Epcot Food & Wine - All Hype?

Epcot's Food and Wine Festival is always a highly anticipated event with a media blitz that is (for me) .... overrated.

I am pretty sure it is quite obvious I am a Disneyphile, but every now and then I just have to shake my head and wonder what the heck everyone is so excited about?

Last night was a perfect night to check it out. It had rained here in Orlando for most of the day but instead of being post-storm muggy and unbearable the weather was just right, warm without being hot. I headed to Epcot for drinks with my husband and looked forward to around the world cuisine.

Parking was the first obstacle.  We normally park at Boardwalk and then walk through the hotel, down the Boardwalk and enter through the back entrance.  The lines to enter Epcot are never long on this side and there is an added high-calorie benefit of being able to stop at the Boardwalk Bakery for a croissant or cupcake on the way to our car as we depart.  Win-Win.  The parking guard told us we had to park using valet ($20) because the lot was too full.  No problem, we made it in and started our journey.

There were long lines for most everything, with people waiting for their taste of something amazing.  Leaving the lines were people with little cardboard dishes laden with what did NOT look like appetizing cuisine at all, but rather, more like carnival food dumped onto a convenience store hotdog holder.  At every stop that I visited I would check out the lump of (cafeteria style) food leaving the line and then I would optimistically head to the next booth, hoping for better.  As I made my way around the world I realized that despite Disney's great intentions, it is almost impossible to make mass amounts of food for this many people without a cafeteria approach and cafeteria result.

On a positive note, I did like the festival signs, colorful and creative.  I may someday want to try the festival grub - but not until it looks a little more appetizing and smells like something I want to taste.