food IS a theme park
Happy 40th Birthday to Walt Disney World!
Lines were long for the special 40th Anniversary Cupcake available in the Magic Kingdom! Flavor choices were the classic chocolate or vanilla.
WDW 40th Anniversary Cupcake
Did you get to try one?
Just one more week until the Second Annual Swan and Dolphin Food & Wine Classic, which will take place Friday, October 7, and Saturday, October 8, 2011.
Check out loads of new menu photos and information here!
We’ve interviewed one of the head honchos (and Riesling Rendevous seminar teacher!) to give you a sneak peek into this year’s event — which has tripled in size!
As Assistant Director of Food & Beverage for the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin, Luciano is part of the leadership team responsible for planning and overseeing the execution of the Food & Wine Classic.
This year, look for 26 beverage booths and more than 11 food booths, including a new addition from the Garden Grove!
garden grove jumbo lump crab cake slider
The pastry booth alone will have eight to ten items to nosh on!
When guests requested more spirits, Cocktail 101 seminars were devised.
In these 15-minute seminars, you’ll learn how [Read more…]
We gave you a sneak peek of some of the Epcot Food and Wine Festival Merchandise here, but, as usual, there are a few more pieces added in once you arrive at the Festival Shop in the World Showcase!
As always, read all about the 2011 Epcot Food and Wine Festival, see booth menus and photos, and more, on our Epcot Food and Wine Festival pages!
Food & Wine Festival Coffee Mugs
The Food and Wine Festival Cookbook is extremely popular every year, and they only sell it for a limited time! Check out the UPC code below and order one! To order, call 407-363-6200 or email [email protected] to place an order.
2011 Food & Wine Festival Cookbook
Price and Code for Cookbook
And are we surprised to see [Read more…]
Thanks again to Vallen Tucker at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge concierge office for providing us with more exciting news about the Dine with an Animal Specialist experience and the Jiko Wine Tasting experience.
We have some great news to share about two brand new experiences at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge.
The Dine with an Animal Specialist program has been so successful that it will now be offered twice per week!
During the “untamed” lunch at Sanaa, your family will be immersed in African culture while posing questions to an animal expert regarding the animals on the beautiful savanna. Take a look at the delicious menu here.
Parts of the First Course Offerings
This dining experience has been in such high demand that it will be continued as an official offering that can be booked on Saturdays at Noon or Wednesdays at 11:30 am.
Cost
$49 adults
$29 children
Payment required in full at time of booking.
Reservations
The Saturday program begins October 1st and can be reserved now. Call 407-WDW-DINE (939-3463) to reserve!
In addition, the Wine Tastings at Jiko can now be reserved via Disney Dining. Read a guest review of a wine tasting here. [Read more…]
Beaches and Cream is a hidden gem at Disney’s Beach Club resort. With it’s 1950’s ambiance and comfortable diner atmosphere, dining here is a lot like coming home for some guests!
We rarely make a trip to Disney World without going to Beaches and Cream. Even though the food is pretty basic, it’s the most wonderful kind of basic I know!
I stopped into Beaches and Cream on a whim with friends last week and was delighted to see a couple of brand new desserts on the menu: the chocolate cake, and the apple and craisin pie. We had to try them…and order a couple of old favorites, too!
I love apples. I love pie. And I love Craisins. So this order just made sense!
The pie comes cold, which I was surprised at, and there’s no ice cream accompaniment, so if you’re a pie-and-ice-cream kind of person, be sure to order a scoop on the side.
Apple and Craisin Pie
The filling was very gooey, which made me think it was [Read more…]
Bring your smartphones to the 2011 Epcot Food and Wine Festival! There’s a new Food and Wine App! Just scan the QR code (looks like Spaceship Earth!) found on any of the booth menus at the festival.
2011 Caribbean Menu -- see the QR Code at the upper right
This app will give menus and prices for each booth, the videos we highlighted here, and recipes. Find out what events are being offered and if the event that interests you is still available or sold out. Look for concert schedules, food locations, and social media sharing tools.
QR code for Food and Wine App
Of course, we just have to mention that the Disney Food Blog is STILL your resource for World Showcase booth food photos — these are not yet available on the Disney app as far as we can tell! 😉 We’ve updated our individual booth pages with this year’s menu photos and pricing, too!
We’ll see you at the Festival!
During a short (and sweaty) walk about the “circle” today, I snapped some shots of the new Epcot Food and Wine Festival signs and booths that are starting to appear in World Showcase!
International Gateway Signage
Here are a few of the new booths this year: Hawaii, Caribbean, Portugal, and Craft Beers!
Hawaii Booth
Craft Beers Booth
Caribbean Booth
Portugal Booth
The booths this year have a “scan” function on the menu for your smartphone. As far as I can tell, it just uploads the menu to your smartphone. Will have to try it this [Read more…]
At the end of Commissary Lane, nestled in an unassuming soundstage-like building, is one of the most unique restaurants at Walt Disney World — Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater.
This restaurant will get you out of the hot Florida sunshine (or downpours if you’re here this week!), take you back in time, and provide a restful setting. Stepping inside, 1950s cars and kitsch will invite you to dine in an Imagineered drive-in at night time.
After being seated in your convertible car, the welcoming car hop will take your order while you watch classic clips from silly 1950’s horror flicks, cartoons, and news reels. Check out the snack bar commercials beckoning you to visit long-ago concessions stands for a truly vintage experience!
After glimpsing the new menu that was just unveiled last week (which features a burger + hot dog in one), we had to change up our trip reservations to stop by this restaurant in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Wouldn’t you?
After checking in with your reservation, you’ll start to get the idea of what this place is about. 1950’s movie references are all around you — even tucked into the nooks and crannies of the soundstage set around you!
Movie Posters in Entrance Area
B-Movie Props
After a (usually long, in my experience) wait, you’ll be taken “down the highway” into the main dining area and your table.
When you first walk into this incredible room, you’ll be bowled over. At least I always am! I just want to stare for a while at the realistic looking Drive-In theater environment…the sparkly shining convertible cars, the picnic tables in the back, the stars twinkling in the night sky… [Read more…]
Because we want you to know everything you need to know about this year’s Food and Wine Festival, we’ve created the DFB Mini-Guide to the 2011 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival e-Book, a new guide that covers the 2011 Epcot Food and Wine Festival from…well…soup to nuts!
Included in the book are critical tools like the Daily Schedule of Events covering every single day of the 45-day festival, customized Food & Wine Festival Touring Strategies for your family, and a full list of World Showcase food booths and menus — along with photos of many of the food items you can purchase there!
There’s much, much more included, and one of our favorite parts of the e-Book are our World Showcase Booth Crawls that we’ve invented!
Our booth crawls are the perfect enhancement to your itinerary. Choose between the Beer, Seafood, Continent, Classics, and Dessert Crawl. Or combine them for additional tasty touring!
In the Continent Crawl, you’ll sample a dish from each continent represented at the festival. Stops include Australia, Brazil, Caribbean Islands, China, Morocco, and France. It’s a culinary adventure!
In addition to the Crawls, you’ll have over 125 pages of organized information to customize your Festival day.
The DFB Mini-Guide to the 2011 Epcot Food & Wine Festival includes even more bonus items including indexes of all the events, menu items, booths, chefs and more!
But don’t take our word for it! See an Orlando Sentinel review of the DFB Mini-Guide to the 2011 Epcot Food and Wine Festival e-Book here!
Purchase your DFB Mini-Guide to the 2011 Epcot Food & Wine Festival e-Book here! Use code “CHEF” for your $2 discount!
What crawl will you follow? Let us know in the comments!
Great news on the Epcot Food and Wine Festival front!
We’re thrilled to see the Marketplace booth menus (with prices!) being posted on the actual booths! Not all of the menus are posted, yet, but we found a few to share with you today! Here’s an example of what the menus look like when they’re posted on the booths.
2011 Hawaii booth menu
Hawaii World Showcase Booth Menu 2011
These menus fill in the gaps about prices for the booth items, what’s vegetarian, and what items you’ll be able to purchase with snack credits this year! Now, you’ll know how much to budget for sipping and eating around World Showcase.
The following booth menus have been posted in the World Showcase so far this year. Click on the links to see the full menu with pricing, vegetarian items, and snack credit listings.
To see all of the marketplace booths being offered at this year’s festival, go to our Epcot Food and Wine Festival Booths and Menus Page.
Watch for more updates this week as we track down the latest Food and Wine news, and see our 2011 Epcot Food and Wine Festival pages for all of the details and latest news!
Our handy (and portable!) ebook guides make sure you get the best deals and can plan a vacation of a lifetime.
