Party For The Senses: A Magical Night Out at Walt Disney World

Held on Saturday nights during the Food and Wine Festival held at Epcot every fall, tickets don’t come cheap. In 2005, the price was $95 per person, but the following year that rose dramatically to $125 per person. For ages, we wondered whether this event could be worth the money. After all, we were talking about three hours and that’s a lot of money for that little time. Then again, it’s fairly comparable to the price of tickets for some of the biggest stage shows these days. Well, that’s the logic I used anyway, when deciding whether or not we take the plunge. Working on the theory that you only live once, two tickets were booked for the night of Saturday, October 28. So having made the decision to go for it, was the party worth the money we paid? The answer is an unequivocal yes.

The party is held in what was once the Millennium Village (remember that?) between Canada and the UK in the World Showcase. These days the space is only open for special events and it’s massive. There seemed to be hundreds of people waiting outside before the party started, but once we got inside, it never once felt crowded and there were plenty of tables.

As we walked in, we were given a program, detailing the food and wine available, the chefs responsible for them and the restaurants they work in. Although a number were understandably from Disney, there were also many other names from across the country. We avidly studied the guides to work out exactly what we wanted to sample.