Every year I look forward to one thing more than anything else at Disney World. That is the Food & Wine Festival. I grew up not understanding people’s love for EPCOT but as I got older, the Food and Wine Festival helped change that. There is nothing quite like the ability to enjoy food and drinks from around the world in a single day and that festival boasts a lot of that. However, now that I live down here full time, I have come to appreciate the other festivals held at EPCOT every year.
The Festival of the Holidays is fantastic and allows you to experience different cultures holiday celebrations. The Flower and Garden Festival is beautiful and is the favorite event of many people I know. Finally, we are in the midst of the Festival of the Arts. Last year was my first year attending this festival but after going again this year with Molly and filming new videos, I realized how underrated this festival is.
The Festival of the Arts gets the least love online of the four festivals and perhaps that has to do with timing. The festival runs from January 17th to February 24th. This time of year is not a heavy crowd level time period. It is right after the holidays which is one of if not the busiest time of year at Walt Disney World and takes place during the school year. Regardless, I personally realized the other day just how great of a time it is.
This year is only the fourth time this festival has occurred and I am hopeful it continues to gain stronger and stronger support from guests as they visit this time of year. The festival boasts some of the best artists around the globe as they set up galleries around world showcase. These are all different and unique artists given free reign to use both the Disney name and it’s characters alike in their art pieces. These booths are to me the highlight of the festival and conversing with some of the artists is always a good time.
However, the booths are not the only reason why this festival is great. Over a span of six weeks of the festival, various performers from Disney on Broadway’s award winning shows perform live on stage. Dining packages are available to purchase during these shows and they are all great performances.
Another great thing about this festival are the interactive elements. You can contribute to paintings, create your own glass work, create spinning paintings and more. It is a fully interactive and fun festival to simply walk around and take in talent from all over. Its focus is not just the food and drinks and, although it is good and unique, that is not why I personally enjoy it.
Your vacation is a vacation at the end of the day. So many Disney vacations end up being exhausting for families and it should not be about that. Grab a drink and enjoy a walk around World Showcase. Take your time and enjoy every piece of artwork you see. Watch some Broadway performers or interact with artists while taking in a show or demonstration.
Visit the Festival of the Arts in a future visit to take in all of these great aspects of it. Molly and I went the other day and put together a video of our experience. We highlight a lot of what I spoke about in this article within the video and go over some great things to check out. Check that out below:
Thanks for reading and watching about the Festival of the Arts and I hope you get a chance to visit at some point in the future. This festival is very underrated and my hope is it becomes more and more well known. For more from Molly and I, visit our youtube channel where we post weekly videos covering Disney, Universal and more travel adventures. We are also on Facebook and Instagram and hope to see you soon! Please continue to read The Disney Blog and follow along for more adventures.
It takes time for something to grow to a point that people stop saying “underrated”. The Food & Wine Festival during its fourth year was not the adored event that it is today. Events then grow and people reminisce about how enjoyable they were before they become popular and crowded…so enjoy it.
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