Disneyland Resort has been closed for nearly a full year at this point but there is hope on the horizon. A Touch of Disney will reopen California Adventure’s gates for guests to shop and dine inside of the park. This is Disney’s work around to not being able to reopen the theme parks quite yet. In this post, we’ll cover what the event’s dates, offerings, and cost are along with our thoughts on if the event is worth the price.

A Touch of Disney will begin on March 18th and run Thursdays to Mondays from 12 PM to 8 PM. Tickets will go on sale March 4th and must be purchased online for a specific date. There is no place to buy tickets in person, even at the Disneyland Resort. At the moment, there is no end date for the event because the resort will open the parks as soon as possible.

Here are the details on the event via the Disney Parks Blog:

• Pricing: The introductory $75 ticket includes admission, parking for the experience at Mickey & Friends parking structure, unlimited downloads of Disney PhotoPass photos taken during the day of the experience, and a $25 A Touch of Disney dining card valid towards the purchase of food and non-alcoholic beverages (subject to restrictions including not being valid for alcohol). Ticket prices are subject to change.
• Tickets: A Touch of Disney tickets will be available on Disneyland.com beginning March 4, for select days from March 18 through April 5, 2021. Tickets for this experience will then be released for dates on a rolling basis until the experience ends. Tickets must be purchased in advance and online at Disneyland.com for a specific date (subject to availability).
• Dining: Table reservations for Lamplight Lounge and Carthay Circle Lounge – Alfresco Dining will be made available beginning March 11. Table reservations do not provide admission to A Touch of Disney and dining at those locations requires A Touch of Disney ticket that is valid on the same day as the table reservation. Reservations are recommended, and additional details are coming soon.

The event will obviously take extra safety precautions:

As for what dining will be available, almost all restaurants in DCA will be open excluding the upcoming Avengers Campus which will debut when the park officially reopens. Along with that, some Disneyland favorites will be coming over for this limited-time event! That includes Dole Whip and the Monte Cristo Sandwich! I’m hungry now. There will also be six Marketplace Booths (from the usual Food & Wine Festival) for guests to enjoy. Those include:

• Disney D-Lish – Sink your teeth into new twists on classic sweets like the Very Very Berry Mickey Waffle.
• California Craft Brews – Quench that thirst with craft beer and enjoy an appetizing bite!
• LA Style – Feast on favorite southland food-truck flavors like the Pork Belly Bánh Mì.
• Golden Dreams – Tempt taste buds with sweet & spicy chicken wings from Trader Sam’s and wash them down with a strawberry rose lemonade.
• Uncork California – Try a mimosa flight and nosh on an assorted California cheese plate.
• Cluck-A-Doodle-Moo – Rally for bites like chicken gumbo and the grilled beef tenderloin slider.

Along with the food (like you need anything else?), the event will have most of the California Adventure shops open. The tickets also include PhotoPass, giving guests access to unique photo ops and downloads to those shots done by Disney photographers. Welcome back, Cast Members! There will be a few Disney characters out and about for guests to take socially distanced selfies with. That includes Mater in Cars Land and, for some reason, I am specifically singling him out!

Downtown Disney will remain open to explore, free of charge, during this event. There is no news regarding Disneyland. Ultimately, I expect that park to stay closed until the parks can actually have guests on rides.

Like most things, whether this is a good value will vary from person to person. My initial reaction is that $50 is a large amount of money to go spend in a theme park that’s void of rides. Within an hour I was looking at plane tickets and thinking about how much I wish I could go. There will be enough pent up demand, from people like me, that this event will sell out. Does that make it a good value? No but there’s enough Disney-crazed people around that $50 ($75 ticket minus the $25 food credit) won’t scare away crowds. I don’t really know if you’re one of those people, I just know that I would gladly drop $50 right now to go sit by the rockwork in Cars Land before eating some Lobster Nachos.

Beyond that, if you’re looking for evidence on when Disneyland Resort will actually open then this can only be seen as good news. The park is basically open outside of rides that last less than 5 minutes, are generally outside, and where guests would be masked-up. Eating indoors is far more dangerous than that if we’re looking at actual studies so it seems like only a matter of time before everything opens. At the very least, it’s good to have a few Cast Members back and we hope for many more soon!

What do you think of A Taste of Disney? Let us know your thoughts, along with any questions you might have, in the comments below! Planning a trip to Disneyland Resort? Check out our Disneyland Trip Planning Guide to help you out. If you enjoy what you are reading here on Wandering in Disney please share this post with your friends and like our social media pages. You can also subscribe to the blog via WordPress or email. All of those links are on the right side of this page. Thank you for reading, we really appreciate it!