Hi Kathleen,
Wow, what a wonderful surprise for your children and their spouses! The
Epcot International Food and Wine Festival is one of my favorite festivals at Walt Disney World. My family loves to visit at this time of year. We enjoy wandering the World Showcase and sampling food from the Global Marketplace kiosks. It is a great way to spend an afternoon!
While this is a popular festival and there can be many guests, I have never seen Epcot need to close because of crowds during the festival. That said, let me offer you a couple of tips for visiting during a less busy time.
First, avoid weekends if you can. The festival is so popular that many local Florida residents visit, and this tends to increase the number of guests on the weekends. If you can plan the trip for weekdays - ideally midweek, such as Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - I think you will find fewer guests in the theme park.
Likewise, I like to head to the festival as soon as it opens and enjoy it around lunchtime and midday. The crowds tend to build towards evening, so if you are looking to avoid those, an earlier visit in the day is a good idea. Perhaps you can see if there are some dining events or parties for the evening hours that you can book ahead of time for your children and their spouses. Keep an eye on the website that I linked previously for when those schedules are released for 2018. It is also always a good idea to monitor the
Disney Parks Blog for announcements.
I hope that these thoughts are helpful for you, Kathleen. Please do let us know if you have any further questions!