Festival of Holidays at California Adventure is one of the best festivals in any Disney Park. There’s wonderful decor, entertainment and, of course, food! Running until January 7th, this festival includes several marketplaces (food booths, if you want the less fancy term) as well as items added to restaurant’s menus. In this post, we’ll rank every item we’ve tried at DCA’s Festival of Holidays!

Like all California Adventure festivals, this edition features a Sip & Savor Pass. For those unfamiliar, guests purchase a plastic pass and lanyard that comes with 6 ‘digital tabs’. Those tabs are good for any non-alcoholic item on the Festival of Holidays menus. Sip & Savors cost $49 or $46 for Magic Key Holders. This isn’t some remarkable value but if you’re planning to eat around the festival for a few days, then it will probably save you a few bucks.

We’ll stick to reviewing and ranking those items that are on Sip & Savor and will add more as we try them over the festival season. I’ve been somewhat disappointed in the 2025 options. They took out most of our favorites from last year and have limited some of the options. Festivals in DCA have started to head this way as a whole. Meanwhile, food that’s not part of the festival (you can see menus here) is strong. We tried Jerry’s Junk Truck Cone last night at the Cozy Cone’s and it was surprisingly good, much better than the name might indicate. Anyway, all this to say the festival items are fine but haven’t blown us away this year.

Fewer options in the food department match a cutback in entertainment, as several stages are missing from the previous few years. It’s a disappointing turn of events but not one that I was overly surprised to see. Festival of Holidays is still an enjoyable option overall, as there’s still bands to see, food to try and lots of decorations. If you have questions about the Sip & Savor Pass, let me know in the comments. Let’s get to the rankings!

17. Cajun Fries (Smokejumper’s Grill)

Loaded fries have a long and not-so-proud history of finishing last on this list. This year is no exception! Don’t get me wrong, I love loaded fries elsewhere in the world but Smokejumper’s just can’t seem to get it right. This version features Cajun fries topped with hot links, cheddar cheese, corn, and bell peppers. Those are all pretty good actually! But then the dish is smothered in Tabasco, which seemed like a strange choice and not a tasty one. I’m curious if this was the case for others but I don’t want to order these again to find out.

16. Beef Brisket Slider (A Twist on Tradition)

This slider is served with smoked onions and horseradish ketchup on a pretzel roll. I didn’t think that was a great pairing. The horseradish ketchup mixed with what tasted like a French dip sandwich didn’t work for me. All of the individual components were okay but as a whole I didn’t enjoy the sandwich.

15. Al Pastor Mac & Cheese (Holiday Duets)

This Mac & Cheese was topped with with tortilla crumble and cilantro, which I enjoyed. The problem here is that I just don’t like California Adventure’s Al Pastor. I love it elsewhere but the sauce used in the park, along with a tougher cook on this particular dish, ruined this option for me. Your mileage may vary here, depending on how you feel about DCA’s Al Pastor.

14. Café de Olla Cold Brew

This cold brew consists of Joffrey’s Mexico Origin Coffee, whole and condensed milk, and house-made spiced piloncillo syrup topped with a chocolate dulce de leche sweet cream and garnished with a mini pan dulce. The highlight here was the mini pan dulce on top! That’s both good and bad news, as you get a nice pastry built in with the coffee. But a cold brew’s highlight probably shouldn’t be the non drink part. I found this to be overly sweet but with enough different spices to keep me interested.

13. Sticky Toffee Pudding Macaron (Favorite Things)

The cutest offering at this year’s festival is a Mickey-shaped chocolate macaron filled with vanilla buttercream, date cake, and salted toffee sauce. I especially liked the latter two ingredients. Sadly, the buttercream overpowered all of it and made it more of just a sweet taste than anything else. That said, your mileage may vary here. It’s pretty good and fun to look at!

12. Hot Blueberry Cider (Rita’s Turbine Blenders)

Speaking of overly sweet, if you’ve ever wanted to take a blueberry compote that you’d put on pancakes and just drink it then I have the cider for you! That turns out very predictably, being delicious for a few drinks before turning into an instant sugar rush and crash all at once. Do you remember Pixy Stix? Do you remember how they are just flavored sugar that you poured straight down your throat? This is the drink form. There is a non Sip & Savor version of this with bourbon and that would make way more sense with the sweet drink.

11. Cinnamon Caramel Apple Bundt Cake (Cappuccino Cart)

File this under another dessert that turned out a little too sweet. The first few bites were good until it becomes too one-note. Cream cheese frosting wasn’t necessarily needed here and we wished there was a little more in the way of apples in the cake. I also didn’t taste as much cinnamon as I did every other ingredient. All that said, this was a decent dessert but couldn’t rise above that.

10. Savory Kugel Mac & Cheese (Holiday Duets)

The other Mac & Cheese option at the festival is served with herb breadcrumbs, sour cream, and chives. I was pleasantly surprised by this, as it looks like something I would just not enjoy. While leaning a little too rich for my taste, this ended up being pretty tasty at least for the first few bites. After that, the taste was a little one note and overpowering. This booth does offer both Mac & Cheeses (a half portion of each) in one dish, and I’d recommend going that route.

9. Holiday Mash Bowl (Merry Mashups)

This is the good, or at least much better, version of DCA’s loaded fries. This bowl includes chicken, cheddar mashed potatoes, and turkey gravy with cranberry stuffing crunch. The chicken is similar to popcorn chicken and was tasty enough. The real winner here was the cranberry stuffing crunch that gave the hearty a bowl a little zest. This won’t blow anyone away but it’s a really solid option.

8. Cookie Dough Yule Log (Grandma’s Recipes)

All of the Festival of the Holidays desserts end up being a little too sweet for me, including this one. That said, I thought the cake portion of this was delicious. The white chocolate mousse inside of the Yule Log was also great. I didn’t care for the cookie dough here, as the texture was too stringy. Overall, this was a good dessert held back by one ingredient.

7. Chocolate Flan Cake (Paradise Garden Grill)

We were sad to see that more items at Paradise Garden Grill weren’t Sip & Savor items. Those are usually dependable and interesting. As for this item, we really liked the chocolate cake layers and thought the flan was good but a typical flan. The top of the dessert is caramel that had a caramelized sugar taste, which would be better if it added a crisp texture to the top.

6. Braised Pork Belly Adobo (Favorite Things)

This dish was simple but tasty, with a chunk of pork belly sitting on garlic rice. This item doesn’t reach the heights of other dishes but it’s dependable. The pork belly was tender and not overcooked, although that can depend on how long it has to sit under the warmer at the festival. Garlic rice adds a little more flavor but the meat is the star of the show.

5. Holiday M&M’s Eclair

This eclair is filled with milk chocolate mousse and topped with whipped ganache and M&M’S Milk Chocolate Minis. The milk chocolate mousse is fantastic and the highlight of the pastry. The whipped green ganache on top doesn’t turn out quite as favorably but it doesn’t ruin the dish by any means. This new treat is one of the best desserts at the festival and is adorable!

4. Barbacoa Tamal de Res (Grandma’s Recipes)

A festival returner, I liked this Tamal more this year than I did last year. The barbacoa inside of the tamal was more noticeable this year and the bites with plenty of the filling present were some of the best I had at the whole festival. The Oaxaca cheese, tomatillo salsa and crema on the outside of the Tamal made for a spicy but satisfying addition.

3. Cookies and Cream Hazelnut Hot Cocoa (Winter Sliderland)

This is Melissa’s favorite thing at Festival of the Holidays and that’s a big reason why I have it in the top five. That’s not to say I don’t like the drink, it’s really good hot cocoa. The cookies and cream taste is evident and that always makes things better! I don’t think it’s as interesting as some other options but there’s no doubting the deliciousness.

2. Pumpkin Spice Bread Pudding (Aunt Cass Cafe)

We’ve reached my favorite dessert of the festival! This Bread Pudding is served with a graham cracker crust topped with pumpkin cheesecake filling, whipped cream, graham cracker crumble, and an espresso brown sugar sauce. There’s a lot going on here but it’s significantly more complex than other dessert we’ve tried. I think the dish benefits from being made in a counter-service restaurant, as the whipped cream was fresh and delicious and the bread pudding was moist. If you’re more of a dessert fiend than me, consider moving this up to number 1!

1. Chorizo Queso Fundido (Brews & Bites)

A dish this simple probably shouldn’t be number 1 on my list, but everything about this was delicious. Disney makes surprisingly good tortilla chips, good enough that I crave them! The queso had just enough heat behind it and was a perfect way to warm up on a cool evening. The standout here is the vegetarian Chorizo though, as it had more flavor than any other non-meat meat I’ve found. That really elevated the dish and gave it more depth.

We’ll update our list as we try a few more items over the holiday season! What are you favorite items at California Adventure’s Festival of Holidays? Let us know, along with any questions you might have, in the comments below. Planning a trip to Disneyland? Check out our Planning Guide here. This site has you covered for Disneyland discount tickets! If you enjoy what you are reading here on Wandering in Disney please share this post with your friends, as well as 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!