home > Columns > Geekspeaks >
3/03/23 - Disneyland Resort - Food & Wine Festival Opening Day
 The Geek Speaks:

Welcome to the disneygeek.com Geek Speaks section. In this section I will post my comments on trips to the parks or other Disney related events.

3/03/23 - Disneyland Resort - Food & Wine Festival Opening Day

Hello Everyone!

I visited the Disneyland Resort on Friday. The weather was decent compared to what it has been. It was dry with mostly clear skies and temps in the 60s. As soon as the sun set it cooled down to the 50s quickly and felt cold. The crowds as you would expect for a Friday and opening day of the Food & Wine Festival were on the higher than average side with both parks feeling busy.

Thoughts and Observations:

  • The 2023 Disney California Food and Wine opened Friday and runs through April 25th this year. The offerings seem on par with recent years with nothing drastically different standing out to me after exploring the offerings. The marketplaces have been shifted around a bit and the menus feature new offerings. For opening day the queues at the marketplaces seemed average, not as long as some stretched during some of the other recent events. Since I am not a big food person I always skew toward looking at the entertainment. This year has the same basic offerings as the past couple. The Palisades stage features a concert series throughout the festival. Fridays are Phat Cat Swinger day. I enjoy them so that's great but I would like to see the groups rotate days so if you visit the same day all the time you can see a variety of performers. The Jammin' Chefs are back again and they perform at the Obelisk this year. Alice's Wonderland Bakery is on the Backlot Stage as well as some cooking demonstrations. The Bandstand in Paradise Gardens hosts a variety of groups throughout the festival. Friday there was a quartet performing.
  • The San Fransokyo Square conversion of the Pacific Wharf is in full swing with the bridge blocked off and being repainted and renovated. There are also walls up around the what will become the new beer sales point. The current beer truck is still open but assuming it will close the same time the new location open. Then that old space will become a Baymax Meet and Greet area. They were working throughout the day on Friday during park hours creating a lot of noise and some dust in the area. I found it interesting they repainted the top half of the bridge while still removing the wood and cleaning the bottom half. If you have bad timing your meal in the Pacific Wharf area can be rather loud.
  • Speaking of the Pacific Wharf at the Cafe we ordered some soup via mobile order. It would be nice to have the option to specify if you'd like the soup inside the bread or in a cup. We asked when they called our number and they served us soup on the side without a problem. Also noteworthy while waiting two different guests came in and asked about the broccoli and cheese bowl, which is no longer available.
  • Over at Disneyland the Disney100 Mickey Mouse statue in Town Square has returned since my last visit and the quote has been fixed.
  • Toontown is still a very active construction site as they put the finishing touches on the area in preparation for its reopening March 19th. A new Mickey and Minnie sculpture was installed Thursday evening and Daisy's sign too. Several props and other elements are visible at Goofy's and in nearby trees now too. One disappointment is the Goofy Water fountain has been replaced with a standard fountain and bottle fills station. It is very generic and with no elements to make it fit within Toontown, maybe it is still a work in progress.
  • Since my last visit Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway has moved to a standard queue and Lightning Lane, no more virtual queue. This is a plus if you want to visit the area and if you want to ride multiple times in a day. Due to most of the queue being inside and even the extended outdoor area being out of sight you have no real idea the wait time until you are well within it. We were with some friends who had not seen the queue yet so we decided to take a shot that the 90 min estimate was off. Turns out it was by a good margin, it was 60 minutes instead of 90 to reach the preshow. The line would move nicely at times then stop for 10 minutes or so. We assumed it was due to LL returns but unsure since you really could not see it. You could purchase a nearly instant LL for $18 if you did not want to take your chances in the standby queue. It was interesting to be able to spend some time reading the signs and looking at the queue. This was also my first time seeing the extended outdoor area. The area is more finished than I thought with painted walls, speakers with background audio and shade. It is interesting to watch theme park guests.. even with no chains and just tape on the ground most were able to follow the queue with no problem. We did see one person who was looking at their phone loose track of their party as they turned and kept walking while the person on the phone stopped.
  • Over in New Orleans Square the French Market closed since my last visit and is now behind walls and being converted to Tiana's Palace opening later this year. So far you can see scaffolding with a printed scrim and that is abut it from ground level.
  • Main Street USA seemed to be having some issues with the lighting as the sun set. Most of the lights in Town Square and along the street did not come on. After several minutes the parade lights were raised and turned on to give some light. Eventually the lights did come on, just before the parade started.
  • The Magic Happens Parade returned to Disneyland last week. This parade had a very brief run right before covid shut the parks down. Its return was delayed several days due to rain storms. We made the decision to see the 6:30pm one to see it under the lights. This won't be an option in a few weeks when the time changes and both parade times will be in the daylight. It was great to see the parade again and the high energy performances and music make for a fun experience.
  • Earlier in the day I saw the Toontown sign said it would be closed 8pm until 10pm so I took my time after the parade and let the crowd disperse a bit before making my way out to see the land at night. When I arrived at 7:15pm the land was already closed. This was disappointing as I was not able to see the area at night again. Maybe next trip.
  • We took the long way back to the car and walked through Downtown Disney this evening. The projects only had incremental visible progress since my last visit. Guessing the large number of rain days did not help the timelines. Downtown Disney had a good crowd as you walked through, about normal for a Friday night. Trying to watch a performance on the west end stage was a bit awkward with the construction fence making for a relatively small area.

Here are some recent posts to the Geek's Blog:

Disney Related Press Releases

Be sure to check out the picture update that goes with this Geekspeak column, it can be found in our Disneyland Resort Pictorial Update section

Trip logs and mileage reports are in the Park Miles section.

Send comments, questions, any other email to: disneygeek@disneygeek.com
Back to previous page

 

Quick Note

Check out the geek speaks archive for past updates.

 

Interested in Helping out?

If you are a fellow disneygeek and interested in sharing your insights, pictures, thoughts drop us an email here we are always looking for contributors.