Epcot International Festival of the Arts

[beantrees]

I'm so excited about this!! But it's also throwing me off because I don't know how we are going to squeeze this in on top of what we already have planned.

I saw some pictures of the menu boards on Disboards and most of the he food items are for a snack credit! Plus tons of entertainment and sites planned as well.

I know several are going in the next couple months, are you planning on incorporating the festival into your trip?? What are you excited about?

[prosecco]

We should be there this Sunday, the Food and Wine festival has always been our fave, so I'm hoping to try a few of the food and drink items. I think the living statues sound cool too. It looks like there might be an art themed kidcot thing going on too. I'm sure my kids would like something other than the standard Duffy the bear or whatever.

Only problem is we have a reservation at le cellier and we may be too full to do the snacks or if we do snacks first we may be too full for le cellier. Lol.

[TBM]

We are going tomorrow....and probably several more times during the festival. Food is always a priority with us, but we are excited to see a Festival dedicated to the arts.

We managed to get one of the special seating reservations for AP for the Broadway performers thing before it filled up. I didn't get the email about it, but because of the post here about favorite sites, I decided to check out disboards to see what they had about the festival and saw it mentioned. DH checked his email, which did have the email with the link so he registered us for the first show.

[beantrees]

We are excited about the good too. We will spend our arrival day and one full day in Epcot. On our full day we have a breakfast at Akershus, so I'm thinking we will spend the rest of our meals that day eating from the booths.

[egishere]

Yeah I think this is going on when I'm there too. I was there for F&W last year and it was a zoo so hopefully this will be more enjoyable. beantrees, where did you find the menus?

[TBM]

Jan 12, 2017 10:44:47 GMT -5 egishere said:

Yeah I think this is going on when I'm there too. I was there for F&W last year and it was a zoo so hopefully this will be more enjoyable. beantrees , where did you find the menus?

disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/epcot/epcot-international-festival-of-the-arts-culinary/


There is a disboards thread where someone posted photos of some of the menu boards.  disboards.com/threads/epcot-international-festival-of-the-arts-updated-times-guide-on-post-61.3564482/page-7


ETA: food photos!   www.disneyfoodblog.com/2017-epcot-international-festival-of-the-arts/

[beantrees]

Jan 12, 2017 10:50:39 GMT -5 TBM said:

Jan 12, 2017 10:44:47 GMT -5 egishere said:

Yeah I think this is going on when I'm there too. I was there for F&W last year and it was a zoo so hopefully this will be more enjoyable. beantrees , where did you find the menus?

disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/epcot/epcot-international-festival-of-the-arts-culinary/


There is a disboards thread where someone posted photos of some of the menu boards.  disboards.com/threads/epcot-international-festival-of-the-arts-updated-times-guide-on-post-61.3564482/page-7


ETA: food photos!   www.disneyfoodblog.com/2017-epcot-international-festival-of-the-arts/

This! egishere I thought the disboards.com post was super helpful

[egishere]

TBM, and beantrees, Thanks!!!

[beeks]

I will be there in a few weeks, can't wait!

[lishie]

I was so sad to not get the AP seating for next weekend. I'm excited to check this out. I love art and broadway, so this is right up my alley. We made very few plans this trip, so visiting this is one of my priorities.

[lishie]

I just signed my son and I up for one of the pastry classes

[bronxgirl]

I wish I was there for this festival and not the stupid flower festival. Oh well.

[TBM]

We went Friday and had a great time.

Despite having to sit in the rain for the concert, even with our AP priority seating, (which was only a couple/few rows in one section right of center, behind the covered seating), we really enjoyed the concert. The covered seating was filled with press, VIPs and invited guests, so maybe APs and the DP people got covered seating at the later show. I hope so, because it stopped raining shortly after our show started, but it was coming down when we were on our way out and on our drive home. We are looking forward to going back for the other performers later in the festival.

We really enjoyed the food. It was all beautiful and beautifully plated, which made service a little slow, but we didn't really care. It was fun to watch them putting it all together. I heard a lot of people comment on the food being unusual and better than what they have had at Food and Wine. One man told me that they "don't see food like this in New Hampshire." We particularly loved the rissotto, the shrimp ceviche, the almond frangipan cake and the deconstructed purple sweet potato pie, but really, we weren't disappointed in anything that we tried. We plan to go back to try more of the food. We got the drink with cranberry pearls that are supposed to float like a lava lamp, but we were there early and I think the guy made it wrong so the pearls didn't float. It was good, so not really a problem, but we wanted to see it work.lol We saw someone with it later, and her drink had a straw (ours didn't have a straw) that seemed like its placement might have been an important element.

The living statues were pretty cool. They were really funny too, interacting with people who were taking pictures with them. The photo ops are incredible....besides taking a picture with a statue, you can be part of a few famous paintings, (people really had fun with that) or just have your photo taken with some of the gorgeous themed festival art around.

There are a lot of booths with art, both Disney themed and other, and many artists there to sign their work. A couple were actually working on paintings during the day. The booths are small, and when people ducked in to get out of the rain they were too crowded to look around, but we still managed to look at all of the booths and even managed to find a framed, numbered, non-Disney print that had to come home with us.

The Festival merchandise was scattered around rather than having a shop dedicated to the merchandise. I'm not sure that any one location has all of it. DH bought a hat, and I got the passholder t-shirt. I didn't see anyone wearing either of them, but it seemed like the cast members really liked DH's hat....he got a lot of comments. I didn't wear the t-shirt until I slipped it on over my clothes right before the concert because I was wet and kind of cold, but the second I did people commented on it and asked about it. I guess since it wasn't on display anywhere, a lot of the passholders hadn't seen it and didn't know that you had to ask for it, since they keep passholder items hidden away.

We watched part of one of the classes that was in the Festival Showcase, while were were eating our cronuts and flatbread (both were good), and it looked fun. I wish DH knew his travel schedule...I want to sign up for a particular class one of the last weekends, but if he is oot I don't know that I want to go to the park alone or drive all the way there just for the class.

[prosecco]

We went today,it was nice. A lot of booths with art set up to purchase, thefood all looked amazing, all I got to try was the risotto and a glass of champagne but it was lovely. DS has a big interest i art and enjoyed chatting with one of the chalk artist (recreating famous paintings from different countries) for a LONG time. She was pretty awesome and encouraged him to persue art for fun and told him how much she makes, what she does as her day job , how she got started, etc...

I would like to try more of the food , and we didn't really see any of the festival merchandise except the t shirts, we may go back next weekend, our schedule this trip isn't set in stone.

[beeks]

Jan 15, 2017 11:44:18 GMT -5 TBM said:

We went Friday and had a great time.

Despite having to sit in the rain for the concert, even with our AP priority seating, (which was only a couple/few rows in one section right of center, behind the covered seating), we really enjoyed the concert. The covered seating was filled with press, VIPs and invited guests, so maybe APs and the DP people got covered seating at the later show. I hope so, because it stopped raining shortly after our show started, but it was coming down when we were on our way out and on our drive home. We are looking forward to going back for the other performers later in the festival.

We really enjoyed the food. It was all beautiful and beautifully plated, which made service a little slow, but we didn't really care. It was fun to watch them putting it all together. I heard a lot of people comment on the food being unusual and better than what they have had at Food and Wine. One man told me that they "don't see food like this in New Hampshire." We particularly loved the rissotto, the shrimp ceviche, the almond frangipan cake and the deconstructed purple sweet potato pie, but really, we weren't disappointed in anything that we tried. We plan to go back to try more of the food. We got the drink with cranberry pearls that are supposed to float like a lava lamp, but we were there early and I think the guy made it wrong so the pearls didn't float. It was good, so not really a problem, but we wanted to see it work.lol We saw someone with it later, and her drink had a straw (ours didn't have a straw) that seemed like its placement might have been an important element.

The living statues were pretty cool. They were really funny too, interacting with people who were taking pictures with them. The photo ops are incredible....besides taking a picture with a statue, you can be part of a few famous paintings, (people really had fun with that) or just have your photo taken with some of the gorgeous themed festival art around.

There are a lot of booths with art, both Disney themed and other, and many artists there to sign their work. A couple were actually working on paintings during the day. The booths are small, and when people ducked in to get out of the rain they were too crowded to look around, but we still managed to look at all of the booths and even managed to find a framed, numbered, non-Disney print that had to come home with us.

The Festival merchandise was scattered around rather than having a shop dedicated to the merchandise. I'm not sure that any one location has all of it. DH bought a hat, and I got the passholder t-shirt. I didn't see anyone wearing either of them, but it seemed like the cast members really liked DH's hat....he got a lot of comments. I didn't wear the t-shirt until I slipped it on over my clothes right before the concert because I was wet and kind of cold, but the second I did people commented on it and asked about it. I guess since it wasn't on display anywhere, a lot of the passholders hadn't seen it and didn't know that you had to ask for it, since they keep passholder items hidden away.

We watched part of one of the classes that was in the Festival Showcase, while were were eating our cronuts and flatbread (both were good), and it looked fun. I wish DH knew his travel schedule...I want to sign up for a particular class one of the last weekends, but if he is oot I don't know that I want to go to the park alone or drive all the way there just for the class.

LOL! Clearly he doesn't get out much because we have amazing food in NH, especially on the seacoast! Love this review, thank you!

[TBM]

beeks, DH and I kept laughing about that comment. I didn't laugh at the guy....he was genuinely in awe of the food and was serious. At least he was willing to try 'different' things....so many people (of all ages) are too afraid to try something that looks 'weird' or that they haven't heard of.

The festivals are our favorite place to try something we've never had before. With the small plates to share we can each have a taste and then decide if we want more or don't ever want it again. So far we've discovered more 'new to us' foods that we liked than we have foods that we have disliked, but even the ones we've disliked have at least been interesting.

[beeks]

Jan 17, 2017 9:39:09 GMT -5 TBM said:

beeks , DH and I kept laughing about that comment. I didn't laugh at the guy....he was genuinely in awe of the food and was serious. At least he was willing to try 'different' things....so many people (of all ages) are too afraid to try something that looks 'weird' or that they haven't heard of.

The festivals are our favorite place to try something we've never had before. With the small plates to share we can each have a taste and then decide if we want more or don't ever want it again. So far we've discovered more 'new to us' foods that we liked than we have foods that we have disliked, but even the ones we've disliked have at least been interesting.

There are a lot of rural areas in NH so maybe he just doesn't venture out often, haha! I was just looking at Josh's reviews on EasyWDW of the food at the festival and many items are on my list to try!

[TBM]

Jan 18, 2017 12:02:25 GMT -5 beeks said:

Jan 17, 2017 9:39:09 GMT -5 TBM said:

beeks , DH and I kept laughing about that comment. I didn't laugh at the guy....he was genuinely in awe of the food and was serious. At least he was willing to try 'different' things....so many people (of all ages) are too afraid to try something that looks 'weird' or that they haven't heard of.

The festivals are our favorite place to try something we've never had before. With the small plates to share we can each have a taste and then decide if we want more or don't ever want it again. So far we've discovered more 'new to us' foods that we liked than we have foods that we have disliked, but even the ones we've disliked have at least been interesting.

There are a lot of rural areas in NH so maybe he just doesn't venture out often, haha! I was just looking at Josh's reviews on EasyWDW of the food at the festival and many items are on my list to try!

He was a very well dressed man, probably in his late 60s or early 70s.  He just reminded me of the business associates and clients of DHs that we sometimes go to dinner with, who seem to enjoy nice places, but they always order a steak and baked potato. lol

I haven't gotten through all of the reviews on EasyWDW, but we don't agree with their review of the deconstructed sweet potato pie.  It is a different texture than say, pumpkin pie, but it was tasty, not overly sweet, and it was interesting to try it with and without all of the different elements.  I would eat it again, and may try a sweet potato pie next thanksgiving instead of pumpkin for a change.