It’s almost time! Time to eat and drink around the world and enjoy the BEST food EPCOT has to offer.

Yep, the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival starts soon: it begins on August 29th and runs through November 23rd. During the festival, you’ll have a chance to sample food and drinks from a TON of food booths all over World Showcase, as well as some new special festival foods at existing EPCOT eateries. Then there’s the Eat to the Beat concert series, where you can jam out with your favorite band while you wine and dine. If you’re attending the 2024 festival, we’ve got the best tips you may not know about!

So whether you’ve been to the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival before or if this is your first time at the festival, we’re sharing our best tips to guarantee you have a great time.

Plan ahead

We cannot stress the importance of planning ahead — yes, pick out what foods you want to eat BEFORE you get to the festival. Trust us, there are a TON of choices, and if you wait until you get to EPCOT and just try to wing it, you’re going to get overwhelmed fast AND you might miss out on things you really wanted to try.

The best way to make a game plan for the festival? Be sure to grab the DFB Food & Wine Festival Guide, which has everything you need to plan your time at the festival. We’ve got all the food booths listed out, and you can choose your priorities before you ever set foot in the park.

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BYOT (Bring Your Own Tray)+

If you’re planning on ordering multiple items from a food booth, you’re going to need a tray to carry them all. You can get inexpensive trays from Amazon, and trust us — this is a LIFESAVER. Unless you have extra helping hands, a tray will let you carry all the food and drinks you order. But it’s not the ONLY thing you need.

You’ll probably also want to bring your own reusable silverware. Why? Well, although plastic silverware is generally available around each booth, the dispensers occasionally run out (although they are refilled often). You’ll also just save time by bringing your own. We also highly recommend bringing reusable straws, too — Disney is doing away with plastic straws and if you don’t like drinking out of cardboard straws or the agave straws (that we think add a strange flavor to drinks), bring your own.

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Stay hydrated

Yes, we’re going to tell you to stay hydrated — are you surprised? This is always our biggest piece of advice when it comes to visiting Disney World. The Florida heat and humidity is NO JOKE — and you can start feeling the effects of it pretty fast. Drinking water will help you deal with the heat.

This is especially true, though, for the festival, especially if you’re drinking alcohol. If you’re drinking around the festival, you’ll dehydrate even faster, so it’s important to keep drinking water every chance you get. Bring a water bottle to the parks, fill it up at the water refill stations, and ask for that free cup of water at quick service locations.

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Buy Disney gift cards

You can get Disney gift cards before your trip or you can buy scannable gift cards on wristbands at the festival. If you buy a gift card for a certain amount, you can stick to that amount for your festival budget. This is a great way to make sure you don’t overspend (because it is VERY easy).

We particularly like the little gift cards on the wristbands because they are so convenient to use at the festival.

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Bring cash

Okay, so now that we’ve told you to bring a gift card, we’re also going to suggest you have some cash on hand…just in case. We’ve seen some of the credit card and gift card readers go down…usually during storms. During these times, cash is king for making those food and drink purchases.

Sure, you’ll find an ATM in the parks, but you’ll pay a hefty fee to use them. If you DO need an ATM, though, there are two in EPCOT: one near the World Showcase bridge (that bridge that leads to World Showcase from World Celebration) and one near the main EPCOT entrance.

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Don’t make reservations for dining

Yes, EPCOT has some incredible restaurants, but you do NOT want to eat at any of them during the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival. Why? Because then you’ll fill up and not be able to check out all the food booths you might want to visit. So we always suggest skipping the advance dining reservations and just eating around the festival instead.

There is SO much to eat at the festival, and you honestly don’t want to miss out on it by filling up at a restaurant. Le Cellier, Biergarten, and all those other great World Showcase restaurants will just have to wait.

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Don’t go on weekends

Whatever you do, try not to visit the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival on the weekends. This is when the locals go to the festival, meaning EPCOT will be extra crowded and chaotic. You’ll find yourself standing in long lines for food, and, yes, things have even been known to get a little rowdier than normal, particularly on weekend nights.

Visit the festival during the week instead — trust us, you’ll have a much more pleasant time with fewer crowds and shorter lines.

One HUGE Change Is Coming to the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival!

We hope these tips help you have a great time at the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival. And as always, stay tuned to DFB for more!

Click here for ALL the menus for the 2024 Food & Wine Festival

Will you be attending the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival this year? Let us know in the comments!

The post 7 Top Secret Tips for the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival first appeared on the disney food blog.