A blog discussing whether or not a Food & Wine Festival Sampler Lanyard is worth it to buy at Busch Gardens Williamsburg's popular festival

If you click on the links in this post, we may earn money from the companies mentioned in this post, at no extra cost to you. You can read the full disclaimer here.

Sharing is caring!

Have you been to the Busch Gardens Food & Wine Festival this year yet?  If not, my family highly recommends it!  We visited the festival this past Memorial Day Weekend and had a blast.  We tried a lot of great foods and drinks.  You can read about all the food and drinks offered in this Food & Wine Festival Guide.

If you visit the festival every year, you may have favorites you want to keep trying each year.  But the Food & Wine Festival is also a great way to try new foods and drinks from around the world you may have never tried before.  Especially all the new additions to the festival every year.  In fact, once you go, there may be a lot of things you want to try.

One way to try numerous items at the festival is with a Food & Festival Sampler Lanyard.  I’m going to tell you about what it is, how it works, and whether or not it makes sense financially to buy.

How the Festival Sampler Works

So basically how the Food & Wine Festival sampler works is that you buy one sampler and this gets you free food and drink items.  You can buy a 10-item sampler for $65 or a 15-item sampler for $85.  You can use this to buy either 10 or 15 different foods or drinks.  Please note of course if the drink is alcoholic, you must be at least 21 years old.

One you get it, you can use it throughout the whole festival.  So that means you could buy it now, you can use it the next two weekends.

It works like a punch card where they’ll punch your card for each item you purchase.  It is honestly a lot more convenient than continuing to pay for each item over and over.

Is The Festival Sampler Worth It?

So as I said, having the sampler is really convenient.  But other than the convenience, is it worth it?

Well, first of all, a lot depends on how much you’ll buy at the festival.  If you think at most you might buy a couple of drinks or something, then it is not worth it.  You need to buy multiple items for it to be worth it.

But even if you buy multiple items, whether it is worth it also depends on what you buy.  See, a 10-item sampler costs $65.  That would mean everything you buy would need to be more than $6.50 per item on average for you to save money on this deal.

If you only want to buy food at the festival, then you most likely will not save money.  There are a few exceptions to this rule.  For example, take the Australia booth.  The lamp chop you can buy there costs $11.25 and the Snag on the Barbie costs $7.25.  So, really, the more meat items tend to be more expensive (like the Meatball in Italy which costs $8.25).  So if you buy one of these items, you can save money.

But take the foods you can find in Japan.  All the food items you can buy there cost $6.50 or less.  So you would lose money buying the 10-item sampler even if you got all 10 items.

But on the other hand, the cocktail you can buy at Japan costs $13.99.  The beer at the aforementioned Australia cost $14.99, the wine costs $9.99, and the cocktails cost $13.99.  So you would save a lot of money with the 10-item Food & Wine Festival Sampler Lanyard.

So what does all of this mean?  This means that you will save money if:

  • You buy a lot of food and drinks during the festival
  • You’re buying alcoholic beverages
  • The food you’re buying is more meat-based

You will lose money if the food you are buying are more say snacks or desserts, or you don’t purchase many items during your trip.

But if you do buy a lot of drinks or more expensive food items, you will save money with the sampler.  You can buy the Food & Wine Festival Sampler Lanyard here.

Platinum Membership

And one final thought: if you’ve ever thought about getting a platinum membership to Busch Gardens Williamsburg, now is the time.  We have a platinum membership and we love it.  We only have to pay a monthly fee, and we get all kinds of perks.  Our favorite is the free preferred parking.  But we also like the discounted food and drinks we purchase throughout the park, the discounted souvenirs, free tickets we can give friends or family members who don’t have memberships, and more.

But why did I say now is the time?  Well, platinum members get free food items at the Food & Wine Festival just for being a member!  So that is another way you can save money on food at the festival without getting the lanyard.

Please note though that you can’t use it for alcoholic drinks.  But you really save money when you say buy the lamb (which we did and we liked).

You can purchase a platinum membership here.