Aren’t you stoked that the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival is here?! (I know we sure are!)
EPCOT Food & Wine Festival
But even in all the excitement over all the food booths, the merch, and more, there has been this HUGE change at the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival has ultimately been an utter disappointment and we’ve gotta talk about it!
As we were saying, this year at the Food & Wine festival something big was supposed to happen — the grand unveiling of CommuniCore Hall as THE new festival space where we’d see the return of classic seminars, cooking demos, and those other interactive experiences that we’ve been missing for years. Well, spoiler alert. It hasn’t quite lived up to the hype.
CommuniCore Hall
The Promise of CommuniCore Hall
When Disney announced (way back when) that CommuniCore Hall was going to be the central hub for the Food and Wine Festival, it felt like the good ol’ days were making a comeback.
CommuniCore Concept Art ©Disney
Remember when we had those seminars where we learned from world-class chefs? And the cooking demonstrations where we got to see culinary magic happen right before our eyes?
Pam Smith and Chef Warren Brown
If you couldn’t tell, we were definitely ready for that nostalgia trip. Truly, the idea of having a dedicated space for these events again had us counting down the days until the festival began.
The Reality: A Bit of a Letdown
Well, when the festival started, we got… nothing. Instead of this lively and bustling hub we’d imagined, CommuniCore Hall turned out to be, more or less, just an empty space with a bit of festival merchandise and an indoor festival booth (Macatizers). No seminars. No demos. You do see a bit of festival branding in addition to the merchandise to remind you that, yes, you are at the Food and Wine Festival, but that’s about it.
Merchandise in CommuniCore Hall
Now, we’re left wondering, “Where’s the excitement and the energy?” Maybe we were mistaken, but CommuniCore Hall was supposed to be a vibrant part of the festival experience, not just another place to buy a t-shirt or a wine glass, so it kind of feels like a missed opportunity, especially after all the build-up.
Merchandise in CommuniCore Hall
To be honest, it feels like we were promised a throwback to the festival’s glory days and then it just didn’t deliver. We were all ready to embrace the return of those interactive experiences that made past festivals so special, and instead, we got what feels like an empty hallway. It’s a bummer, especially when so many of us were genuinely excited about what CommuniCore Hall could have been.
Merchandise in CommuniCore Hall
In the end, I’ll always love the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival. Overall, it’s still fantastic, and there’s plenty to enjoy, but I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed by CommuniCore Hall. It had so much potential to be a standout feature of this year’s festival, but instead, it’s just another space that’s pretty easy to walk right past without a second glance. Here’s hoping that next year, Disney brings back the seminars and demos and gives CommuniCore Hall the “magic” it deserves.
CommuniCore Hall
Trying to plan the PERFECT trip to the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival? We’ll be keeping you updated on all of the latest. Click our links below for the information you need to know:
- Learn about the Eat to the Beat Concert Series and Dining Packages
- Check out ALL of the 2024 Food & Wine Booth Menus
- One HUGE Change Is Coming to the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival!
Click here to see FULL reviews of EVERY. SINGLE. BOOTH. at the Food & Wine Festival!
And don’t forget to pick up our 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival e-book! See more details about the book below.
IT'S WINE & DINE TIME!
Food & Wine Festival can be a bummer. You stand in line waiting for what looks like the perfect treat, and it's a bust. But fear not, dear friends, we compiled EVERYTHING you need (and the things to avoid!) to plan the ULTIMATE EPCOT Food & Wine Festival experience.
If you're planning a day or a week at the festival, we've got every performance, activity, and tasty nosh detailed out so you can make the most of your time and money. Listen, it's a tough job eating and documenting the nearly 200 bites and sips, but we do it all for YOU!
Learn More About the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival!
Food and Wine Festival 101Eat to the Beat Concert Updates
EPCOT Food and Wine Festival - Fans Facebook Page
Wine and Dine Half Marathon Details
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Have you ever experienced the seminars and demos at Food & Wine festivals in the past? Tell us in the comments!
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I’m sadly not surprised. It feels like Disney is doing everything on the cheap, while still raising prices. Sooner or later, their empty promises are going to catch up with them…especially with Universal knocking it out of the park just down the street.
I joined DVC in 2011 (when it was MUCH cheaper to join) so going to Disney is actually more affordable to me than renting a condo at a beach somewhere, since I’m already paying for the room. But I can’t imagine roping in new lifetime fans who are willing to fork out that much money on the diminishing quality of experiences at a higher cost that they have been providing.
Maybe because they didn’t know for sure when it would be finished, they couldn’t get celebrity chefs, etc. in time. Just a thought. Maybe next year…..
I’m still hopeful that Disney will return the Epcot Food and Wine Festival to it’s former glory. In the meanwhile, it just isn’t worth it to take those 10-day to 2 week trips for the festival that I used to. Instead, I’m making much shorter Disney trips and using the remaining time to make trips to wine regions where I can actually taste great wine or going to restaurants where I can enjoy special meals that rival the best special dining the festival used to offer.
Call me overly optimistic, but i’m not ready to give up on CH just yet – it literally just opened this year and FaW was the first festival since it opened – check back a year from now and let’s see how things look….
Right there with you. We leave for Orlando this Wednesday 9/11. I was desperately hoping for a return to the days of seminars and special events. 🙁
This is the first time we’ve gone back to F&W since before COVID. We used to do F&W every year, but since 2018 or so, we usually go down for six weeks in December and January. The increase in price of the Incredipass drove us to the DVC discounted version, but the DVC discounted version now has black out dates for Christmas and New Years. There is little point in going over that stretch if we can’t enter the parks for two of the six weeks. So we’re going for just over two weeks now, and just over two weeks in late January.
Both this and the January trip are “assessment trips” for my wife and I. We are deciding whether to 1) re-up our Annual Pass in January (unlikely) and 2) whether to start selling off our DVC points (truly undecided on this front).
I gotta say, this is coming down in the column of a NO to the first, and puts a check in the YES column to the second. 🙁
I don’t think I can convince my wife to keep hanging on much longer, for things to “re-improve”, to pre-COVID standards, especially as the ticket prices have skyrocketed and the Genie/Lightening Lane horror show. She did DVC with me because of how much Disney means to me, but at a certain point — and at a certain PRICE point — sentiment only goes so far.
This sucks.
Absolutely not surprised at all. Disney has been “phoning it in” for years now. And it keeps getting worse instead of better. The problem is, whether it’s the parks, or their movies, they don’t seem to be listening to their creative teams or their fans. They are so obsessed with looking good on paper moneywise, but by cheapening everything, closing parks early (ie: Animal Kingdom), not maintaining rides, putting out badly written or thought out movies and tv shows, they are losing their customer base, which is costing them more money. They need to do the math. It takes money to make money!