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It’s almost here! In July, the 2021 EPCOT Food and Wine Festival will begin! And we’ll be hitting up all the food booths and checking out all the festival activities and reporting in!

That means it’s time to get prepared! When we hit the festival, there are certain things we ALWAYS bring along — and so we thought we’d share our must-bring festival list with you!

Food Trays

So when you visit all the booths, you get small plates of your food, plus drinks, and um…how are you going to carry all of that to a table to eat? That’s where having a small tray to put everything on comes in SUPER HANDY. And although you can often buy trays at the festival, but why not save yourself some $$$ and bring one from home?

Or even better, you can make your own DFB Food and Wine Festival Tray! Then you can rep your DFB love and save yourself from a potential foodies accident.

Find out how to make your own DFB Food and Wine Festival Tray HERE!

Reusable Utensils and Straw

Yes, you can get plastic utensils at the festival, but there are times when the machines run out (and Cast Members haven’t yet refilled them) and all you can get is a spoon, when what you really need is a knife (isn’t it ironic?). How to solve this conundrum? Bring your own reusable utensils and straws! Or buy a set in the parks. 

That’s right, some really COOL reusable utensils and straws, Disney just released a new set that you can use! And trust us, these work so much better than plastic utensils that can bend and break easily. Trust us — we’ve tested these out!

Read our full review of these new utensils here! 

Festival Passport

If you plan on visiting the festival on multiple days, be sure to keep track of your festival passport. It has all the food booths and menu items listed in it so you can check off what you’ve tried so far and what you haven’t. It’s the easiest way to remember what you’ve eaten! So don’t forget it for each trip to EPCOT.

The festival passport will also have a page for activities such as the Cheese Crawl, which you will get stickers for. You’ll need to have the completed page on hand to get your special prize! And if you need to grab one — they’re readily available around EPCOT.

Read all about the Food and Wine Cheese Crawl here! 

Water Bottle

We typically push free water here at DFB because we don’t want you to have to pay outrageous amounts for bottled water. And you’ll need to stay hydrated at the festival (especially if you’re drinking the boozy stuff). But did you know that their are also water bottle refill stations around the park? We like to use these so we don’t have to wait in line for cups of water.

If you’re like us, we recommend having a handy water bottle, like this collapsible one. Then, it saves time and space!

Battery Pack/Mobile Charger

You’ll be using your phone quite a bit at Disney World, checking the My Disney Experience app AND taking photos of all the amazing food and drinks you’ll be trying out. So it’s important to make sure you have a way to charge your phone when it runs out of juice. This is why we bring a battery pack or mobile charger with us!

Although Fuel Rods are still available at the parks (and are a good option), we sometimes bring own charger from home, like this Anker PowerCore 10000.

Rain Gear and/or Jacket

Welcome to Florida, where there may not be any rain in the forecast, but hey, it’s raining anyway. Florida is notorious for little pop-up rainstorms that could quite literally ruin your day, especially as you’ll be eating outside during the festival. But if you bring the appropriate rain gear, you’re already well-prepared.

We typicaly suggest saving some money and purchasing an inexpensive poncho at home. But we know sometimes people forget or they buy the Mickey Ponchos in the parks. We did a full review recently so you can see if they are worth the upcharge! 

No matter which poncho you choose, you will wish you had one when Florida’s random summer showers show up. And there’s a bonus here — EVERYONE else who didn’t plan ahead for the rain will be heading for shelter, making lines at the booths shorter! SCORE! Also, you can have cooler mornings, warmer days, and cooler nights during the fall festival dates, so having a jacket on hand can come in handy for that, too!

A Tide Pen

When you’re juggling multiple plates of food and drinks during the day, messes are going to happen. That’s just how things go. But unless you want to run around with food stains on your clothes for the rest of the day, we recommend bringing a Tide Pen because those things will take a stain out quickly!

By the way, this goes DOUBLE if you have kids because stains WILL happen. But if you’re prepared, they’re not as much of a problem!

Festival Gift Cards

If you happen to purchase festival gift cards to make purchases at booths easier, don’t forget to keep bringing them back with you each day you attend the festival! Because they are so easy to set down somewhere and forget, and then you don’t have your main method of payment on hand when you need it!

This goes for any of your preferred method of payments, whether that be a MagicBand, credit card, or cash. But with the gift cards, we like the ones that have the cord that allows you to hang them around your wrist. Although you could always keep them in a lanyard, too!

These are just eight things that we make sure to have on-hand when we visit the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival, so we hope that these are things that will help you have some great festival days, too! And as always, stay tuned because we’ll keep sharing all our tips and tricks with you!

Here’s The Confirmed Entertainment for the 2021 EPCOT Food and Wine Festival

What’s your absolute must-have for the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival? Share it with us in the comments!

The post 8 Things We Always Bring to the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival first appeared on the disney food blog.