Food & Wine Festival 2019 Saving Tips

[Puer Aeternus]

Hello everyone,

My partner and I have planned an impromptu trip to Food and Wine Festival coming up in a few weeks due to needing to use some of our DVC points before we lose them for the year. This will be our first time going and I was wondering if anyone had any helpful money savings tips for Food and Wine Festival. I'm completely unfamiliar with what the experience is like and was hoping to be able to sample a lot of different types of things there without breaking the bank. Any help or tips will be deeply appreciated.

Solomon

 

[DLgal]

Fun! But, "money saving" and "Food & Wine Festival" don't really go together. It is expensive. My recommendation is to NOT buy any alcohol from the food booths. Portions are tiny and very expensive. If you want to drink, hit up the other locations in WS that are always there. You will at least get full sized drinks there.

For the food, try and scope out portion sizes ahead of time, so you can see which ones are better for sharing. SHARE EVERYTHING. This way you can taste a lot without getting too full.

 

[Marionnette]

Hello everyone,

My partner and I have planned an impromptu trip to Food and Wine Festival coming up in a few weeks due to needing to use some of our DVC points before we lose them for the year. This will be our first time going and I was wondering if anyone had any helpful money savings tips for Food and Wine Festival. I'm completely unfamiliar with what the experience is like and was hoping to be able to sample a lot of different types of things there without breaking the bank. Any help or tips will be deeply appreciated.

Solomon

Buy Disney gift cards at a discount over their face value. Use them to pay for you F&W purchases. It also helps you to set a limit on your spending because once the gift card is empty, you’re done spending.

 

[Puer Aeternus]

Fun! But, "money saving" and "Food & Wine Festival" don't really go together. It is expensive. My recommendation is to NOT buy any alcohol from the food booths. Portions are tiny and very expensive. If you want to drink, hit up the other locations in WS that are always there. You will at least get full sized drinks there.

For the food, try and scope out portion sizes ahead of time, so you can see which ones are better for sharing. SHARE EVERYTHING. This way you can taste a lot without getting too full.

Thanks for the help! Neither of us are big drinkers so we should end up being okay on that part. Some of the specialty drinks do look interesting though but we'll make sure to go for those sparingly. It is absolutely my hope to be able to taste a lot without filling up!

Solomon

 

[Puer Aeternus]

Buy Disney gift cards at a discount over their face value. Use them to pay for you F&W purchases. It also helps you to set a limit on your spending because once the gift card is empty, you’re done spending.

Thanks for the help! The idea of using gift cards sounds great for setting some clear limits. Where do we go to buy Disney gift cards at a discount over their face value?

Solomon

 

[luvdisney00]

Thanks for the help! The idea of using gift cards sounds great for setting some clear limits. Where do we go to buy Disney gift cards at a discount over their face value?

Solomon

BJ's, Sams or Costco has them.

 

[Hikergirl]

I haven't been in a couple years so I don't know if it is still offered but if it is it it helps save some.
I bought a package that included vouchers for the booths. I can't remember how many, I think it came with 16.
Dh and I used them for the most expensive options- mostly the specialty drinks. At the time I think if the cost of the food/drink was more than $6 using the voucher was worth it. Most of the drinks were in the $9 range so it was really nice to be able to use them on alcohol.
I used discounted GCs to purchase the vouchers so that was even more savings.

 

[tzolkin]

There's an app for your phone that you can download in advance and select all your "wishlist" foods and drinks. It will give you a total cost of all the items that you have selected, so it's a good way to get an idea of budget.

Are you planning to go over the course of several days? We found that we could only eat a fraction of the items we thought we would so unless we went back multiple days we would have spent way less than we had anticipated. The first time we went we only made it through a few countries before we were completely full (and we were sharing all the items between two adults and two teenagers, so we only had a bite or two to try each item)

We enjoy craft beer so we always try all of the beer flights, but we don't do any of the more expensive specialty drinks.

 

[striker1064]

I'm more impressed that you were able to spring an impromptu DVC trip this close to F&W. That's impressive.

 

[Searc]

I haven't been in a couple years so I don't know if it is still offered but if it is it it helps save some.
I bought a package that included vouchers for the booths. I can't remember how many, I think it came with 16.
Dh and I used them for the most expensive options- mostly the specialty drinks. At the time I think if the cost of the food/drink was more than $6 using the voucher was worth it. Most of the drinks were in the $9 range so it was really nice to be able to use them on alcohol.
I used discounted GCs to purchase the vouchers so that was even more savings.

They don't have those anymore.

 

[Hikergirl]

They don't have those anymore.

That figures, get rid of anything that actually helps save people some money

 

[eculmone]

Hello everyone,

My partner and I have planned an impromptu trip to Food and Wine Festival coming up in a few weeks due to needing to use some of our DVC points before we lose them for the year. This will be our first time going and I was wondering if anyone had any helpful money savings tips for Food and Wine Festival. I'm completely unfamiliar with what the experience is like and was hoping to be able to sample a lot of different types of things there without breaking the bank. Any help or tips will be deeply appreciated.

Solomon

Did I hear, you should bring a tray as they don't have them? Do you suggest something that could fit in backpack... ? This is something I found very odd to hear. Our first time this Friday as well

 

[Marionnette]

Did I hear, you should bring a tray as they don't have them? Do you suggest something that could fit in backpack... ? This is something I found very odd to hear. Our first time this Friday as well

There are no trays at the food booths but you can purchase a snack tray at the festival merchandise booths for about $8. They also sell them at shopdisney.com

https://www.shopdisney.com/epcot-in...LsVnHjBun-kKkkU_d3hoCJi8QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

[holden]

Did I hear, you should bring a tray as they don't have them? Do you suggest something that could fit in backpack... ? This is something I found very odd to hear. Our first time this Friday as well

You really don't need the tray. We bought them and found it a pain to carry them around. We haven't used them since.

 

[UmmGooD]

We didn’t need a tray either.

We used snack credits for all the food at the festival as we already had the dining plan. It helped us use all those snack credits.

 

[twinklebug]

According to your countdown ticker, you're 3 days past arriving. (You should be on our October 2019 group thread!)

I see no one mentioned the F&W gift cards available inside EPCOT, if you plan on dining at any of the locations the $10 bonus pertains to it could be a nice discount.

 

[gottalovepluto]

—
OUT DATED THREAD hat tip @twinklebug