As a birthday present to myself, I finally got to experience the one remaining Epcot festival I was missing: Festival of the Arts! I think it’s my favorite of the Epcot festivals. For this whirlwind weekend trip, it was just DD13 and I. We took a flight out of NYC early Friday evening and were in our Dolphin room by a bit after 10pm.
Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early to start stacking LLs for HS in the late afternoon and on. (I bribed DD13 to come along on this 80% food trip with the prospect of her favorite rides at her favorite Disney park). HS really is the ideal park to stack LLs for since SDD LLs are one of the few LLs that progress past the start of park hopping that early in the day. Once the first LL was taken care of, we walked over to Epcot and were waiting at International Gateway by 7:40am for Early Entry at 8:30am. We were pretty close to the front of the pack and we STILL didn’t finish with Remy till ~8:50am. Craziness.
Since Festival food booths don’t open till 10:30/11:00am, we shared a breakfast from the To Go Window of the Creperie (Crepes A Emporter):
Bechamel, Ham, and Cheese Galette
While we waited for food booths to open, we meandered around different pavilions looking for both Disney Character chalk art and Figments for his scavenger hunt. We also had fun with the photo ops from famous paintings and magic shots exclusive to the festival.
First food booth stop: The Deconstructed Dish
We basically bought their entire menu. LOL. And enjoyed it with a picturesque view of the water. And Stargate.
Deconstructed French Onion Soup (Beef Broth Ravioli, Gruyere Cream, Onion Bread Pudding, and Onion Textures), Deconstructed Key Lime Pie (Flexible Key Lime Curd, “Key Lime” Mousse, Graham Cracker Cake, and Meringues), Deconstructed BLT (Pork Belly, Soft-poached Egg, Onion Bread Pudding, Watercress Espuma, and Tomato Jam), and Deconstructed Apple Pie a la Mode (Apple Cinnamon Gelato, Cinnamon Apple Cider, Apple Pie Filling, and Streusel)
Next Up: Moderne
Angry Crab (Whole Crispy Soft-Shell Crab with Green Papaya Salad, Mango Sriracha Fluid Gel, Coconut Lime Foam with Pomegranate and Mango Crush Pearls) and the Tropics (Lilikoi Mousse, Guava Cake, Coconut Cremeux, Compressed Pineapple, and Mango Gel)
Pan Seared Scallops (with Vanilla Butternut Squash Puree, Brown Butter Cauliflower Puree, and Lime Foam)
Strangely enough, we were pretty stuffed after just 2 booths so we walked around World Showcase. I had the Purple Yuzu Sake Lemonade (Sake Cocktail infused with Butterfly Pea Flower and Yuzu Lemonade) before we left Epcot to park hop over to HS.
By 2:31pm, I had these beauties lined up:
Yes, it wasn’t initially ideal to have RnR separated from ToT as we would have to backtrack. I didn’t have any luck modifying ToT to a closer time to RnR (I later found out that only half the elevators were running- maybe that’s why LLs for ToT were so scarce?). But in retrospect, having RnR and ToT separated by a few hours was for the best as I needed time to recover from RnR. I did it once several years ago but didn’t think it was worth the headache and faint nausea afterwards. However, it’s one of DD13’s favorite rides and she didn’t want to do it alone. So off I went.
But first stop in HS: Backlot Express for a snack. I was hoping for the original version of the Wookie Cookie but no luck. I had those chunky things again.
Begrudingly tasty but I still wanted something more akin to an oatmeal creme pie. This wasn’t it. We also got fries and a Glimmer and Shimmer Blondie.
After RnR, SDD, TSMM, RotR, and ToT (and some window shopping and a stop at Walt’s Dream), we rode the skyliner back to Epcot. In the meantime, I tried to grab a LL for TT (to negate the need for Genie+ the following day) but although additional LLs did drop at the times listed by Liners, the times were too close and wouldn’t give us enough time to travel back to TT from HS.
Once we returned to Epcot, we made a beeline back to the front of the park so that I could obtain a few coveted nighttime Festival magic shots (that were only available at the front entrance). We then speed walked back through World Showcase towards the America pavilion to catch the last Disney on Broadway show for the night. As we were walking, we passed several food booths that had almost no line so I thought, “Awesome! We should be able to grab a light dinner from the Japan booth and make it in time for the concert!”
The queue for the Japan booth, Goshiki, was unfortunately PACKED. But we were already there and our stomachs were anticipating their menu. So we waited. And waited. This was our bounty:
Ichigo Daifuku (Mixed Berry Mochi, Sweet Azuki Bean Paste, and Mascarpone)
And a tiny Rainbow Katsu Sando (Pork Cutlet Sandwich with Tangy Tonkatsu Sauce and Cabbage in Rainbow Sweet Bread)
If I had known ahead of time that the Rainbow Katsu Sando was going to be so small, I would’ve also bought the Sushi Donut. But I didn’t want to wait on that crazy line again so I just ran over to the Funnel Cake stand to obtain the Mocha Funnel Cake (Mini Funnel Cake with Cappuccino Ice Cream topped with Chocolate Whipped Cream and M&Ms).
We were only a few minutes late to the start of the concert and were thankfully able to nab some seats easily. It was a great way to end the evening: munching on festival foods while listening to Mandy Gonzalez and L. Steven Taylor. After the concert, we left before Harmonious. I would’ve liked to watch it but DD13 was extremely tired and truthfully, so was I. So we took the boat back to rest up for our last day, where we would have to make up for our lackluster food booth performance. 
