I am a huge Disney fan. I don’t care what people say, Disneyland is my happy place. I can go all the time, even if it just means being in the park and not riding many rides, I’m good with it. As a SoCal resident I was blessed to have an annual pass for several years and now that I live in the Bay Area, I have to do the grown up thing and let my annual pass go. That said, part of the reason I went down to San Diego this past weekend was to use my pass one last time before it expires later this month.

As I mentioned in my last post I love food so we got lucky that we visited during the Disneyland California Adventure Food & Wine Festival. All month long they are celebrating “California’s cuisine, wine, craft beers and spirits with culinary demonstrations, tastings and cooking sessions with superstar chefs—from April 1 through May 1, 2016!”

Of course I couldn’t resist so I wanted to try everything. We were even luckier that since we’re annual passholders we got the extra perk of the:

Passholder Tasting Passport 
For just $39, the Tasting Passport lets you savor your choice of 6 food items from the Festival Marketplace, where you’ll discover a mouthwatering variety of California-inspired creations. The pass comes on an Annual Passholder lanyard and is valid from the date of purchase through May 1, 2016, so you can use it any time you visit the festival.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With that option, we were able to try one item from each station and I got a glass of wine to go with it. Since we both got the pass, we shared  bites of everything. I wasn’t able to get photos of everything since I took mostly Snapchat videos that can’t be posted (need to change the format but I don’t know how yet) on here so here are a few photos of the Food & Wine portion of the day:

The options were good. On the fancy side and they were sample size so they were small but I ended up really full. I’ve always felt the Disneyland resort was lacking in food, especially since I’ve heard how gourmet they get in Florida so I was pleasantly surprised with the option they had available.

There were 6 booths we tried. At LAstyle we tried the Chilled Ahi Poke and Pork Belly Bao Taco. At Gold Rush we tried the Triple Cheese Mac with Smoked Chicken and Artichoke Chips with Spicy Aioli. At Wine Country we both got the Zinfandel-Braised Wagyu Beef. At The Farm I got the Grilled Tenderloin Slider and JL got the Golden Thai Vegetable Curry. At the Viva Fresca booth I for the Fried Shrimp Soft Taco. At By the Bay I got the White Cheddar Ale & Bacon Soup in a Boudin Sourdough Mini-boule and JL got the Chilled Shrimp & Snow Crab Cocktail. We pretty much tasted everything that sounded good and we had fun stuffing our faces but we couldn’t go to Disneyland without riding rides. Here are our official ride photos:

We ended the day at Disneyland. As we walked in, Mickey and Minnie were in the front of the park so we stopped to catch a photo.

I also caught a selfie with the castle. It looks so beautiful at night with all the lights. I’ve been having a ton of fun with the Boomerang app so I can’t share all those photos or my Snapchat videos of the fireworks, etc. here but as you can imagine we had a fun time as usual.

I’m sad that my annual pass will expire but thankful for the years I was lucky enough to have the pass and glad to have a best friend that is ALWAYS down to go to Disneyland with me. I’m a kid at heart so I know this isn’t the last time I’ll be visiting the park but I’m still feeling nostalgic and sad that this was my official last “annual passholder” trip.

If you can get to the park before May 1, I highly recommend trying out some of the Food & Wine Festival options.