Epcot Food and Wine Festival

November 16, 2019

 

 

Epcot Food and Wine Festival

While not what I would consider a Disney Nerd, I still love going to Disney World and I don’t think there has ever been a time that I have spent more than two days in Orlando that I have not made time to visit my absolute favorite theme park, Epcot. As many times as I go, I just love it and I especially like going during one of their annual special events like this year’s Food and Wine Festival. 

 

This year marks the 24^th year that Epcot has hosted their amazing Food and Wine Festival and it just seems to get bigger and better every year. This year my friend Caitlin came over for the day to join me from her home in Tampa. Kathy and I have been friends with Caitlin through her family pretty much since she was born and I always really enjoy hanging out especially now that she can join me in eating and drinking our way around Epcot.

 

Epcot’s World Showcase is supplemented by over 30 global marketplaces, representing nations from throughout the world and featuring delicious small plates, wine and beer that represent the individual countries provided in small bites so that you can literally taste and drink your way around the world. This way you can experience samples of international cuisine and wines at what are sort of reasonable prices.

 

I am not sure the typical visitors tear through the countries menus and beverages the way we did, but it was crazy fun and the vast majority of selections were really excellent. Though I did have shrimp selections from three different countries that were all remarkably alike. Overall it was pretty awesome and the food, wine and beer selections were good.

 

Epcot has remained remarkably the same over the years, with new additions coming along every few years and some old favorites being retired, but it was kind of cool to see massive amounts of new construction and renovations underway and big and exciting new changes on the way in 2020. Hopefully these will be mostly new additions rather than replacing the classic rides, but changes are definitely needed as some of the attractions seem pretty dated. 

We didn’t take the time to watch Joey Fatone, former NSNYC singer, who was performing as part of the Eat to the Beat concert series, opting instead just to take in the normal rides like Soarin, Test Track and the like and to check out the shopping and eating opportunities. Did I mention that we ate and drank a good bit? Still after spending the day at the park, we headed over to Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) to eat even more at the Irish Pub and Restaurant Raglan Road.

Raglan Road had delightful Irish food as well as a traditional Irish band playing standards and featuring Irish Dancers, in what was the conclusion of a fun day hanging out. The following morning, I was up early and off to visit another of my favorite Orlando area attractions, the famous Gatorland- which is the oldest continuously operating tourist attraction in Florida.

 

Gatorland has been in private hands since opening 70 years ago in 1949 and has hosted thousands upon thousands of visitors at the 110 acre theme park and wildlife preserve known as the Gator Capital of the World. Home to more than 4000 alligators, crocodiles as well a breeding marsh with boardwalk and observation tower, reptile shows, aviary, petting zoo, swamp walk, and educational programs.

 

The park is something of a throwback to old school Florida attractions, and maintains some hokey traditions and shows, like the Gator Jumparoo and Alligator Wrestling, but they also have state of the art rides like zip lines and a swamp ride and better yet, a truly admirable conservation and education program. They take in nuisance gators from around the state that would otherwise be destroyed and have an active education program that extols the virtues of the remarkable creatures. 

 

The park is huge and the collection of alligators is certainly impressive, they are everywhere and range in size from tiny babies to massive, huge adult males. The boardwalk around the breeding lake is a great way to get up close and personal with the gators and they have a massive tower where you can get a great overview of the entire place.

 

They also have an impressive number of wild birds that make their homes on the beautiful swampy property including a number of rare wood storks who keep nests there. I could easily spend an entire day there, but having to get back to the DEMA convention, I only was able to visit for a couple of hours in the morning before heading over to the convention center. I will be back though, as I just love seeing these beautiful prehistoric animals in all their swampy glory.