Another Orlando food festival? Of course, there can never be too many! SeaWorld has more recently entered into the Orlando food festival realm hosting numerous festivals throughout the year. A few of these include the Seven Seas Food Festival, SeaWorld Christmas Celebration and the Craft Beer Festival.
The Craft Beer Festival
Currently, SeaWorld Orlando is hosting their Craft Beer Festival which runs from August 5th through September 5th. However, the event only occurs on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, so plan accordingly if you are hoping to go.
The Craft Beer Festival features more than 100 alcoholic beverages including beer, wines, seltzers and cocktails. There are also 15 food items that you can sample during the festival. P.S. If you are a SeaWorld Annual Passholder, you can receive one free beverage sample each day of the festival! (Unfortunately, that does mean you cannot try the food samples for free). You can see a full list of the food and drink offerings on SeaWorld’s website and learn more about the festival.
Sampling Lanyards at the Craft Beer Festival
If you are planning on heading to SeaWorld for the festival, I highly recommend the sampling lanyards as long as you think you will try a fair number of samples. The lanyards cost $55 for 8 samples ($6.88 per sample) or $70 for 12 samples ($5.83 per sample). I think that the items at SeaWorld’s food festivals are very overpriced, but purchasing the lanyards makes the samples more reasonable. I would feel very ripped off if I paid full price for most of the samples they offer, but with the lanyards I was very happy with the return on my money!
Festival Booths
The festival booths are located throughout the park, but if you walk to the right when you first enter the park and walk around to Ice Breaker you will be able to pass all the booths and peruse options. There are maps located throughout the park and you can pick up a festival guide that lists the food options available at each booth. You will need to go in person or check online to see the drink selections for each booth, however.
Festival Item Selection
With over 100 alcoholic samples to choose from, this is definitely a great festival if you are hoping to try out some beer, seltzers, wine or cocktails. The festival features alcohol from all over and there is really a great selection. I am not a huge fan of beer, but I was very impressed with the cocktail options and the Off the Vine booth has some tasty looking wine options. The beer selection is incredible in my opinion so if you are a beer fan, this is a great festival for you!
The food selection is a bit more limited with only 15 food items. However, there are some yummy options there too. Some of the food items that stood out to me were the following: Oktoberfest Walking Taco, Birria Pork Tacos, Smoked Brisket Macaroni & Cheese, and Smoked Drunken Chicken Quesadilla. Yummy!
Drink Reviews
I am an Annual Passholder at SeaWorld, so I am excited to stop by as often as I can to try out as many of the drink options as possible. I really enjoy just walking around SeaWorld and it makes it even better to have a drink in your hand doing it! Check out the drinks I have sampled below and my reviews on them:
Fistful Frozen Peach Punch – 8.5/10
This one was frozen and had Fistful Bourbon, Tea and Peach. Overall, this drink was very refreshing, and I could definitely taste the bourbon in it. I did not get very much peach flavor however, but I still really enjoyed the drink. It was the perfect amount of frozen to drink without the need for a spoon. I would get this one again!
Sparkling Mojito with Blackberry & Lemon – 7/10
This drink was very interesting. I enjoyed the flavors, but I was not a huge fan of the sparkling aspect of it. The bubbles kind of overpowered the drink. The blackberry and lemon flavors were very strong and overall, this drink was very refreshing and a good walk and sip drink.
These two drinks were a great start to the festival, and I can’t wait to try some more! While I think the festival items are overpriced, the sampling lanyards help to make the samples more reasonable and there are some great options available! Especially if you are looking to check out alcoholic beverages as they have a huge selection available at the Craft Beer Festival!
Have you been to the festival yet? What were some of your favorite items? I would love to hear from you in the comment section below! Happy Travels!