2025 Disney California Adventure Food and Wine Festival Guide

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What began back in 2006 as a small celebration with just two food booths has blossomed into perhaps the biggest festival held at the Disneyland Resort. These days, the California Food and Wine Festival, not to be confused with its EPCOT counterpart, isn’t to be missed.

With participation from upwards of ten food booths (or, marketplaces), multiple brick and mortar restaurants, food carts, culinary demonstrations, entertainment offerings, cooking classes, and more, it can seem daunting to figure it all out.

In this post, I’m going to list the festival’s offerings and help you to figure out where everything is, based on my experience attending the event. Not all details have been released about the 2025 festival, so I’ll be using information from prior years to lay it all out. Let’s get into it…

2025 California Food and Wine Festival Dates

In 2025, the California Food and Wine Festival will be held from February 28 through April 21, 2025.

Food and Wine Sip and Savor Pass

If the main focus of your trip is to experience as much of the food and drink offerings as you can, then the Sip and Savor Pass is an essential component to the experience. Depending on which one you purchase and how you use it, it can actually save you money.

I’ve already written an extensive post about the Sip and Savor Pass which you can read here, so instead of a deep dive, I’ll simply cover the basics. The Sip and Savor Pass comes with either four or eight allotments, which you can redeem for select festival food and drink items.

If you’re a Magic Key holder, you’ll receive a slight discount on the 8-count card, but not on the 4-count version. Since you’re essentially pre-paying for multiple items at once, the more higher priced items you redeem your allotments for, the better your savings will be.

To redeem your allotments, present your card to the cast member taking your order and they’ll scan the back of it. You’ll then be handed a receipt which will display the total number of remaining allotments your card has.

As stated above, to get the most of your Sip and Savor Pass, use your allotments for the higher priced items. I say this because depending on the price of an item, you could actually lose money if you don’t pay attention.

For example, in 2024, the price of a four allotment pass was $31. Broken down, that meant each allotment was worth $7.75. Most food items were either at or higher than that price. However, most non-alcoholic drinks and some desserts were priced below that.

Therefore, every time somebody used one of their allotments for those, they actually lost money. If you’re keen on a drink or two, use your allotments on food and just pay for the drinks and certain desserts out of pocket. Note that your allotments cannot be used for beer, cocktails or wine.

Again, for a deeper dive into the Sip and Savor Pass, read my comprehensive post about it here. In it, I break down the math on both versions of the pass, where and what you cannot use it on, and more.

Food and Wine Festival Marketplaces

One of the main offerings during the Food and Wine Festival are a variety of themed marketplaces, each offering its own menu specific to that theme. Don’t expect to receive large portions at these booths. Each food item is typically priced around $8 to $9 and are considered “sample sizes”, for the most part.

We don’t yet know the themes for the 2025 festival, but we do know that much like in 2024, there will be ten featured marketplaces. However, two of them will receive new themes in 2025. Keep an eye on this post as I’ll update it with the new themes when they become known.

Marketplace Locations

Locations could always change, but Disney typically keeps the marketplaces in the same general areas. The Performance Corridor, which is the pathway leading from the hub at Buena Vista Street and passes Avengers Campus, Cars Land, San Fransokio, and the entrance to Pixar Pier, usually has 3-4 of them.

Additionally, you’ll also find one or two in the Paradise Gardens area, and another one or two in the Hollywoodland Backlot. Finally, there’s often one tucked away near the Grizzly River Run water wheel, at the end of the Embarcadero buildings.

The marketplaces are open daily during the entirety of the festival, operating from 10:30am to 9pm. We don’t yet have a foodie guide for the 2025 festival but to see examples of the offerings, see my list of 17 items my wife and I tried at the 2024 Food and Wine Festival. A few of those will definitely be repeats this year.

The festival food and drink offerings don’t end with the marketplaces. At several of the traditional restaurants, such as Wine Country Trattoria and Lamplight Lounge, there are usually one or two festival-specific items added. The exact restaurants vary by year, but generally, most of them participate in some manner.

The Paradise Gardens area transforms into the Festival Beer Garden, offering a variety of beers and wines from all over, but with a heavy focus on southern California beers. Additionally, Sonoma Terrace typically offers special wine tasting events as well.

Select Downtown Disney restaurants also get in on the act. The official list changes every year, but you’ll generally see Jazz Kitchen participating to some extent. I wouldn’t be surprised to see relative newcomers, such as Great Maple American Eatery, Centrico, and possibly Din Tai Fung participate in 2025.

Event Entertainment and Limited Time Specials

Another fan-favorite aspect of the Food and Wine Festival are the numerous entertainment offerings throughout the event, namely the live musical acts. A variety of bands make appearances throughout each day on two stages throughout Paradise Gardens Park.

Also in Paradise Gardens Park, near the entrance to the Little Mermaid attraction, is where the Jammin’ Chefs perform. It’s a 12-minute performance featuring Disney characters such as Chip, Dale, and Daisy Duck, dancing to music while the chefs perform with pots, pans and other common kitchen ware.

As far as special character meet and greets are concerned, the only one specifically for the festival is Chef Goofy. Normally, the only way you would see Chef Goofy is if you paid for a character meal at Goofy’s Kitchen. You’ll find him in the Hollywood Backlot, near the Hollywood backdrop photo-op.

During Food and Wine, Soarin’ Over California returns to the park. In 2016, this original version of Soarin’ was replaced with the updated, Soarin’ Around the World. Since then, fans clamored for the California film to return, so Disney began bringing it back during the festival, probably to quiet us all down.

Beyond these, there are numerous culinary demonstrations featuring well known chefs from around the world, cooking classes guests can partake in, tasting seminars, and other related activities. You can view and book from the schedule here.

Limited Time Merchandise

Finally, it wouldn’t be a Disney event without corresponding, limited-time merchandise. Corkcicle, who is a huge sponsor of the event, usually has several limited edition tumblers available for purchase. In 2024, Disney sold these Corkcicle champagne flutes (pictured above) that came with a serving of your drink of choice.

Of course, Disney features a wide variety of their own branded merchandise for the event as well. You’ll surely see the usual line up of spirit jerseys, Loungefly bags, pins, Mickey ears, t-shirts, hoodies, glass ware and more. You can find merch at the booths and carts set up along the Performance Corridor, as well as in the gift shops on Buena Vista Street.

In addition to the Disney branded merchandise, you’ll also find several third party companies and individuals offering a wide range of specialty products and foods. We did one where cast members digitally drew caricatures of my wife and I, and placed a print of them onto a wine bootle with fairy lights inside.

Our artist did such a fantastic job. She even went the extra mile and included the Inked with Wanderlust logo that was on my hat. This souvenir, while expensive, was super unique and unlike anything we’ve purchased in a theme park.

Let me know in the comment section below if you’ve been to the Food and Wine Festival before or if you’re planning to visit in 2025 for the first time. For my wife and I, it’s our second favorite event at the park, right after Oogie Boogie Bash, of course.