Last week, Ron DeSantis’ lapdogs in the Florida Legislature finally caught the Minnie Van they’ve been chasing and voted to replace Walt Disney World’s half-century-old Reedy Creek Improvement District with a nearly identical entity overseen by the Governor’s appointees. The transition will take a couple of years, and the effects are unlikely to be noticed by the average visitor during the near term, but it’s difficult to digest right now how this devouring of democratic norms will impact Orlando over time.
In the meantime, I’m drowning my sorrows with a deep dive into the three theme park food festivals currently competing for your dining dollars. Because if you’re going to be living in a fantasyland that’s fumbling toward fascism, you might as well have a full stomach …
You’ve only got until Tuesday, Feb. 20, to enjoy this year’s International Festival of the Arts, the youngest, shortest and (in my opinion) best of EPCOT’s never-ending seasonal events. Disney’s food festivals continue to set the area’s gold standard in terms of ingredient quality and execution, and the Festival of the Arts outdoor kitchens present Instagrammable plates that look worthy of being eaten off fine china instead of a trash can.
Unfortunately, the menus boast gourmet prices to match, and no discounts are available. In a restaurant, I’d be willing to pay $10.50 for Canada’s roasted bone marrow, or $7.50 for Craftsman Courtyard’s PEI mussels, but $9.25 for Italy’s two measly mushroom ravioli would be a rip-off anywhere. And although there’s a good variety of alcoholic options — I vouch for America’s spiked drinking chocolate on a cool evening — portion size and pricing ensures you’ll be broke before you get a buzz.
Between bites and beverages, be sure to check out the daily Disney on Broadway concerts culminating on Monday with a supersized show starring Ashley Brown, Michael James Scott, Kissy Simmons and Josh Strickland. The meet-and-greets with Disney artists and hands-on crafts also remain highlights of the event. But as a child of the ’80s, my No. 1 don’t-miss at this year’s EPCOT Festival of the Arts is Figment’s Inspiration Station inside the old Odyssey restaurant. It has been transformed into a tribute to the Imagination pavilion, complete with animation from the original ride and pin tables from the old ImageWorks playground. Seeing my palm once again in shimmering silver, the same as when I was 6, was nearly as intense a time-warp as the nearby Cosmic Rewind coaster.
SeaWorld’s Seven Seas Food Festival, which is now running Thursdays-Sundays through May 7, may be the relative newcomer on the block, but since launching in 2017 it has aggressively expanded to the point that it now boasts being “Orlando’s largest theme park food festival,” with more than 200 items (including 50-plus dishes and over 150 drinks) on offer.
I attended a hosted media preview of the festival and emerged impressed by many of the items highlighted for the press, especially the Moroccan lamb chop with truffle fries and the lobster shrimp cake from Sharks Underwater Grill (despite my longstanding edict that when eating at SeaWorld “fish are friends, not food”).
However, as I visited the festival booths and examined the menus — no easy feat, given the park’s wandering dead-end pathways, which are currently exacerbated by construction on the Pipeline coaster — I discovered confusing inconsistencies in pricing and preparation.
The same $12 buys you a sizable slab of Brazilian picanha steak, which was well-seasoned but served cold; a tiny bowl of tomato-forward Irish stew; or a three-inch segment of Mexican street corn. It’s obvious SeaWorld wants you to invest in sampling lanyards, which drop the per-item prices down to $7 or less, but even then you’ll need to perform mental gymnastics in order to extract maximum value, since most drinks are served in significantly smaller sample sizes. A happy exception are the shots of Caribbean Moonshine.
Last but not least, Universal Orlando’s long-running Mardi Gras celebration continues its evolution into an “International Flavors of Carnaval” food fest, and this year the good times are rolling until April 16 not only inside Universal Studios Florida, but at select spots in CityWalk and Islands of Adventure as well. Menus have expanded beyond the obvious New Orleans standbys with lesser-known NOLA specialties like yakamein, and standout ethnic additions include Japanese stuffed buns and Mexican shrimp ceviche.
Comparing Universal’s menus head-to-head with its rivals, it both undercuts them on some similar entrees, and outdoes them in others. For example, Universal’s street corn is $4 cheaper than SeaWorld’s for an entire ear, and although their Indonesian soft-shell crab costs more than twice as much as EPCOT’s, it’s a far meatier crustacean and comes served in a rich chili stew with sweet rolls.
Universal’s secret weapon is their Mardi Gras food and beverage card, which offers a 13-20% savings on purchases not only at booths during the event, but beyond at most restaurants in the parks; annual passholders get their usual discounts to boot. Just don’t burn through your entire card before the signature parade begins, lest you be too stuffed and/or sloshed to safely snag beads.
In summary, here’s your TL;DR for this season’s theme park food fest face-off: EPCOT is still the most upscale and expensive; SeaWorld is the most expansive, but it can be an exhausting, uneven value if you’re paying out of pocket; and I ultimately found Universal’s Mardi Gras the most satisfying overall, especially as an annual passholder. Now excuse me, I’ve still got dozens more dishes to try before the next wave of festivals rolls around.
This article appears in Feb 15-21, 2023.