
Festival of Holidays kicked off on Friday, November 15th, 2024, and is available daily through January 6th, 2025, at Disney California Adventure. Festival of Holidays features entertainment like “Mirabel’s Gifts of the Seasons,” decorations throughout all of California Adventure, and, of course, plenty of specialty food and beverage items!
The 2024 Festival includes over 40 exclusive menu items offered at 7 booths plus multiple quick-service locations throughout California Adventure. Disney was kind enough to gift us a Sip and Savor Pass, which allows you to pre-purchase either 4 ($32) or 8 ($63) Festival of Holidays food or non-alcoholic items. The Sip and Savor Pass can be purchased at six locations throughout the park – Elias & Co., Festival Gifts, Festive Food Marketplace, Julius Katz & Sons, Seaside Souvenirs, and the Sip and Savor Cart.
We were able to sample several of Festival of Holidays items during opening weekend and have compiled a list of our 6 favorites exclusively from the booths!
Favorite Things
Located in the Hollywoodland area of the park near Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue, they don’t call this booth Favorite Things for nothing because we think you should order the entire menu.
Spiced Coconut Cocktail (New) – dark rum, spice tea, coconut puree, evaporated milk, condensed milk, and topped with nutmeg and a chocolate wafer cookie for $17.50.
This cocktail is the perfect way to enjoy the feeling of Christmas on a sunny California day. It reminded us of a coquito with a twist. The Spiced Coconut Cocktail is lighter than eggnog and the spice from the tea really balanced well with the coconut and condensed milk. Our team loved this one so much, we went back for another before the end of our trip!
Braised Pork Belly Adobo – served with garlic rice and topped with fried garlic and green onions for $9.50.
The crunchy fried garlic with the tender braised pork belly is SO good. The pork belly melts in your mouth and the flavor is incredible. Our team quickly ate this one and was excited to see another solid non-dessert option at the Festival of Holidays.
Sticky Toffee Pudding Macaron (New) – Mickey-shaped chocolate macaron filled with vanilla buttercream, date cake, and salted toffee sauce for $8.00.
Look at how cute this dessert is; how could you not get it?? We were also pleasantly surprised by just how delicious it is. The macaron has the perfect light and chewy texture and the butter cream inside is the perfect pairing with the chocolate. The BEST part of this adorable treat is the salted toffee sauce in the center of the macaron. The salted toffee sauce is decadently sweet and we could have used more of it. Be sure to grab at least two of the Sticky Toffee Pudding Macarons – one to eat and one to take home!
Holiday Duets
Holiday Duets is located near Grizzly River Run and serves two different mac and cheese options plus a Cranberry Christmas Mule cocktail.
The Holiday Duet – a half portion of each mac & cheese for $9.25.
- Savory Kugel Mac & Cheese – topped with herb breadcrumbs, sour cream, and chives – $8.50 for the full portion.
- Chorizo Queso Fundido Mac & Cheese (New) – topped with tortilla crunch (vegetarian) – $9.00 for the full portion.
We loved both of these mac and cheese dishes and were torn on which was our favorite! The “chorizo” has a fantastic, spicy flavor and the crunch with the creamy mac and cheese is perfection. The Savory Kugel Mac & Cheese is so rich and the Kugel noodles help to really soak up all the flavor from the cheese. I would like to get both of these again and try mixing them together!
Merry Mashups
The Merry Mashups booth is located on the walkway from the front of the park to Avengers Campus and Cars Land. The menu features two food items that made our must-have list plus a Glacier Margarita.
M&M’s Peanut Butter Fudge Cake (New) – chocolate fudge cake filled with peanut praline and M&M’s peanut butter minis, glazed with salted peanut butter and topped with vanilla Chantilly crème for $7.50.
This M&M’s Peanut Butter Fudge Cake is a peanut butter lover’s dream. The chocolate cake is dense and tastes just like a piece of Christmas fudge, BUT then you get to the peanut praline and WOW. It reminded me of the Peanut Butter Squares you can find at Disneyland’s Candy Palace. The salted peanut butter glaze and vanilla Chantilly crème really add something to the dense chocolate and the perfect bite should include all of it. Despite its size, this is a heavy dessert so be sure to get extra forks to share it!
Holiday Mash Bowl (New) – chicken, cheddar mashed potatoes and turkey gravy with cranberry stuffing crunch for $8.75.
The Holiday Mash Bowl was high on our wish list for the Festival of the Holidays since it combines so many of the things we love! The cheesy mashed potatoes were creamy and had to have been made with heavy cream. The creamy, rich potatoes paired perfectly with the crunch from the cranberry stuffing – we just wish there had been more of it!
When we first got our order, it looked like the picture below and we were searching for the chicken only to realize it should have been on top. Here’s the crazy part, we think we liked it better without the fried chicken nuggets. They were dry and distracted from the yummy mashed potatoes. You obviously don’t get as good of value without the chicken, but it is something to consider the next time you order this Festival of Holidays favorite!
We only scratched the surface of all the Festival of Holidays food offerings but loved most of what we tried! We will also share some of our favorite menu items from the quick-service dining locations.
Let us know in the comments if there are any must-have Festival of Holidays items we should add to our list!