Hey friends!
Welcome back to my blog! I know it’s been awhile! What better way to come back but with tips to the even of the Disney season! TOUCH OF DISNEY!
Now that it’s been a week and I was able to think of what made our trip extra magical and what we could have done better or not done at all, well, here they are! These tips will make your trip to the Disney California Adventure Park for the Touch of Disney event much smoother and overall make your payment $75 for the ticket worth it! Touch of Disney was amazing and totally worth the $75 - to me - and I hope these tips help you feel the same way!
Let’s get started!
PARKING: Park either at the hotels on Harbor or in Downtown Disney. The reason we chose not to park in Mickey & friends is because they don’t open the parking lot until 11:10-11:30 when the event itself starts at 12pm. What we did was get dropped off at the Disneyland sign on Harbor and my husband parked in Downtown Disney. The hotels offer parking for a fee, they are: Best Western Plus ($15), Anaheim Hotel with Mice Chat coupon ($10), and the Grand Legacy ($10). This information was gathered from the story of @magicalfoodies and @micechat on instagram. (links below)
WAITING: Stand in line immediately. The line gets super long and sometimes they start to let guests in before 12! If there are too many people standing on the esplanade, they will cut the line off and wait until it’s empty to add more people to the lines. Also, if you get there after 1pm, the line to get in is SUPER long. We got there at 10:30am and were let in by 11:15am.
FOOD: We got to see Mando from @thecalibae and his girlfriend the mystery bae and they gave us the tip to order all of our food from the marketplace right away instead of mobile ordering and I am so glad we did! We ordered everything at once and just picked up the items when we were ready. We presented our receipt and just walked right up. People that had the mobile order times had to wait 3-4 hours for some of their food!
TIMING: I know 8 hours seems like a really long time to be in DCA without rides but we actually ended up going to each section of the park and spent a great amount of time there! What I mean is, when the rides are open, we admire the park but never notice the details. This time, we spent 1-2 hours in each section of DCA admiring the details it has and it made me fall in love with the park even more! Plan to spend time in the different parts of the park and you’ll take up majority of the time you’re there.
PHOTO OPS: There are photo ops EVERYWHERE. The main ones we founds were in front of the Little Mermaid going toward La Plaza de la Familia but honestly, they're everywhere! I took photos and a ton of outfits to take advantage of an empty park because who knows when we will get this opportunity again!
SHOPPING: Los Feliz Five & Dime, Big Top Toys, and Elias & Co are all open for shopping! Off the Page is open, The Backlot Premiere Shop, Bing Bong’s Sweet Stuff, and a lot of the carts! I did some damage on shopping. LOL. Don’t forget Downtown Disney is open also!
GETTING INTO DOWNTOWN DISNEY: My husband wanted a starbucks drink and the location in DCA is closed for the event so we wanted to go into downtown disney to get one and you’re allowed too HOWEVER you have to make a line to come back into DCA for the event and the line was 40 minutes long. We didn’t think it was worth it honestly unless we were done for the day and we weren’t. So just prepare to stay inside DCA the entire time. Bring snacks, bring extra drinks, whatever. Just bring it all so you don’t have to go into Downtown Disney.
$25 GIFTCARD: The gift card they give you for the event is given at the time that you scan your ticket at the gates. Double check and make sure they DID in fact scan it so you don’t have to go back. This card is solely for food. No alcoholic beverages or merchandise. We were also able to use it at Award Weiners, not just the food festival. We ordered almost all of the food offered in the festival excluding alcohol beverages and it came out to be $72! Totally affordable!
WEATHER: Be prepared to sweat during the day. There aren’t many shady locations in DCA so you’ll have to walk to one and we chose to go by the Redwood Creek trail and it was so nice and cool! Just remember to take sunscreen during the day and a sweater at night! It gets chilly and windy in DCA.
OUTFITS: This is one of the only times we will ever see DCA this empty so take advantage and pack outfits for content! I took 5 but successfully got 4 looks so I was happy! I also packed for my husband and baby and we all got great content! Take advantage of the cool locations and plan your outfits accordingly. We go again April 11 and I already have 3 outfits planned and hopefully can do a total of 5.
RESTAURANTS: Unless you placed your reservations way ahead of time, you’ll pretty much be out of luck. I went to Carthay Circle and Lamplight Lounge and they were both booked so we just stayed with the regular food and festival foods and had dinner after 8pm in Downtown Disney at Tortilla Joe’s.
FOOD WE LIKED: We liked the pizza egg rolls, Walt’s Chili, the Carbonara Mac & Cheese, the Sweet & Spicy Wings, Very Berry Waffle, the Tenderloin Slider, and the Agua Fresca! They were SOOO GOOD. My top favorites were for sure the aqua fresca, Mac & Cheese, Walt’s Chili, and the Sweet & Spicy wings!
EXTRA TIPS: Get to Cars Land around 6:45 to see the land light up - IT’S AWESOME. Take your time, soak it all in. WEAR YOUR MASK. You WILL get into trouble if you don’t wear it properly. Get reusable straws! The straws they give you are cardboard and get all weird and gross. Also, pack some utensils. We kept forgetting to ask for them since they’re not accessible due to covid.
I hope these tips are helpful and help you enjoy your time at Touch of Disney! Let me know which tip helps or helped you the best! Tag me in your photos so I can see them!
Contributors to my information are:
Magical Foodies: https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3OTI5NjkzODk3NTA4MDc2?igshid=1q56n66vtw95i
MiceChat https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE4MDY5NjE1OTkxMzAwNjE3?igshid=15gqa6zpayum8&story_media_id=2532287758190619409
The Cali Bae https://www.instagram.com/thecalibae/
***All of the photos in this blog are mine. I don’t watermark my photos because I find it annoying but if you use them, please make sure to tag me. I would really appreciate that!*** Scroll down for more photos!
Once again, thank you for reading!
I love you guys so much!
Alex xoxo
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