The EPCOT Food & Wine Festival has kicked off, and we’ve been trying ALL the food, and checking out the entertainment, and just enjoying the whole vibe of festival time.

However, this year’s festival is drastically different from previous years in one way. Over the past several years, the EPCOT Food & Wine festival has started earlier, generally in July, but this year, the festival was pushed back to begin in August (like it was before 2020). You might not think that would have a huge impact on the festival itself, but we’ve noticed a HUGE difference that this one month has made.

Okay, let’s take a look at the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival in 2023. This festival began on July 27th and ran through November 18th, 2023. One of the things that you’ll notice is that EPCOT was SUPER crowded on opening day.

By comparison, this year’s EPCOT Food & Wine Festival, which started a month later this year, was shockingly devoid of crowds. In fact, it was probably one of the easiest festival experiences we’ve had in YEARS. Look at the difference! It’s WILD.

In previous years, we also had to deal with some seriously long lines at the food booths on opening day.

But this year, walking up to the food booths and ordering our food was a breeze compared to last year. We could get used to this! The lines were relatively short.

We will also say that in previous years, shops were SO crowded with everyone trying to get their hands on exclusive festival merchandise. That also meant long lines at shops, too. This year, the shops were pretty relaxed and chill. We also didn’t see merchandise selling out so quickly.

It seems like opening the festival later in the year means fewer people attending on opening day. It makes sense, though. When the festival opened in July, it was during prime vacation season, when kids were generally out of school. With the festival being pushed back to late August, kids are back in school, and far fewer people are taking vacations.

All we can say is we think we prefer the festival being later in the year. We think this will probably be the new normal again in EPCOT, but we’ll have to see what Disney plans for next year.

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Stay tuned to DFB for more.

EVERYTHING You Need to Eat and Drink at the 2024 EPCOT Food and Wine Festival

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

The post WOW. One Month Makes a HUGE Difference in EPCOT. first appeared on the disney food blog.