As most of you have figured out by this point, not only am I a Disney fan, but a massive fan of all things Food and Wine. Traveling is also a major love and one that thankfully doesn’t have to be put on the back burner anymore. Knowing that I was going out to have my own California Adventure, I began doing my research on what was going on at the Disneyland Resort when I was heading out there. To my absolute delight, I found that Disney’s California Adventure Park would be having their annual Food & Wine festival while I was visiting. The festival runs this year from March 4th until April 26th. The fact that I was getting to visit wonderful friends (one of which is also a Chef), join them on their first trip to the Disneyland Resort AND get to try incredible food & beverage samples along the way? SIGN. ME. UP.
As mentioned in my previous post about Avengers Campus, I had headed out to the LA area to visit one of my near and dear former coworkers, David and his husband, Matthew. Neither of them had ever been to Disneyland in California and they had given me 1 year from when they moved out last summer to come and go with them. I won’t go into the history of the park as that is available on the last post, but California Adventure was our day 1 plan.
After heading in and down Buena Vista Street, which is the “Main Street USA” of this park, we found ourselves in front of a lovely fountain and circle area. While there is no castle in this park, you will be greeted at this hub with Carthay Circle Restaurant. Modeled after the original theater where Walt famously premiered his first feature length animated film, “Snow White”. Carthay Circle Restaurant is not only a high end dining experience, it is also home to an amazing lounge as well as 1901, a members only lounge location.
The decor, the food and the beverage selection here is top notch. It is worth dining in if you would like a relaxing table service experience. But if you aren’t down for that, it’s definitely worth stopping in and seeing.
In this fountain area, you will now often find several characters out for photos. During the times we found ourselves in this area, we saw everyone from Minnie & Pluto, to Snow White and one of Disney’s more rare characters, Oswald the Rabbit. If you don’t know the backstory of Oswald, here’s a great article about it. If it weren’t for the somewhat tragic story of what happened to him, we wouldn’t have Mickey Mouse. Imagine the Disney that we currently know without Mickey Mouse? It’s quite a thought.
This fountain area or Carthay Circle is the hub spoke of the park. Much like Disneyland or the Magic Kingdom, this is where you can go in several directions to different areas of the park. Hollywood Land, Cars Land, Pacific Wharf, Paradise Gardens Park, Grizzly Peak and Pixar Pier are all accessible from this area, as well as Avengers Campus. I also spoke to the Hollywood Land area a bit in my Avengers post but to recap, this most resembles, obviously, Hollywood. This is a throwback to the area’s golden age of film with most of the design being Art Deco and in some spots, a backlot of a Hollywood studio. Attractions in this space include Mike & Sully to the Rescue, Mickey’s Philharmagic, Disney Junior on Stage, and the Animation Building. Inside the Animation Building, you will find not only actual Disney Animators that you can learn to draw a long with, you will also find Turtle Talk with Crush, the Sorcerer’s Workshop and a character greeting with Anna & Elsa from Frozen.
This area is also home to some great counter service food options like Award Weiners, which has incredibly gourmet hot dogs and Schmoozies, which is home to all kinds of amazing milkshakes and treats!
This is where we encountered our first Food & Wine booth. If you are not familiar with how Disney Parks does Food & Wine festivals, let me break it down. They set up several booths, or “Marketplaces” as they call them. These are big enough to produce food but not a full fledged counter service set up. These booths produce tasting sizes of their options. The idea is to be able go to multiple booths and try several items without filling up at just one. The booths are generally themed out.
If you attend Epcot’s International Food & Wine festival (WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE), you will find many booths that are representing different and specific countries. Here at California Adventure’s Food & Wine festival, the booths are themed out to different areas or ingredients that the Golden State is known for.
There are also different culinary based events like Celebrity & Disney Chef demos, seminars and tasting events throughout the Festival. Some of them are available at an extra cost and some are included with your park entry. You will also find shows like Disney Junior’s Unbirthday Party for little ones, as well as themed character meet & greets with Chef Goofy! Specific Food & Wine Merchandise can be found throughout the park as well such as these amazing ears!
Some dining spots that are always available like the Cappuccinos Carts, PYM Tasting Lab and Terrain Treats feature special food and drink items only available during the festival. Even some Downtown Disney restaurants feature specialty items for the Festival times only.
Our first booth, which ended up having our favorite item, was LA Style. This booth featured items that perfectly represent a taste of what Los Angeles has become known for on the Culinary Map and gives you the feel of a food truck. Most booths also had choices of some alcoholic beverages as well as non-alcoholic options. We all settled on the Glazed BBQ Pork Belly with Furikake-Togarashi Mac Salad.
This was so incredibly tasty! All of us agreed that we could have easily done a second portion due to the perfect balance of flavors, textures and ingredients. The pork belly was crispy yet moist. The macaroni salad had amazing non-traditional flavors. It was a hit!
After watching Mickey’s Philarmagic and riding Mike & Sully to the Rescue, we headed out of this area and made our way to Pixar Pier. While en route, we passed a few more Booths including “I Heart Artichokes”, “California Craft Brews”, “Berry Patch” and “Nuts About Cheese”. Truth be told, we didn’t get to try nearly as many as we wanted to. The lines for many of these got quite long. Some we even passed and went back to once the lines were shorter.
As we approached the Pixar Pier area, my friends starting getting very excited. This is a fun area and it’s meant to be. When originally built, the Pier portion of the Park was not specifically Disney themed, which was something that initially affected the entire park. It was designed to represent the Santa Monica area and beach spots along the California Coast. Paradise Pier as it was originally known wasn’t received too well because the Park itself isn’t terribly far from actual Santa Monica. So in 2018, the entire area was rethemed to be Pixar Pier, featuring various to all characters from the Disney Pixar brand. The California Screamin Roller Coaster, one of the main focal points of this area, was rethemed out to be the “Incredicoaster”, featuring the characters from “The Incredibles”. Toy Story Midway Mania is another main attraction as well as the Inside Out Emotional Whirlwind and the Jessie’s Critter Carousel.
The other side of Paradise Bay, the lake in the center of all of this, is home to the Paradise Gardens area of the park, as well as where you can watch California Adventure’s night time show, “World of Color”. No lie, to me it is hands down the best night time show of any Disney Park. Clocking in at almost 30 minutes long, it is an absolute spectacle to see and updates fairly often to include new films or attractions. Sadly, the show was not running when we were there due to continued Covid pre-cautions. It’s actually coming back on April 22nd. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed that we would not get to see this as it really is worth it.
Back to Pixar Pier, we took our spins, (literally) on Toy Story Midway Mania and the Incredicoaster. Toy Story Midway Mania is a super fun game/ride that has you playing traditional midway games but in a new modern way. If you are competitive, you will really love this. And while I am a fan of rollercoasters normally, this trip has confirmed that I really do not care for the Incredicoaster. I rode it as California Screamin back in the day and after riding it twice now, my discontent has nothing to do with theming and everything to do with hurling, which I did after the second time on this ride. If you want to experience this yourself, check it out here.
It was after the first ride with the Incredibles that I said I needed something to drink and to sit for a minute. We moseyed up to the Lamplight Lounge, a restaurant I had heard amazing things about. This is a very stylized, boujee-themed Pixar restaurant that celebrates the animation that has come from the studio. There is a dedicated restaurant, which is the Lamplight Lounge Boardwalk Dining and then the lounge itself, which is the downstairs portion. We headed to the lounge area itself and had a seat at the bar.
They were just about to stop serving their Brunch menu, which sounded lovely, but we just wanted a cocktail and to sit for a few. I had been fighting a headache all day due to dehydration from my day of travel the day before. The Incredicoaster pushed me over the edge. I grabbed some tylenol before we got our seat at the bar and chose my beverage.
Like Pixar, there was a lot of different options to accommodate a lot of different tastes with a similar theme: Fun! We all opted for something different and were very excited to try each others drinks.
David went with the Sequel, a bubbling cocktail with Absolut Citron Vodka, Bacardi Superior Rum, Liquid Alchemist Passion Fruit, fresh Lime Juice and Agave Nectar. What wasn’t mentioned in this description was that the bubbling feature came from dry ice. It made for an incredibly fun and visually enjoyable drink. Plus it tasted amazing!
Matthew opted for the Over Budget, which featured Grey Goose Vodka, Liquid Alchemist Passion Fruit, fresh Lime Juice, Agave Nectar and Ginger Beer. This was essentially their take on a Moscow Mule and it was delicious!
My choice was the Sunrise Spectacular, which included Maker’s Mark Bourbon, Tropical Juices, Agave Nectar and a dash of Angostura Bitters. I don’t know if it was the tylenol, this drink or a combination but my headache was soon gone.
This restaurant is one I’d really like to come back and truly dine at one day. The lounge itself downstairs has such a cozy yet stylish feel highlighting Pixar’s truly incredible films. The views of Paradise Bay are lovely to sit and take in at the bar. Off the side of the bar, is more seating with some fire pits and fun seating. I’ve heard great things and seen amazing photos of some of their other cocktail offerings as well as their Lobster Nachos.
There are a lot of Pixar themed food carts around this area with everything from extra large chocolate chip cookies (Jack Jack Cookie Num Nums) to chicken tenders
We hit a few more booths along the course of the day and had amazing Palomas and Empanadas from the Pepper’s CALI-ente and Wings from Cluck a Doodle Moo. Many of these booths were bordering the Pacific Wharf and Paradise Gardens area of the park. Pacific Wharf is home to many quick service counter dining spots as well as Ghiradelli Chocolate Fountain. Paradise Gardens also had a lovely Festival Beer Garden was several food options and many different draft beers to try. Honestly, everything we had was amazing, which truly is the Disney way of handling food.
Grizzly Peak is home to the Grizzly River Run ride as well as Redwood Creek Challenge Trail. The River Run is a water ride that was closed for renovations while I was there and is an attraction that I have actually never been on. Each time I have been to the park, it has not been super warm. Therefore, not really game to get drenched. The trail is a playground type area for kids that incorporates characters from Raya and the Last Dragon as well as Up. This area is generally less crowded then other parts of the park and is enjoyable if you need a little break from the chaos of Avengers Campus or Cars Land.
Towards the front of the Park, you will also find Soarin, an amazing flight ride, in an area themed out to the High Sierra’s airfield that was popular in the 50’s and 60’s. This area is now known as the Grizzly Peak Airfield and features a few shops and food spots.
Another bonus of the Grizzly Peak area is that it is also home to a private park entrance to the Grand Californian Resort, a signature luxury hotel and spa. While the Disneyland Resort is also home to the Disneyland Hotel as well as Paradise Pier hotel, the Grand Californian is the only one to have it’s own entrance to a park. Meaning, you can bypass the usually lengthy lines to get into the park and enter in your own, generally less crowded way. There are still bag check points here so security is still present. Only downside is that if you are looking to experience the grandness of the park entrance and experience of truly entering a Disney Park, you won’t get it here. Another plus to the Grand Californian Resort is that it also has it’s own entrance to Downtown Disney as well.
The other big attraction to California Adventure is without a doubt Cars Land. Debuting in 2012, this area of the park is mind-blowing if you are a fan of Disney Pixar’s Cars movies. Radiator Springs, the town featured in the first Cars movie, is completely brought to life down to the smallest of details. The flowers, the rocks, the food stands and everything else looks like it was literally plucked out of the animated film and placed down in Anaheim, CA.
You’ll find the Cozy Cone Motel is actually home to several house sized cones offering variously quick service goodies like Pizza Cones and Churros.
Flo’s V-8 Cafe is a counter service restaurant with theming matching the time frame and of course movie, serving up classic american fare for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Fillmore’s Taste-In is themed out for Fillmore’s character, a volkswagon bus, and represents that 60’s vibe.
One of my favorite things of this area is that both Mater and Lightning McQueen actually drive out for their appearances, adding to the ambiance and authenticity of the experience.
Carsland has 3 rides including Luigi’s Rollicking Roadsters, Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree and the big daddy of them all, Radiator Springs Racers.
The latter is a close replica to Test Track at Epcot in Walt Disney World Florida in car vehicle and track system. But the scale of this attraction is completely awe-inspiring. With an enormous amount of hand painted rock to resemble the look of the Route 66 roadways, this ride is not like many you will see. Paired alongside actual full-sized versions of the Cars characters and top speeds, it’s something any Cars fan should experience.
The wait for this ride is generally a long one because it has become a major ticket item for the park itself. This is one where if you have the Genie + Lightning Lane option, you still have to pay extra to ride it. I touched on this controversial feature in my Avengers post but I definitely don’t agree with it.
While we didn’t get to see World of Color at nightfall, Pixar Pier at night is definitely a sight. The lights, the carnival vibe and water in Paradise Bay are so enjoyable to look at.
Lines at this point for all the booths were extremely long, especially at Garlic Kissed, the booth completely dedicated to the amazing ingredient. Sadly, we didn’t get to hit more booths but loved everything we tried. The table service restaurants were all booked so no dinner plans were made for inside the park, although there are a few spots I would have loved to have tried Wine Country Trattoria for dinner or Carthay Circle. Instead, we headed out to go check in to our hotel and have dinner at Downtown Disney.
While I would have loved for the Food & Wine Festival to have been bigger, I can somewhat understand why it isn’t. This park is much smaller then Epcot. However, I think if the booth’s had been more spaced out or even if there were a few more, the lines might not have been so long.
As a whole, our experience at California Adventure was a wonderfully memorable one. The attractions, including those at Avengers Campus, are impressive. The theming of this park can be confusing in part to young ones, especially those looking immediately for Mickey Mouse. But it’s enjoyable nonetheless. Truth be told, it does not have the same magic as it’s neighboring park, Disneyland. You know you are in a Disney Park, but it doesn’t have the same level of whimsy. It is however an amazing platform for the extensions of Disney, such as Pixar and Marvel. And for that, it can be appreciated for what it is. If you are going to make the trip out to the Disneyland Resort, it is absolutely worth the money to visit California Adventure if you are that close. They do go hand and hand very well.