Disney’s California Adventure park has an event, Festival of Holidays, that is one of the best Disney experiences! It ran in the fall since 2016. In this case, it was early 2018, and it offered special food and drink items as well as holiday entertainment. You can enter from the Cars Land side or from the San Francisco area that has Ariel’s Undersea Adventure. In its own way, this is EPCOT’s World Showcase, they had a Holidays Around the World changed to Festival of the Holidays in 2016. The live entertainment is impressive especially the Holiday Toy Drummers. They march in with the bright red and white uniforms and hats and snare drums. The drummers march to the fountain across from Ariel’s Undersea Adventure and play “March of the Toy Soldiers” from the Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. Their synchronized movements and tricks reminds me of The Power of Blast show that was at the Hyperion Theater. I would really like these talented performers return to DCA in whatever form.
There are a number of booths food and drink booths were on one side of the lake, Paradise Bay?, at the end of the park. The best part is that it has guests experiencing the food, drink, music of different cultures. What was disheartening was that some guests waited in line for hot dogs, same time waiting and same price, instead of the diverse and delicious foods you didn’t get everyday at the park. At the Holiday Duets Marketplace was an offering, Braised Pork Belly Adobo on a bed of garlic fried rice, to this moment I still remember that it was my favorite! At the Winter Sliderland Marketplace I had the Fried Turkey Slider with cranberry sauce and Warm Peppermint Chocolate Float! They are on small paper trays, but each one was filling. For dessert, I had the Hot Cocoa Marshmallow Macaron. Really, I would try almost any offering at the booths and they were worth the price. These items lasted all day for me. I did miss the food offerings at Paradise Garden Grill including a burrito that was a flour tortilla with black beans, Spanish rice, molcajete sala, crema, choice of meat; beef, carnitas, or chicken with tortilla chips and molcajete salsa. The point is there always something tasty that you might try the next time. You can buy a Sip and Savor Pass that gives you eight offerings, that might be perfect for two or more guests.
There is one area that is a standout, ¡Viva Navidad!, that is centered at the Paradise Garden Grill. It brings back the Latinx focus that was lost with the closure of Golden Dreams in 2008. The parade, ¡Viva Navidad! Street Party, is fun! There are folklórico dancers in colorful outfits, large mojiganga puppets, and also Mickey and Minnie! The highlight for me was a float of The Three Caballeros! This is Donald, Panchito Pistoles from Mexico and José Carioca representing Brazil. They are from The Three Caballeros (1944) film and why I found them exceptional is that I’ve never seen them at a Disney park! There was a meet and greet later and all of them were funny! Panchito blocked Donald when I was taking their pic! There is also another parade, Princess Elena’s Grand Arrival, which features the Royal Court dancers, a float of a Jacquin, a winged jaguar, and of course Elena Castillo Flores herself. She tells her story from the animated series Elena of Avalor, Elena sings “My Time” and other songs from the show. An impressive vocal, a live performance by a princess in a parade!, I did see Ariel sing in Voyage of the Little Mermaid at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
There are some incredible dancers for Diwali, with the Blue13 Dance Company bringing the energy and beauty of the Indian festival of lights. The not to be missed performance is Mariachi Divas, they have won the Grammy Awards twice, and performed at the Cocina Cucamonga Mexican Grill restaurant across the bridge, at the Pacific Wharf. I was really excited to see from youtube videos, Mostly Kosher, I watched their performance twice. The show times are listed in the event pamphlet. They really have fun playing and singing plus interacting with the audience. Mostly Kosher is a Klezmer band fusing jazz, rock, and hip hop into a fun sound of different cultures. I really like their song, “Ikh Hob Dikh Tusfil Lib”, which they play in the show. I hope all of the performers return to Disney’s California Adventure. The other part of the Festival of Holidays is that there are arts and crafts activities for the different holidays. The performances and activities are informative which is the best aspect of a theme park. It makes the theme park a blend of cultures that is so entertaining that I really didn’t go on any rides or check out Disneyland. The booths are open air so that would be perfect in this environment. It woud open up a good part of the park and bring back cast members, but I imagine that the Festival of Holidays was planned out in advance. This was the strategy for Knott's Berry Farm that eventually became Fall-O-Ween. I hope with a possible opening of Buena Vista Street that this could mean a possible limited return of Festival of Holidays!
#DisneysCaliforniaAdventure, #FestivalofHolidays, #BlueDance13Company, #MariachiDivas, #MostyKosher
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