Oops, We Forgot to Leave Our Weather at Home! A Fantastic Festival of the Arts 2025 TR! (Updated 5/9!!)

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Love your TR! Count down to summer!! We are scheduled for September. Waiting for the F&W dates to be released.

Thank you!!! We'll also be there in September and waiting impatiently for F&W info to come out! Also foolishly hoping since it's the 30th year they'll bring back some of the special events. I know it's unlikely at this point, but still have hope!

 

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Day 5, Part 3: A Few More Food Booths!​

We last left off heading out of MK. It was a bit difficult to make our way out, I think with the weather finally being decent, and a Saturday, everyone in the Orlando area decided to descend upon the parks this morning, the masses streaming in was absolutely nuts! Thank goodness we enjoyed the park before everyone arrived!

We finally made it out and made our way over to the monorail. The express monorail was down (again, I feel like it’s always down when we want to use it), so we hopped on the resort monorail.

We took it to the TTC where we hopped on the Epcot monorail (which was thankfully waiting for us!)

On the ride over to Epcot I was browsing facebook and I suddenly saw tons of posts from people complaining that Epcot was completely sold out of reservations for the day! Uh oh, that didn’t bode well for our plans.

Sure enough, Epcot was crazy busy. One downside to finally having nice weather after over a week of cold weather and rain!

It took almost 30 minutes to get through the tapstiles and into the park, not even including security, that was just the tapstiles line! Yeah, the line was crazy long. Once in the park we got a quick picture at the front before making our way in.



Our goal this morning was to go to some of the food booths we had missed and revisit some of our favorites.

Our first stop was the Craftsman’s Courtyard where my mom wanted to try the bone marrow. She’s been wanting to try it (I’ve already had some here in VA and it was a hard pass for me ), but when we got there the line was bonkers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a line that long at any festival we’ve been to over the years, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was at least a 45-60 minute wait!

Seeing that line we quickly decided that we didn’t really need to get anything there.

Since we were in the area, we decided to stop by Pop Eats next to get the fancy grilled cheese again, we LOVE this dish. The line here was also long, but not nearly as bad as at Craftsman’s Courtyard, and we were getting a bit hangry, so decided to wait in line. Plus we figured with the crowds all the food booths would have long lines at this point.

Fortunately, while the line was long, it moved quickly, and only ended up being about a 20 minute wait. While waiting we were chatting with some locals in front of us and got to talking about how long the lines were this day, they said it was the longest lines they’d seen so far for this festival, and some of the longest lines they’ve seen in years. I of course had to joke that maybe Disney will try to monetize these lines soon and start to offer Lightning Lane for the food booths too! (seriously though, I wouldn’t put it past Disney to do this….)

When it was finally our time to order, we both got the fancy grilled cheese again and I got the IPA. There were zero open tables to be found, but we found a wall of a planter to sit on to enjoy.



After finishing up there was one art booth I wanted to revisit. It was the Rob Kaz booth where I had seen a print I couldn’t stop thinking about, and since it had been a few days and I still couldn’t stop thinking about it, I realized I had to buy it. Budget may have been thrown out the window at that point!

We made our way over there and I found my print and purchased it. I LOVE this so much!



We decided to do a loop of WS at this point. We didn’t have anything planned, but figured we’d stop at any art of food booths that caught our eye. On the way we stopped to get pictures and a super nice woman asked if we would like a picture together, which we gladly accepted!



Funny thing, after she got our pictures we asked if she would like us to get pictures of her and her family, and her parents were just like "no, we don't need a picture with her" (I know it seems mean but it was done in a funny way!)

Like the front of Epcot, WS was also packed. I was suddenly missing those rainy cold days from earlier in the week!

We didn’t stop until we got to Germany. A few weeks before our trip Disney released country specific Mickey shirts in WS, and I loved the one from Germany, so we decided to pop in the store and see if they had them.

Somehow I got crazy lucky since they only had one left, AND it was in my size! I love this shirt!

Our next stop was at Italy where my mom wanted to try the Cannoli and the sangria and I decided to try the Mela Spritz.





The drinks were really good, the cannoli was just ok. While Italy did a better job this festival (again how can you go wrong with fried cheese?), it still fell flat. I swear this is one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. Italian food is normally AMAZING, so how on earth is this food booth usually so subpar?!?!

We continued our way around WS looking at art and checking out food booth menus.

The next stop was Vibrante & Vivido. On the way to the line I saw an open table so told my mom to grab it while I got in line.

The line didn’t look too long, probably one of the shortest looking lines we’d seen that day, but it moved painfully slow and took over 30 minutes to get to the point where I ordered my food!

While waiting I chatted with a super nice woman behind me which helped pass the time. Mom got pictures of me waiting.



Here I got the empanada and the tropical berry smoothie with rum.



Both the food and drink here were amazing. I was thrilled, last time I had the empanada here the one I got was a bit burned and just wasn’t very good, so I’m glad I tried it again since this time it was perfect! The drink was also delicious!

By the time I finished the food it was almost 2, and we were getting tired and wanted to take a break before dinner so made our way out.

Next up: Flying Fish!​

 

[Wood Nymph]

It took almost 30 minutes to get through the tapstiles and into the park, not even including security, that was just the tapstiles line! Yeah, the line was crazy long.

I've never seen a line that long for Epcot. Was it around lunch time on a weekend?

We made our way over there and I found my print and purchased it. I LOVE this so much!

It's really cute.

Italian food is normally AMAZING, so how on earth is this food booth usually so subpar?!?!

We usually avoid the Italy booth. It never seems to have anything we want.

 

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I've never seen a line that long for Epcot. Was it around lunch time on a weekend?

It was the weekend, but it was a bit early for lunch, it was around 10:30. I think being the first nice and not freezing day in over a week was probably to blame for the huge increase in crowds.

It's really cute.

Thanks! I'm glad I went back to get this one!

We usually avoid the Italy booth. It never seems to have anything we want.

Yeah, I usually only go there for the Italian margarita, but I do wish they would step up their food game. I feel like they could do some amazing things!