Category: Parks & Resorts

Welcome to a marketplace review for the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival 2017, taking place in the park from August 31st through November 13th, 2017. This review will cover the brand new “Light Lab”, which is located in Future World West behind Club Cool and Epcot Character Spot. Strangely, this marketplace is split into two, with the 3 specialty beverages and the “glow nut” only available in a specially lit room, while beers are available just outside at a set of counters.

Light Lab

Food:

• The Glownut (Limited Edition) –  $3.00

Beverages:

• T=C²: Vanilla Tonic Water and Cotton Candy (non-alcoholic) –  $3.75
• RGB: Citrus Apple Freeze (non-alcoholic) –  $3.75
• Bleu Spectrum: Blanc de Bleu Cuvée Mousseuz with Boba Pearls –  $9.00
• Left Hand Brewing Company Polestar Pilsner, Longmont, CO –  $4.25
• Playalinda Brewing Company Robonaut Red Ale, Titusville, FL –  $4.25
• Elysian Brewing Space Dust IPA, Seattle, WA –  $4.25
• Sixpoint Brewery Mad Scientist Radiant Flux, Brooklyn, NY –  $4.25
• Founders Brewing Company Green Zebra Watermelon Gose Ale, Grand Rapids, MI –  $4.25
• Blue Point Brewing Company Optical Illusion IPA, Patchogue, NY –  $4.25
• Space Flight –  $9.00
  • Left Hand Brewing Company Polestar Pilsner, Longmont, CO
  • Playalinda Brewing Company Robonaut Red Ale, Titusville, FL
  • Elysian Brewing Space Dust IPA, Seattle, WA
• Light Flight –  $9.00
  • Sixpoint Brewery Mad Scientist Radiant Flux, Brooklyn, NY
  • Founders Brewing Company Green Zebra Watermelon Gose Ale, Grand Rapids, MI
  • Blue Point Brewing Company Optical Illusion IPA, Patchogue, NY

The Glownut (Limited Edition) –  $3.00

Don’t let the lighting fool you, this was nothing special. Blue sprinkles and white icing with lighting that any non-DSLR camera simply can not capture doesn’t make this anything different than what it is: a doughnut you can buy at any of the Joffrey’s carts at any Walt Disney World theme park. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t bad, but it’s just an average doughnut that they will have in short supply each day.

T=C²: Vanilla Tonic Water and Cotton Candy (non-alcoholic) –  $3.75

If you watch the video towards the top of this post, you can watch the “scientists” make this drink, which is pretty fun. Well, I wish it tasted half as fun. It’s basically sugar water. Sure, kids will have fun watching it be made, and it could make for a fun video for your social media account, but you might as well throw it away after that.

RGB: Citrus Apple Freeze (non-alcoholic) –  $3.75

While this is slightly better, I still would not recommend it. It’s also called a freeze, but did not appear frozen in any way during the first two days of the festival. On top of that, it had no special presentation as they just had a bunch standing by and handed it to me once I presented my receipt. This seems like a waste at a booth with such a unique presentation style.

Bleu Spectrum: Blanc de Bleu Cuvée Mousseuz with Boba Pearls –  $9.00

Taking a page from the Festival of the Arts, this is a glass of colored champagne with boba balls in it. While there is no straw this time, it’s still the exact same thing. While the boba balls and champagne together make for a good flavor, this isn’t the best way to enjoy them. Drinking it in this way means you are having a bunch of champagne followed by the boba. Not a bad drink option, but there has got to be a better way to ingest it…

Space Flight –  $9.00

The Left Hand Brewing Company Polestar Pilsner was absolutely terrible, out of the eight people in our group, no one liked it. The Robonaut and the Space Dust were both good, but you can always find the Space Dust IPA at Geyser Point.

Light Flight –  $9.00

The Mad Scientist Radiant Flux is a fantastic sour beer, the Green Zebra is a decent shandy, and Hoptical Illusion (which can be found at Abracadabar) was pretty awful in my opinion. I’m not sure either flight is worth it unless you really NEED to try all of these for yourself, but as always, you can just get the individual pours as well.

In review, the interior area of Light Lab is wonderfully themed and quite pleasant, it’s just a shame that there is almost nothing worth having from here.