Walt Disney World...for Food & Wine lovers?

No, you're not seeing things--for a wonderful food and wine experience, look no further than Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida!

From late September through early November every year, Walt Disney World holds their annual Food and Wine Festival at Epcot. On top of the 11 countries normally housed in the World Showcase, Disney brings in food and wine from up to a dozen other countries, as well as highlighting one US state--for instance, when I experienced the Food and Wine Festival in 2004, they highlighted Florida, and this year, it was Oklahoma.

The great thing about the Food and Wine Festival is that you can purchase samples of the different wines to drink, or samples of the food to eat. The wines run from $3-$8 a glass, depending on the type, and the food samples are all snack-sized portions that cost $3-8, depending on what you are ordering. There isn't just wine, either--this year they highlighted some great beers (my favorites were a Turkish beer that I do not recall the name of and Brahma, a Brazilian beer) as well as some mixed drinks (such as frozen Irish coffees that were to die for!). The wines I have tried over the years have ranged from sweet Australian and German Reislings to American Rose champagne to Norwegian Cherry Wine, Polish Honey Wine, Chinese Plum Wine, and Floridian Mango Wine. The food highlights this year for me were the Canadian Cheese, Bacon, & Potato soup and the seared buffalo steak strips over creamed onions at the Oklahoma booth.

If you are on the Disney Dining Plan, the food samples at the Food and Wine Festival count as snacks on the Plan, and what a great way to use your snack vouchers!

At the end of the day, you can head over the Food and Wine Center to purchase special Food & Wine Festival glasses, pins, t-shirts, and other memorabilia--or even bottles of the wines that you sampled that day! The wine bottle prices are actually very reasonable for Disney.

I would also like to mention that unless you are going over a Fall Break weekend in October, the fall season is a great time to go to Disney. The crowds are not as large as they are over major holidays and in the summer, and the weather tends to average 85-90 degrees and mostly sunny--much preferable to the 95-100+ degrees of the summer or the unpredictable cold snaps of December through February!

However, if you cannot make it to the Food & Wine Festival, there are plenty of other ways to enjoy food and wine at Disney. Having worked in the restaurant industry for some years, and having traveled extensively, in my opinion Walt Disney World still offers some of the best culinary experiences out there. For example, there are two amazing steakhouses on property--Shula's at the Dolphin Hotel and Jiko at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Although both a bit pricey, you will likely never have a better steak than the Shula's filet or the Jiko filet with macaroni & cheese and red wine sauce. Shula's souffle dessert is world-famous and you will rarely find a better selection of different appetizers than what Jiko offers.

For those on a lighter budget, there are plenty of other restaurants to choose from at Walt Disney World that still offer amazing food. One of my favorites is the 'Ohana dinner at the Polynesian Resort, where the food is plentiful and served family style and you will never have a better light salad, sweet and sour shrimp, or bread pudding! For another great experience, try the Coral Reef restaurant at Epcot--if you have a small party (4 or less) you may get lucky and sit right next to the aquarium window. My husband and I got to do so on our recent trip and not only was the food amazing, but it was so much fun watching the sharks, stingrays, giant sea turtles and other fish swim by while we ate! You can also experience food from around the world at the restaurants of the World Showcase--namely the San Angel Inn in Mexico, the Biergarten restaurant in Germany, Nine Dragons in China, Teppanyaki Dining Room in Japan, and Le Cellier in Canada.

Most of Disney's restaurants offer differing and wide wine selections, and for the more adventurous, the bars of the World Showcase offer a wide array of drinks to choose from--amazing Margaritas in Mexico, great beer choices in Germany, champagne in France, tangerine daquiries in Morocco, and sake in Japan, just to name a few.

So the next time you think that Disney is only for families with children, or that you won't be able to find any great culinary experiences there, think again!