EPCOT Announces Dates and Details for 2024 Food & Wine Festival

With so much happening at EPCOT right now, park officials have taken a different approach with the park’s most recognizable event. Yes, we finally know the dates for the 2024 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, and it’s arriving a bit later than usual. Let’s talk about dates, details, and the reason why Disney has pushed it back a month. 

What’s Happening at EPCOT?

To understand Disney’s 2024 festival approach, you must recall everything happening at EPCOT right now. We’re only a few months past the opening of World Celebration Gardens, the newest Neighborhood at the park. The arrival of Dreamers Point is far from the last thing coming to EPCOT, either.

CommuniCore Hall & Plaza will debut on June 10th. Disney will introduce some other EPCOT activities to coincide with the final piece of the puzzle here. As a reminder, EPCOT has been undergoing transformational change since 2017. Now that the finish line is in sight, everyone wants to celebrate the event and make it a big deal. So, starting in June, EPCOT will host limited-time character interactions and an Encanto show. 

If Disney opened the Food & Wine Festival soon afterward, it would distract away from the other new entertainment at CommuniCore, which management expects to become a gathering hub. For this reason, the festival will start a month later than last year. 

When Will the Food & Wine Festival Debut?

EPCOT just confirmed the dates for this year’s event, and it may mess up your previously scheduled plans a bit. The 2024 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival won’t begin until August 29th. That’s more than a month later than the exhibition started in 2023. 

This year’s event runs from August 29th through November 23rd. So, it starts 33 days later, but its end date is only five days past what we had last year. Summarizing, this year’s Food & Wine Festival begins later and is four weeks shorter overall than the 2023 version.

Again, that’s due to all the other EPCOT events occurring at the start of the summer, and the park isn’t done yet. Disney just filed the paperwork this morning (April 23rd) to perform construction at the Imagination! pavilion. Those modifications add to the intrigue at the former World of Motion pavilion, where construction for Test Track 3.0 gets underway soon. EPCOT is getting better every day.

What Should You Expect at This Year’s Food & Wine Festival?

The nice thing about a shorter festival is that Disney can go harder. That appears to be the plan for 2024. Disney has promised the return of the Global Marketplaces, along with some of your favorite dishes. The Disney Parks Blog explicitly confirms the return of “Belgian Waffles with Berry Compote and Whipped Cream (and) Warm Chocolate Ganache at the Belgium Global Marketplace.”

The Disney+ series Behind the Attraction showed the legendary Food Lab hidden on the Disney campus. Here, culinary geniuses create memorable festival dishes and plan menus that win Michelin Stars. 

This year’s menu promises new concoctions that will leave you drooling, thanks to the kitchen wizards. Here’s a combination of words you will love: “Dark Chocolate Fondue with Berries, Pound Cake, and Meringues.” That’s the greatness of the festival summarized in one treat. 

Also, this year’s Food & Wine Passport will require you to check five cheese dishes off a list. And I’m happy to report that one of them is the beloved Passionfruit Cheesecake with Toasted Macadamia Nuts at the Hawai’i Marketplace!

As usual, this year’s festival will include plenty of exclusive merchandise. Figment, Remy from Ratatouille, and Mickey Mouse will star on many items, including the suddenly ubiquitous Lug bags that have become an EPCOT festival sensation this year.

Finally, I should mention that the beloved Eat to the Beat concert series and the scavenger hunt will return this year. Disney hasn’t announced any concerts yet, but you can keep checking here to stay informed. As for the scavenger hunt, it stars Remy again!

Overall, the 2024 Food & Wine Festival sounds as great as we’ve come to expect. Since it’s starting a bit later, it should also include cooler weather and smaller crowds overall. So, it’ll be more like the festivals you remember from years ago, only better since Disney has pretty much perfected the system.

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