checklist so you don’t have to guess where the food booths are located or what items are at each.

Okay, now let’s get to the rest of the tips!

1 — Wear the Right Clothes!

You might be so focused on the food and drinks that you totally forget about what you’ll be wearing as you eat your way through the park. But this is an incredibly important thing to consider. Especially if you plan to grab a whole bunch of dishes, your outfit can make a HUGE difference on your level of comfort.

Our advice is to pack something light and stretchy (yes, THIS is the time to bring out those stretchy pants or a loose-fitting dress that won’t make you feel like you just ate 500 snacks even though you definitely did).

Here are a few other Festival packing tips:

• Check the weather — Remember the Festival runs all the way through November 19th and the weather can vary a LOT between now and then. If you’ll be going during a really hot season, pack light. Going when things might cool down a bit? Remember that light sweater! And don’t forget to plan ahead for rain!!
• Wear comfy shoes — You’ll be doing a LOT of walking!
• Grab a DFB-exclusive Food & Wine Festival Shirt from our merch store to really take your outfit to the next level (and make your outfit planning easier)

2 — Get a Tray

We cannot over-emphasize how incredibly helpful it is to have a tray with you when at an EPCOT Festival! Trust us when we say getting a tray will CHANGE your Festival experience. The next time you order all the food and drinks from a booth, you won’t have to try to balance things, almost spill half of your items, and stressfully walk to the closest trash can (or require the help of 5 of your friends).

There are a variety of trays available, but one option is this plastic food tray from Amazon.

It’s relatively cheap, simple, and can help get the job done!

Click here to grab the tray from Amazon!

3 — Review the Menus BEFORE You Go

Planning is your friend when it comes to the Food & Wine Festival. One thing that can remove a ton of stress is to review ALL of the menus for the food booths before you go.

Click here to see our page with ALL of the menus for the Food & Wine Festival!

By reviewing the menus, you’ll be able to identify the dishes that you’re most interested in trying and create a list of what to buy BEFORE you get there. That can help you feel less overwhelmed by all the options.

Plus, if you review all of the menus, then you’ll know what’s available at each of the booths. If you don’t review them ahead of time, you might buy 10 items within the first 5 booths and fill up quickly, only to then realize that 2-3 items you’d REALLY want to try are at later booths and now you’re too stuffed to try them!

Pro tip: Don’t just look at the menus. Be sure to also read our FULL reviews of every single booth so you can see our pros and cons about the menu items you’re thinking of buying. By reading our reviews, you might discover that an item you were interested it was actually TERRIBLE or find out that an item you didn’t have on your radar is totally worth trying.

See ALL of our booth reviews here!

And here’s another pro tip — we’ve tried essentially EVERYTHING at the Festival for you and developed a list of our favorites. These are the items we think you absolutely should eat or drink while there. So be sure to check out our list and watch our video below to learn all about that. That can also help you develop your list of items to try!

4 — Get the DFB Food & Wine Festival Guide

Ever wish you could have the ultimate guide to the Festival in one place? Well, you CAN! We have developed the DFB Guide to the 2023 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival and it can help you tackle the Festival like a PRO.

Inside of the digital guide we’ve got the BEST tips, tricks, info, and advice for you to help you enjoy every minute of your time there. There are over 250 pages of info. We’ve broken down each booth to help you devise your plan of attack.

We offer a 100% money-back guarantee if you aren’t satisfied, and it’s a digital guide which means you’ll get it INSTANTLY and can easily carry it around the park on your mobile device!

Get the Food & Wine Festival Guide HERE!

5 — Set up a Budget

You’ve already got your list of must-get items, now it’s time to figure out how much that’ll all cost you. We’ve got the pricing for every single item listed on our full menus page so you don’t have to do too much work.

Simply note the prices next to your must-get items list and add it all up together. That’ll help you see how much you’d ideally spend if you got every item on that list. Then, it’s time to decide whether that number is too high for your level of comfort.

If it is, then it’s time to lower your budget and see what items from your list you should remove to make that budget work. Establishing this budget ahead of time will help you be WAY less stressed about that credit card bill that’ll hit you after you spend a full day eating around the World. (Just remember to include some extra space in your budget for tax in your calculations!)

Click here for a realistic budget for the 2023 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival

6 — Get a Gift Card

One of the most useful souvenirs you can get at the Food & Wine Festival is a collectible gift card with a bracelet. The gift card is small and attached to a bracelet you can easily wear on your wrist so you can have it accessible when it’s time to buy your items from the booths (no need to dig through your bag for cash or a credit card).

The other great thing about the gift card (aside from it making your purchasing so much easier) is that it can help you stick to your budget. Only load the gift card with the amount you’ve established as your budget. Then, once it’s all used up, you may be less tempted to keep buying items that’ll put you over that budget.

7 — Stay Hydrated!

This sounds simple enough but truly, staying hydrated is KEY to making your Food & Wine Festival experience a good one and not one that lands you in the first aid center. Florida can be extremely hot. If you don’t stay hydrated, you could run the risk of becoming cranky, dehydrated, and potentially even placing your health in danger.

You can typically find your standard plastic water bottles available to purchase at a variety of spots throughout EPCOT and the Festival, but those won’t come cheap. Our advice is to bring your own refillable water bottle that you can replenish at the water bottle refill stations or water fountains throughout the park.

And don’t forget that you can pop into most Quick Service restaurants to get a FREE cup of ice and water that you can also refill your water bottle with.

If you’ll be drinking alcoholic beverages as you enjoy the Festival, be mindful of how many you have had and try to balance that with water to ensure the right level of hydration. And consider purchasing something like the Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier, which are packets of powder with electrolytes that you add to your water to give you that much more hydration.

Click here to check out the water bottle that LITERALLY everyone takes to Disney World!

8 — Know the Rules

There are a number of rules you’ll want to know before you visit Disney World, but one particular one becomes especially important during EPCOT festivals.

Cast Members are generally trained to limit guests to no more than 2 alcoholic beverages per transaction at Quick Service locations and this often includes EPCOT festival booths.

So if you really want to try a variety of drinks while at the Festival, just know that this limit is in place and will generally restrict how many alcoholic options you can get at a single booth. That’s something to keep in mind when making your must-get list.

Click here to see the one spot mimosa fans HAVE to visit at the Food & Wine Festival

9 — Map Your Route!

You have your list of eats, you have your budget, and you’re ready to go — no more planning needed right? WRONG! You might have your list of eats and drinks ready, but where are the booths that contain those eats/drinks located in the park? If you don’t take a look at a map ahead of time you might not realize that some of the booths are quite separated from each other.

And if you over-estimate how much you’ll be able to eat in one day, you might end up filling up on certain things at the booths closest to your unplanned path through the park and then becoming too full before reaching a few items you reeeeeeeaaaaalllllly wanted to try.

We have a DFB-EXCLUSIVE Food & Wine Festival map that can help! Click here and you’ll be able to check it out and plan your trip!

You might also want to think about a little bit of an eating strategy when planning your route. One of our team members shared that they like to do a lap from Canada to Mexico for savory items, and then walk back the other way for dessert, ending up at the bridge by the time the fireworks start.

Don’t forget that there are some booths a little further away from the “main” World Showcase countries that you may want to visit (like The Fry Basket, which is close to Test Track). And remember that you can utilize the Friendship Boats to help you get around EPCOT without having to do all the walking.

Click here for a look at the best items under $5 at the Festival

10 — Can You Share Some Items?

If you’re traveling in a group, we highly recommend talking about your Food & Wine Festival eating plans with your group BEFORE you arrive. Compare must-eat/drink lists with each other to see if there are some overlapping items. If there are, discuss whether or not you might be able to share those items.

Sharing dishes can help you save money and stomach space! That could enable you to have a little bit more cash to use on other items you want to try.

On the flip side, if you’re envisioning sharing everything but one member of your group wants their own portion of a specific item, clearing that up in advance can help you avoid any complications during your time in the park.

Click here to take a look at Spaceship Earth’s limited-time look for the Festival

11 — Eat to the Beat Concert Dining Packages

During the Food & Wine Festival, the signature entertainment offered is the Eat to the Beat Concert Series. This series brings in local talent from Tuesday to Thursday, and more internationally recognized talent from Friday to Monday. Some of the more popular performers include Boyz II Men, Sugar Ray, 98°, and Hanson. The concerts are offered nightly at 5:30PM, 6:45PM, and 8PM.

You can watch these concerts for FREE (with your EPCOT admission), but the seating can fill up fast for certain popular performers. That means you might need to get in the standby line pretty early if you want to secure a good spot for those.

If you’d rather not have to wait in the standby entrance and want to make sure you get a great seat for a popular performer you’re hoping to see, an Eat to the Beat Dining Package might be the way to go! With these dining packages, you pay a certain amount (depending on the restaurant you choose) to dine at a participating EPCOT restaurant and also get reserved seating for one Eat to the Beat concert showing that night. If you have your heart set on seeing a particular performer and are worried their shows could get really busy, this could be something to opt for.

Our advice is to figure out whether you want/need an Eat to the Beat Dining Package WELL ahead of your trip. Reservations are available now and can be made 60 days in advance. Take a look at who is performing during the days you’ll be there, and then think about whether you really want to see them, whether you’re willing to wait in the standby line for them, and whether a dining package will be “worth it” for you. Then, discuss the situation with your group to make sure everyone is on board.

And keep in mind that if you’re looking for a cheap option, you may be able to score a day-of dining package at Regal Eagle Smokehouse: Craft Drafts & Barbecue, but only a limited number of dining packages are available there. Click here to learn more about the dining packages and what they include.

Click here to see the concerts you’ll DEFINITELY want a dining package for

12 — Get a Festival Passport

One of the best souvenirs at EPCOT’s Food & Wine Festival is actually FREE! It’s the Festival Passport! You’ll typically find these at the front of the park as well as at various spots throughout the park.

What’s great about these passports (aside from the fact that they’re totally free) is that they contain pages detailing the food items available at each booth, some of the merchandise you can find, and other helpful details about the Festival. It’s a nice, tangible, and helpful item you can keep in your hand as you stroll through the park. You can cross out items you try on there or otherwise make notes if you need to.

Plus, the Passport is where you’ll get stamps if you’re working on the Festival’s Cheese Challenge — Emile’s Fromage Montage.

Once you get at least 5 stamps, you can take your Passport to the appropriate booth to collect your prize!

Get a look at the Festival passport here!

13 — Download the My Disney Experience App

Another tool you’ll want to bring with you to the Festival is the My Disney Experience app. It’s an app you can download on your mobile device. While the app is incredibly helpful for all kinds of things in Disney World (use of Genie+, making mobile orders, etc.) it can also be good for Festivals!

Within the app, you can find a section about the Food & Wine Festival.

Once you select that, you’ll be able to see more about the music, food, and other offerings available.

If you like to keep things mobile, this is a good way to take a look at the food booth menus digitally.

Plus, you’ll be able to see allergy-friendly menus which might be particularly helpful for those with specific dietary restrictions.

Overall, it’s a helpful tool you’ll want for your Disney World trip as a whole, but don’t forget to use it during the Festival too!

14 — Scope Out the Festival Merchandise in Advance

As we talked about with the Festival food and making a list of must-buy items in advance, it can be helpful to do the same for Festival merchandise.

If you take a look at the merchandise in advance, you can pick out which items you might really want to buy, develop a budget for your merch haul, and then not be as surprised when you arrive and end up spending a decent sum of money on that Loungefly bag you just had to buy.

Click here for a full view of ALL the merchandise at the Food & Wine Festival

15 — Avoid Certain Days

And finally, if you really want to take some stress out of your Festival visit, try (if you can) to avoid visiting the Festival on Fridays and the weekends. These are the times/days when Orlando locals are more likely to make their way over to the park to enjoy the Festival, making EPCOT even MORE crowded than it might already be.

If you can visit during the weekdays, that can help you potentially get some shorter lines at the food booths. Arriving early can also help you knock out some booths before bigger crowds arrive. Just keep in mind that the Festival booths generally do not open until around 11AM each day.

Check out the opening weekend crowds from the Festival here

And those are our tips to suck the stress OUT of your Food & Wine Festival trip! We’ll continue to provide you with tips and tricks that can help your Festival trips and Disney World trips in general so stay tuned for more on that!

What is your best tip for the Food & Wine Festival? Tell us in the comments.

The post 15 Ways to Make Your EPCOT Food and Wine Festival Visit Less Stressful first appeared on the disney food blog.