Enjoy Crepes or Escargot in France

The Epcot International Food & Wine Festival is a yearly celebration of food and spirits from around the world, running in 2010 from October 1-November 14. This year, the festival is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and they’ve pulled out all the stops!

At the festival, you can try food, wine and beer at international booths situated around the Epcot World Showcase; attend free and low-cost seminars on food and wine with renowned chefs; and indulge in decadent meals from around the globe at culinary events at various Walt Disney World restaurants. Then you can top it all off with one of the nightly concerts – Sugar Ray, Air Supply and Boyz II Men are just a few artists who will visit the Epcot America Gardens Theatre stage.

Here’s more on what you can expect:

International marketplaces:
More than two dozen international booths will be set up around the World Showcase Lagoon, showcasing cuisine from around the world. Small plates will be available for purchase – some of which will be eligible as snack credits on the Disney Dining Plan. New this year is South Korea, Belgium, and Charcuterie and Cheese booths. You can also get a Marketplace Discovery Passport and receive stamps from all of the booths! Click here for Food and Wine Festival Booth Menus.

Free and low-cost events:
Culinary demonstrations and food and wine pairing seminars will be held daily for as little as $8 per person, with booking for the general public available Aug. 28 (Tables in Wonderland members and Annual Passholders can book on August 26th). And there are many free events to take advantage of, such as book signings and author meet and greets, bottle signings, short films and seminars. Click here for information onFood and Wine Festival free and low-cost events.

Special culinary events:
These more pricey events are for those wanting to truly indulge in a food experience for the senses. Booking for these events began on July 20, so hurry and get your spot reserved (call 407-WDW-FEST). Whether you’d like to get a taste of the festival before anyone else (Delicious Discoveries First Bites, Sept. 30, $195), experience a night with Cat Cora herself (Celebrating Family & Friends in the Kitchen at Kouzzina, Oct. 29, $140) or feed your cheese obsession (Cheese seminars, Saturdays, $75), there’s something for every foodie. Click here for 2010 Epcot Food and Wine Festival Special Events.

Eat to the Beat! Concerts:
Each night, various artists will play concerts at the Epcot America Gardens Theatre. Showtimes are 5:15 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. nightly. Taylor Dayne starts off the concert festivities from Oct. 1-3, while Big Bad Voodoo Daddy pulls up the rear from Nov. 12-14. In between are a host of artists such as Jon Secada, Taylor Hicks, Sister Hazel and more. Click here for the 2010 Eat to the Beat! Concert Schedule.

Hopefully that helps lay out what you can expect from the 2010 Epcot International Food and Wine Festival! You can keep you to date with the Disney Food Blog’s index page on the festival here! Or check out the 2010 Epcot Food and Wine Festival Guide and Map!

Be sure to follow us over on Twitter (@DisneyBasics) to discuss your Food and Wine Festival plans!

This post is part of the DisMarks.com Disney Blog Carnival! To read more great Disney posts or learn how you can be part of the carnival, click here!

36 holes may seem like a lot, and in fact both courses are charged in 18 hole increments. The current fee as of this writing is $12 for an adult and $10 for young children. So if you want to play all 36 holes, and adult would have to pay $24. While this may seem a bit steep, like everything in Disney World the price is justified by the excellent presentation and implementation. Also note that Annual Passholders can get discounts of up to 50%. Groups are spaced out so you may have to wait a few minutes to start your round, but generally the wait is not more than 30 minutes, even at peak times. An 18 hole round can take anywhere from about one to two hours in a typical case.

Fantasia Gardens

Fantasia Gardens is located within the Epcot Resort area. The first 18 holes, Fantasia Gardens are a fairly standard, if impressively themed mini-golf course. The second 18 holes, called Fantasia Fairways are more like a true golf course, except on a miniature scale. Fantasia Fairways is generally the more difficult of the two and may appeal more to full-scale golfers. In fact it was voted the longest and most difficult mini-golf course in the world by Golf Digest.

Winter Summerland

The story behind Winter Summerland is that it was built by Santa’s elves. The elves however had differing opinions on the preferable environment for the courses. Thus 18 holes of one course are in a summery setting, while the other 18 are in a wintry setting. Neither the Winter course nor the Summer course are as challenging as Fantasia Fairways and are intended more for casual mini-golfers.

Either of these courses can be an enjoyable activity if you’ve gotten worn out of the crowds in the parks. You can even reserve a tee-time for later in the day if you’re worried about the wait. Do be aware that there are no buses directly to the courses. However you can get near them either by taking the Blizzard Beach bus for Winter Summerland and the Swan & Dolphin bus for Fantasia Gardens. For those looking for a change of pace on their Disney vacation, these can be a great option.

Image Copyright Disney

Disney World has a wonderful perk for those staying in Disney’s on-property resort hotels: Extra Magic Hours. We speak about them briefly in our How to Create a Touring Plan section of our Guide to Disney World, but I’d like to go into a bit more detail today about one park in particular — Epcot.

There are lots of questions about how to make the best use of your Extra Magic Hours in Epcot, so here are our suggestions based on whether you’re visiting for Morning Extra Magic Hour, Evening Extra Magic Hours, or both:

Morning Extra Magic Hour

Morning Extra Magic Hour in Epcot offers Disney resort hotel guests access to some of Epcot’s most popular attractions for one full hour before scheduled opening time. Usually, this means you’ll be able to enter Epcot’s Future World (with your room key!) around 8:00am instead of the 9:00am opening time. Attractions available to guests at this time will be:

Living with the Land
Mission: SPACE
Soarin’
Spaceship Earth
Test Track

Don’t be concerned that World Showcase isn’t yet open; you’ll have plenty to cover with just Future World attractions, whose lines get extremely long later in the day and sometimes even during Evening Extra Magic Hours. For Morning Extra Magic Hour at Epcot, arrive 15 to 30 minutes prior to the gates opening. Once you show your key card and go through the gates, head straight to Soarin’ — this is Epcot’s most popular ride. If fastpasses are available, get a fastpass, then choose to either ride Soarin’ without the fastpass (then come back later to ride with your fastpass) or head over to Test Track for a spin around the racetrack! Once you hit those two rides, proceed along to your other favorites! You should be able to cover all of the “big ticket” attractions within two hours if you make good use of your Extra Magic Hour!

Evening Extra Magic Hours

Epcot’s evening extra magic hours usually extend for three hours after the park officially closes to non-resort guests; most of the time, this means you’ll have access to the following attractions from 9pm to midnight:

The American Adventure in the American Pavilion
Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros in the Mexico Pavilion
Honey, I Shrunk the Audience
Journey Into Imagination With Figment
Living with the Land
Maelstrom in the Norway Pavilion
Mission: SPACE
Soarin’
Spaceship Earth
Test Track

You’ll see that the World Showcase pavilion attractions have now been added into the mix! Our ideal use of Extra Magic Hours in Epcot is to hit the Future World attractions during morning Extra Magic Hour and save the World Showcase attractions — and shopping your way through the World Showcase — for evening Extra Magic Hours! Why? Because fastpass is usually unavailable during evening Extra Magic Hours. This makes getting a ride on Soarin’ and Test Track very difficult; while parks might not be as crowded as they are during the day, it’s still a safe bet that the majority of the park’s attendees that evening still want to ride Soarin’ and Test Track!

Your best bet in the evening: stick to less popular rides until the very end of the evening when most guests have headed home to bed. That’s when it’s most probably that the lines for major rides have shrunk.

Summary

• Arrive early — even for Extra Magic Hour mornings
• Try to ride all “big ticket” attractions during morning Extra Magic Hour, when fastpass is working and lines haven’t yet built up
• Save less popular attractions, shopping, and exploring World Showcase for Evening Extra Magic Hours

Epcot is a fun and exciting theme park for all guests, but creative and skillful use of Extra Magic Hours can make your visit much more enjoyable!

This blog post is part of the DisMarks Disney Blog Carnival! There are lots more great Disney blog posts and articles there, so check them out!

Check here for ride wait times!

Disney currently has a ticket system called “Magic Your Way.” Much like Burger King’s famous tagline, this ticket system has been created so that you can customize the tickets “your way.”

The system begins with a basic “base” ticket. This ticket allows the ticketholder to gain entrance to one Disney World park, for one day. You can then pay more to build individual “options” onto this base ticket. We’ll discuss those more in the section on ticket type.

NUMBER OF DAYS
How many days will you need to gain admittance to the parks? Consider:

• How many days will you be in the Orlando area?
• Do you want to go to a park on the day you arrive and/or the day you leave Orlando?
• Do you want to visit the WDW parks every single day you’re in Orlando, or will you be taking days to visit other theme parks in the area (Universal, Sea World, etc.)?

Once you’ve got this narrowed down, it should be clear how many days you’ll plan to go through the entry gates at a Disney World theme park during your vacation.

Here are the add-ons you can consider purchasing to customize your base ticket:

• Park Hopper Option: “Park Hopping” is a term Disney uses for going to more than one park in one day. For example, if you wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom in the morning and Epcot in the afternoon, that would be considered “hopping” between two parks.

  Adding the Park Hopper Option on your ticket means that you can “hop” between the four Disney World theme parks as often as you’d like throughout your stay at Disney World.

• No Expiration Option: If you don’t purchase the no-expiration option, your Disney World ticket–and all the days you’ve paid for–will expire 14 days after you first use the ticket. This means that if you purchase a 7-day ticket and only go to the parks for one day, the remaining 6 days you’ve paid for will expire 14 days after the day you visited the park the first time. Unfortunate, but true.

  Should you purchase the no-expiration option, however, those 6 unused days can be used anytime you want–even years from now. It seems like a good deal, but it’s a better deal make a really good estimate of how many days you want to spend in the parks and save the cash on the no-expiration option!

• Water Park Fun and More Option: This option gets you free admission to Disney World’s two water parks (Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon), DisneyQuest Indoor Interactive Theme Park (basically a giant arcade), Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex, and Disney’s Oak Trail Golf Course for your stay.

Other Ticket Types:
While most visitors to Disney World choose to purchase Magic Your Way tickets, there are a few other ticket types that might be right for you:

• Annual Passes: An annual pass is just that–a ticket that gets you into the Disney World theme parks every day for a year. These can be pricy ($469 at the moment), but if you’re planning to take more than one trip to Disney World, be in the parks (with park hopping) for more than 12 days, or want to take advantage of several of the annual passholder discounts and perks, it might make sense to consider purchasing an annual pass. Here’s a breakdown to determine if an annual pass might be right for you.

  Remember that even if you only go to Disney World once a year, if you schedule your trips 51 weeks apart, you can still use your annual pass for both trips. For example, if you go on vacation the second week of May 2009, simply schedule your next vacation for the first week in May 2010 and you don’t have to purchase tickets again as your annual pass will still be valid!

  NOTE: Disney World also offers what they call a “Premium Annual Pass.” This costs about $150 more than the Annual Pass, but allows unlimited entry to the DisneyQuest Indoor Interactive Theme Park, the two Disney Water Parks, and Disney’s Oak Trail Golf Course.

• Florida Resident and Seasonal Passes: If you are a Florida Resident, you could have the option to purchase seasonal annual passes and other discounted tickets. Check this Florida Resident page on the Disney website for more information.

PRICE:
“The longer you stay, the less you pay, per day.”
You’ll hear Disney advertising its tickets by saying, “The longer you stay, the less you pay, per day.” This means that Disney’s Magic Your Way ticket system is priced in a tiered system–you’ll pay $75 for the first day in a park, $74.50 for your second day, $70.67 for the third day, and so on. By the time you get to ten days, you’re paying only $23.70 for that tenth day in the parks. This is simply a marketing effort to get you to visit Disney World for more days than you might have originally planned (“Hey! Why not stay an extra day? It only costs $23 bucks!”), but it’s a good one!

Here’s the breakdown for an adult ticket to give you an idea of how the system works:
COST TOTAL COST
1 Day Ticket: $75.00 $75.00

2 Day Ticket: $74.50 $149.00

3 Day Ticket: $70.67 $212.00

4 Day Ticket: $54.75 $219.00

5 Day Ticket: $44.40 $222.00

6 Day Ticket: $37.50 $225.00

7 Day Ticket: $32.57 $228.00

8 Day Ticket: $28.88 $231.00

9 Day Ticket: $26.00 $234.00

10 Day Ticket: $23.70 $237.00

Discounted Tickets: Although most retailers are NOT authorized to sell discounted Disney tickets, there are a few–like Undercover Tourist, Maple Leaf Tickets, and AAA–that are out there.

My trusted, pretty much unbiased source for legally discounted Walt Disney World tickets is this Discounted tickets in a nutshell page on Mousesavers.com. Another great link to find discounted tickets is this Associated Content page.

Just as an FYI: Here is Mousesavers’ discount tickets page in full. This is a LOT of info (which is why I gave you the “nutshell” page above), but can be very informative if you have the time to read it.

That’s pretty much the skinny on ticket-purchasing! If you have questions or comments, please let me know.

Epcot's Spaceship Earth

“When to go to Disney World” is an important question, affected by both personal and external factors. Personal things, like when your kids have school breaks, when you can take vacation from work, and how your finances fluctuate greatly impacts when you can head out to WDW. While I can’t help with any of that, I CAN help you to consider the external factors:

WEATHER: Weather in Orlando fluctuates between 50 and 95 degrees farenheit, with humid, HOT summers and pleasant, cool winters. The Atlantic Ocean’s hurricane season is in effect from about June through November each year, though Orlando is far enough inland that it escapes most landfalls. Hurricanes bring heavy rains and winds, however, and have caused many Orlando vacationers to cancel; consider travel insurance when booking trips during August, September, and October.

That said, the best times of year to visit WDW weather-wise are Autumn, Winter, and Spring. Personally, I enjoy weather that’s warm enough that I can go for a swim, but not so sweltering that I’m sweating all day. That kind of weather happens most often in October and April/May.

CROWDS: No doubt about it, Disney World can get crowded! Many of us have horrible memories of visiting the Magic Kingdom during the summer or Spring Break, standing in two-hour lines in the hot sun, pretty much bored out of our minds. The rest of us live in fear of having that experience.

• Avoid School Breaks: This will be tough if you have kids or if you don’t want to take your kids out of school for your vacation. However, if this isn’t the case for you, visiting while USA public schools are in session is the number one way to avoid crowds at Disney World. Basically, NO=Summer, Spring Break, and Christmas; YES=Autumn, January-February, and May. Here’s a great (and SIMPLE) list of the most and least crowded times at Walt Disney World.
• Avoid USA Holidays: The parks fill up during three-day weekends, so try to avoid the major ones: Martin Luther King day in January, President’s Day in February, Memorial Day in May, 4th of July, Labor Day in September, Columbus Day in October, Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving in November, and Christmas in December. Here’s another great list of USA Holidays for several years out.

SPECIAL AND SEASONAL EVENTS: Disney World is no stranger to a celebration and is known for its seasonal events. Here are a few of my favorites to help you as you consider when to visit:

• Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival: This is a fantastic seasonal event, which runs from late September through mid-November. International foods and wines have the spotlight as Epcot’s World Showcase is transformed into a wonderland of new tastes, sights, and sounds. It’s lots of fun, and can be enjoyed by any Epcot visitor. You can also purchase tickets to special Food and Wine Festival events, wine pairing dinners, and show dinners with famous chefs!
• Epcot’s Flower and Garden Festival: Epcot is again transformed, but this time by flowers! If you’re an avid gardner–or just love looking and floral landscaping–try to visit during the Flower and Garden Festival.
• Christmas in Disney World: From Thanksgiving to the New Year, Disney World is decked out in holiday finery, and guests can experience some of the most exciting events of the year. From Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, to the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights, to Epcot’s Holidays Around the World, Disney World is definitely the place for Christmas cheer. Just remember that Christmas is a crowded time; you can enjoy all of the holiday festivities with fewer crowds by visiting in late November or early December.
• LOTS MORE!: Besides all of that, you can also visit during these exciting events: Star Wars weekends in the Spring (coincides with the Flower and Garden Festival), Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party offered select nights in the fall (coincides with Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival), and the Disney World Marathon in January.

Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland!

Disney World is huge—it’s over 42 square miles of theme parks, resorts, restaurants, shopping, race car tracks, campsites, blah, blah, blah. Seriously. Big. And that’s intimidating when you’ve saved up for years to take this trip and want it to be the best trip it can be!

So think of it like you would a foreign city; you want to visit Paris, but you have to figure out your way around. The first thing you do is learn a few French language terms to make your trip easier, right? Same thing with Disney World. Although they’re regular old English words, they mean something particular at WDW.

Here are a few of the terms you’ll need to know to get the most out of your trip. We’ll use these throughout the Blog, as well.

• Theme Park: This refers to Disney World’s four main parks, Magic Kingdom (MK), Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios (this was formerly the Disney-MGM Studios; it will be abbreviated as DHS), and Animal Kingdom (AK).
• Water Park: Disney World has 2 huge water-based parks, similar to Wet n Wild and others around the country. These are Typhoon Lagoon (TL) and Blizzard Beach (BB).
• Cast Member: This is Disney’s name for their employees. Walt Disney envisioned his theme parks as giant stage shows, so everyone who works there is a “cast member” working either “onstage,” or “backstage.”
• Backstage: Any area of Disney World that isn’t freely available to people who don’t work for the Disney Company—e.g., any area beyond a “Cast Members Only” door.
• Advanced Dining Reservation (ADR): These used to be called “priority seating arrangements,” or “PSs”, and they’re the core of Disney World’s restaurant reservations system. Having an ADR will ensure that you’re seated at the next available table for your party size once you check in at a table service (i.e. sit-down) restaurant podium. Most of the time and at most table service restaurants, Walt Disney World Advanced Dining Reservations can be booked 90 days prior to the date you’ll actually be dining.
• Fastpass: Imagine that you’ve just joined the end of a 60 minute wait line for Splash Mountain. Now imagine you ask the person in front of you to hold your place in line for those 60 minutes while you go ride other rides and eat some lunch—and that person says yes! That’s how Disney’s Fastpass System works.
  

  Go to a Fastpass ticket machine in front of any Fastpass ride, get a ticket, and go have fun elsewhere in the park. Return to the ride during the window shown on your Fastpass ticket, show your ticket to the Cast Member running the “Fastpass Return” line, and ride with little to no wait!

• Downtown Disney (DTD): This is the shopping and nightlife district in Disney World. It does NOT require a ticket for entry.
• Character Meal: This is a “sit-down” or “table service” meal where Disney characters make their way around the restaurant to visit with guests, sign autographs, take pictures, etc.
• Resort: Disney World’s full name is “Walt Disney World Resort,” but usually, when we talke about “resorts,” we’re talking about the 23 hotels on Disney World property.
• On- and Off-Property: On-property refers to anything within the 42 square miles owned by Disney World. Off-Property refers to anything outside the gates of Disney World, e.g. greater Orlando and Kissimmee, etc.
• Magical Express: Magical Express is Disney’s free Coach Bus transportation from the airport to your Disney hotel. This is available to anyone staying in a Disney World Resort hotel, and can save you the cost of renting a car, paying for a taxi, booking a shuttlebus, or getting a car service. Disney World is about 30 miles from the Orlando International Airport.
• Extra Magic Hour (EMH): Extra Magic Hours are also a perk for people staying in Disney Resort hotels on-property. On most days of the week–based on Disney’s schedule–resort guests are able to spend an extra hour in the morning or three hours in the evening at select parks. E.g., “on Wednesday, Magic Kingdom has a morning EMH and Epcot has evening EMH,” means that on that day, Magic Kingdom will be open to resort guests only for an hour before regular park opening, and Epcot will be open to resort guests only for three hours past regular park closing.
• Table Service Dining: “Sit down” meal, where you’re seated at a table and waited on.
• Counter Service Dining: A fast food-type meal, where you order your food at a counter and sit in a large seating area to eat.
• Park Touring: This refers to how you spend your day in a theme park. E.g., if people want to fit in a lot of rides in a short period of time, they’ll develop a “touring plan” to be sure to get to the rides when they have the shortest wait times. They’ll also work into their “touring plan” when to get a fastpass for certain rides so that they can experience rides with shorter waits while waiting for their fastpass return time to come up for a more popular ride.
• Wait Time: Most Disney World rides have lines, and therefore, Disney has posted large signs displaying the projected wait time from the end of the line, to when you’d be boarding the ride. Once in a while, a cast member at the end of the line will hand a red, plastic card to a guest getting in line and request that the guest hand the card to the cast member at the front of the line. The time it takes the guest to get to the front of the line and hand over the card becomes the new “wait time” on the sign at the front of the ride.


Trams will take you from parking lots to theme parks!

• Monorail: Disney’s elevated train transportation system. This connects Epcot with the Transportation and Ticket Center. It also connects the Transportation and Ticket Center with Magic Kingdom, and the Grand Floridian, Contemporary, and Polynesian Resorts.
• Disney Transportation:Disney transportation is Disney World’s free transportation system throughout the Disney World resort. It’s comprised of busses, monorails, trams, and boats that takes all ticket holders and resort guests anywhere they want to go on property…for free!
• Illuminations: Epcot’s nightly fireworks show.
• Wishes: Magic Kingdom’s nightly fireworks show.
• Fantasmic: Disney Hollywood Studios’ nightly (though soon to be twice weekly) water and pyrotechnics show.

So there are a few of the words and phrases that will help with your planning. I’m sure there are more that we’ll stumble upon as we go through the blog, but…whew…that’s enough for now!