Those of us "in the know" about the Epcot Food and Wine Festival at Walt Disney World can tell you that come late July / early August, Disney will release the information about the special dining events, which I mentioned in the previous post. But once you decide what you want to book, you have to prioritize your choices by the order of which you'd think things might sell out.
For me, that was easy. There was a signature wine dinner held at Flying Fish on October 15th, and some of my friends with an inside track to the restaurant know that prior wine dinners held at other times during the year only hold 35 people. Since this was one of my choices, I decided to try to book this first.
I only wanted three events this year. For the first time since 2003, I decided to skip the Party for the Senses. The money I would spend there would be put to better use at the Flying Fish dinner. So the events I wanted were:
10/15 Flying Fish signature wine dinner
10/16 Todd English's bluezoo™ signature wine dinner
10/17 Mexico Tequila Tasting
Since a friend of mine wanted to go to Flying Fish and Todd's place, too, she suggested we divide and conquer. She would book Todd's dinner, and I would book Flying Fish. So this morning, armed with a note listing the event names as they appeared in the schedule posted by Disney, I set my alarm for 5:50am Central in order to get up and start dialing a few minutes before 6am...which is 7am Eastern, when the dining line opens.
The dialing frenzy began for me and a bunch of friends on the DIS boards. I was lucky enough to have the Disney Dining gods smiling down on me. By some miracle, my call got through almost immediately, and I was talking to a dining reservation agent and quickly telling her that I wanted to book the special events for the Food and Wine Festival. Thank goodness she knew about the festival, because others who posted to the DIS got the worst end of Disney Dining Roulette. They got stuck with cast members who did not know where to find events and put the others on hold in Disney Dining Purgatory, where my friends would be taunted by the "hold" music.
I was finished by 6:11am!
At first, my agent wanted to know the Disney resort I'm staying, and I forgot to grab my confirmation number. Luckily she found me quickly and entered my info. She told me that she could booked a party of two for the Flying Fish dinner and set my mind at ease when she went into the dress code spiel and quoted me the price she would be charging me. I added the Mexico tequila tasting for myself, and hoped my friend was able to book Todd English's bluezoo™. After my card was charged and had confirmation numbers written down, I texted my friend to let her know I was successful. She managed to get Todd English's bluezoo™ as well as every other event she wanted, so I was happy for her.
The people on the DIS who didn't fare well with today's frenzy...I have to feel for them. You would think Disney would give their agents better notice about how to deal with the crazed foodies who book this year after year, but no, they don't. At least I know that while some of my friends were shut out of events, they did find events that weren't sold out before they had a chance to book them.
This pretty much ended my trip planning for October. Now I can relax before my trip.
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