Tip #6? Don’t buy wine in World Showcase! OK, hang on, let me explain.
Mrs. All in WDW and I love to find an umbrella table in Italy – one of the high ones in the front of the pavilion – and camp out to watch Illuminations. Our “usual” is for me to go over to Tutto Gusto to buy a quartino or two of wine, so we can sit there and watch the best fireworks display in WDW (in the universe!). No, the view isn’t optimal if you want to see everything, but, after dozens of viewings, it’s all about the soundtrack, being in World Showcase, and the overhead display. We find it incredibly energizing!
Anyway, we thought we were getting “smart” when we …
… decided it would be cheaper to mosey into the little shop next to those tables, buy a bottle of wine, have them open it and give us a couple of plastic glasses, and enjoy. Unbeknownst to us, Disney doesn’t want their wine bottles opened in the park. And, apparently, they don’t want them opened anywhere else either!
We’ve gotten into wine in the last year, so, even though we couldn’t open a bottle in Epcot, we decided to buy a couple in Italy anyway. It was last November. We were there on one of our infamous last-minute visits – staying at Yacht Club. We bought the bottles, walked them back to the resort, and sat by Stormalong Bay to enjoy the sun, the pool, and Italy’s best. Ever the Boy Scout (no, sadly, I wasn’t one), I brought a very crude corkscrew. Let me tell you something – I don’t care what corkscrew you bring. That cork is not coming out easy. Both bottles presented an equal challenge. I think I pulled a couple of muscles trying to get those bottles open.
A few months later – er, earlier this month – we bought a bottle of wine in France. First, we had never tried a French wine. Second, I wanted to take another try at uncorking a bottle. Yep. You guessed it. I don’t know what the European process is for corking bottles, but the rest of the world should take note.
Moral of the story: if you really want a glass of wine, don’t buy a bottle in World Showcase. If you’re not in a rush and don’t mind a death-defying struggle to uncork that bottle, the wine tastes pretty good!
Cheers, either way!
Good to know! Getting a bottle from France was on my list of things to do during my upcoming trip. I might just have to pack my heavy-duty corkscrew instead of my usual little travel version. Can you carry the bottles through the park, or do you have to have them sent for gate pickup? I’ll be exiting through IG…
Hi, Kelli. Thanks for visiting All in WDW. That’s the problem. I was using a travel corkscrew, and the cork kept breaking off in the bottle. Got it open eventually, though. We were able to carry the bottles through the park each time. We found that curious because we had the corkscrew with us. We could have wrestled the bottles open in Epcot, but they were so insistent that the bottles not be opened, we were afraid to get kicked out of the park.