I have been going to Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival many years now and this year there was alot of upset people for all the changes that have been done. The biggest is drink size the beer cups are now at least half the size of what they used to be! So you wait on a long line and only get ~5 ounces for $3 - $4.50… Also portion sizes also seem down from what they used to be. I haven’t been reading a ton on Food & Wine this year since I kind of knew we’d be there opening weekend, but man its a shame and it kept use away from it this year.
We chose to walk up to Biergarten Lunch instead, I haven’t been there in years and used to really not be a fan but wow… its really a pretty solid meal for what you get and I loved the Liter beers a little too much! I flipped totally now on my Biergarten feelings and highly recommend it… especially for lunch. Saturday it was $24.99 for lunch and the liter beer was $13. Compare that to outside which would be about 3 of those tiny samplers at F&W and a small beer for the same price.
Anyone who was at opening Food and Wine weekend feel the same? or am I getting grumpy(er) with age
The food portion sizes, relative the price, have been shrinking for years. I’ll usually eat someplace before and maybe try one or two interesting things from the booth. Same thing for the beer. After noticing a few years ago that a cup of Molson at the F&W was in the 4-5 dollar range, the same Molson I saw for 7.50 for a six pack (bottles) earlier that day at a grocery store I pretty much stopped buying beer at the F&W. In this day and age with so many specialty beer stores stocking so many unique brews I can’t really justify the prices at F&W. I still go to take in the atmosphere and I’ll occasionally try a beer or wine, but I think WDW is slowly going to strangle the goose that lays the golden eggs with the pricing. But we’ll see…
I’m not a beer drinker, but the other beverages are fantastic and well worth the price. I enjoyed both the watermelon juice (as agua fresca isn’t something that I get often) and the Frozen San Juan Breeze.
The portion sizes for the food at Puerto Rico were huge for the price except for the conch salad. We ordered one of all of the foods and between that, a couple items in Scotland, and a sushi roll in Japan, we were totally stuffed for a late lunch. The musician and dancer in Puerto Rico were also very neat to watch. The items in Scotland were average in size (no great bargain), but the hand roll in Japan was on par with what you’d pay at a normal sushi place.
The next day we went back, and in Germany it was hit and miss on serving sizes. The Bratwurst was very small for the price, but the Schinkennudeln was a HUGE serving for the price – we split it three ways and barely finished it.
Have never been to F&W but hope to try it one day. I’m glad you had a great Biergarten experience. It’s so refreshing to retry a place you didn’t love before only to find you like it now. I think you’ve inspired us to retry some places. That’s really too bad about F&W. I’ll adjust my expectations when I finally get to go, lol.
I auto backup my photos to Google+ or Drive and sometimes google just reads a series of similar pics and will make a gif of them or add in effects like snow or auto adjust them with brightness or other enhancements. For this it chose an almost painting like setting which to me make it look really good.
going to F&W on its last weekend in November. Maybe they will be more generous with portions then, lol. Or the opposite because they are running low on stuff. But since it’s my first time going, I will have no basis for comparison. Very interested in hearing other people’s reviews!
