Food & Wine Festival 2022

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Official Event Map:​

22_BGW_Events_FW_Map.jpg

Official Event Information:​

Food & Wine Festival at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, VA

Explore international dishes that are not typically served at the park and learn something new about the countries they come from. Discover great food, wine and more at this year's Food & Wine Festival at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Come for the culinary offerings, stay for the attractions.
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Official Menus:​

Food & Wine Festival Menus | Busch Gardens Williamsburg

Take a trip around the world with your taste buds as you sample different international menus at our Food & Wine Festival event. Your inner foodie will thank you. Check out our menus and see what dishes you would like to sample while during your visit to Busch Gardens theme park in Williamsburg...
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EdK said:
Now I am really curious to try the Alfredo. How can you screw that up - it's just cream, cheese and butter with some pasta. Maybe I'll convince my wife to get it and I'll just take a bite. I'll tell her you guys really recommended it.
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Good luck!
 
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Zachary said:
The right answer at a premium-priced theme park should never be to import more generic, lower quality goods.

SEAS has begun treating all of these special events as cash cows that they just get to harvest money from once a year. Season after season the company refuses to invest in the long-term health and stability of these offerings—instead chosing to let them rot on the vine.

BGW's Food & Wine felt shockingly lifeless this weekend. Booths have lost theming, music is poorly executed, very few legitimately unique or interesting dishes exist at this point, art of food is gone, chef demos are gone, specialty vendors are gone—the event has just been cut down to its absolute minimum at this point.
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This is the downfall that corporations always seem to fall into.... build a great brand and become successful and then hyper focus on the money and lose sight of what got you to that point in the first place. In about 5 years (maybe a little longer) all of the SEAs parks are going to look like the Palace parks did 2 years ago and the Palace Parks will have risen to the top because of their current intense focus on the issues neglected by the corporate mentality for years.

I suppose at that point SEAS will hire John Reily back away from Palace to fix their shit?

One of the biggest problems with things like theme parks is the corporations are able to coast a lot longer than other business sectors because people remember what the place was like more than what the place is. There are so many people that will defend BGW against anything negative you say about the park instead of actually recognizing there is a problem and that only allows SEAS to continue this "gutting" of quality for a longer period of time because they're able to float on those memories. The problem with this, however, is that by time those loyal fans realize that things aren't the way they were it's really too late for any kind of a quick fix and those fans go away with a vengeance.

Don't get me wrong, there are still good things inside these parks right now -- but too many people are making excuses for the parks (many of those being "but they're adding coasters" despite even those being half assed investments in some cases) and it means that the company has no need to correct their path.
 
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Based on price and mean tasting team scores, I would recommend the Lamb Chop (Australia), the Churrasco (Brazil), the Jamaican Patty (Jamaica), and the Lamb Burger Slider (Greece). Those are listed in order of price, not scores.

I would also recommend that everyone do the math, before buying the sampler lanyards. They make sense for the alcoholic beverages (maybe, maybe not, because of the pour size), but with the 20% Platinum discount, be there weren’t enough food options that cost enough for us to break even. We ended up using our daily vouchers and our pass discounts instead for the review.

I can publish the spreadsheet with all of the prices, if there is interest.
 
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Yes.. there is interest in the price for each dish. I'm trying to figure out if its worth it to buy the lanyard or just use discounts. This would help. Do you get the passholders discount on the lanyards?
 
I will post the spreadsheet, when I get home.

Historically, they have not offered the pass discount on the lanyards. Occasionally, the system has made a mistake and added the discount, but the policy has always been that the lanyard, itself, is already offering discounted prices.
 
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Nicole said:
I will post the spreadsheet, when I get home.

Historically, they have not offered the pass discount on the lanyards. Occasionally, the system has make a mistake and added the discount, but the policy has always been that the lanyard, itself, is already offering discounted prices.
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The FL parks usually have member-exclusive samplers like 18 items for the price of the 15-item sampler. But since BGW has the free items with each visit (and 1 extra for platinum), some families may end up not needing samplers. I can also see people buying them on a busy day and not being able to use all of them
 
Just curious. Did I miss the food review? I see the price spreadsheets but haven't seen a review. Due to a major screwup at BGW a few weeks back the only sample we tried was beignets. Saw the warning about the Alfredo and wondered why the warning. Thinking about going this weekend and just curious.
 
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I64 Trekker said:
Review is up...

bgwfans.com

Full Review of Busch Gardens Williamsburg's 2022 Food & Wine Festival

We photographed, tasted, and reviewed every dish at Busch Gardens Williamsburg's 2022 Food & Wine Festival. Read on for our impressions!
bgwfans.com bgwfans.com
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Just want to highlight that, for the first time ever, @Nicole wrote up individual, bite-sized reviews of every individual item. These reviews are always an absolutely enormous undertaking for Nicole and I, but this year's was even more ambitious than in the past. Hope you all enjoy it!

Oh, and if you do enjoy it, consider helping it along with some engagement on social media. These articles always underperform in that regard. 🙁

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As someone fortunate enough to be on this review team, I will say this is a huge effort on @Nicole's part and I'm super appreciative! I just have to eat food and complain 🤣

To expand on my thoughts from the review, I'm really excited by the Japan booth this year. The inclusion of meat-alternatives makes this event better for a wider audience—and the veggie dishes this year worked well for the most part! The Matcha Ice Cream was not a hit for me, but I really hope they continue refining it—the salty sweet concept is promising.

As in previous years, the shrimp taco continues to be my absolute go-to though. I think I ate three that weekend <3
 
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