WHILE DISNEY FESTIVALS are delightfully orchestrated days of live entertainment, art, culture, and beauty, for many guests, the food is the star, the raison d’être. The idea for the very first festival was sparked in the 1980s, when Walt Disney World Resort debuted a four-day wine festival hosted at the Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village, the earliest forerunner of today’s EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival. The first festival at EPCOT was the International Flower & Garden Festival, which ran for just 38days in the spring of 1994 and was lauded for its gorgeous displays of Disney topiaries and curated gardens—but food was not part of the festivities. That same year, the EPCOT International Festival of Holidays (then known as Holidays Around the World) presented the first Candlelight Processional at EPCOT in the America Gardens Theatre, having previously performed in the Magic Kingdom.
It was 1996 when the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival was introduced, a thirty-day festival with surely one of the world’s most spectacular backdrops for a stellar food-and-wine event. During those early years, the roster of celebrity chefs read like a who’s who in the culinary world, with intimate winemaker dinners (Julia Child made an appearance), small seminars, and twenty-five Marketplaces around World Showcase Lagoon.
Fast-forward to 2017 with the debut of EPCOT International Festival of the Arts, where edible works of art competed with visual and performing arts, a trifecta of beauty. The festival opens each year in January, the prettiest time of year, when temperatures are cool and conditions are just right for strolling around World Showcase. And the chefs really shine as they create their own masterpieces for this smaller festival.
Traversing to Disneyland Park, the very first Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival opened in 2006, and a celebration of California’s incredible bounty, with Festival Marketplaces, culinary demonstrations, classes, and winemaker receptions that extend from the park to the Disneyland Resort hotels.
The smaller Lunar New Year at Disney California Adventure Park was first celebrated in January 2013, filled with auspicious wishes for health, luck, and prosperity. Lively entertainment, kid-friendly crafts and activities, and special spots like the Lucky Wishing Wall create a festive, month long celebration, where delectable food showcases Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese cultures.
And the Disney Festival of Holidays, which debuted in 2016, wraps up each year, with diverse celebrations including Christmas, Navidad, Hanukkah, Diwali, Kwanzaa, and Three Kings’ Day. Spectacular holiday decor, entertainment (meet Santa Claus!), and the Festive Foods Marketplace make Disney California Adventure Park the perfect place to celebrate the winter holidays.
Ask any guest today, and they’ll tell you the number one reason they love the festivals is the cuisine—a chance to share a small plate, or taste an innovative dish, or just to sip and stroll in the parks. Favorites may return, but there’s always something new. It’s a whole new way to experience Disney.
—Pam Brandon
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