Disneyland & Disney California Adventure Halloween Food Adventures 2024
Halloween is one of my favorite seasons of the year, especially at the Disneyland Resort! The characters have the cutest outfits, the Halloween Screams fireworks show is arguably one of their best, and of course the seasonal foods always show up to impress us!
I won’t be trying everything on offer (because that’s a lot), but if you want to see the extensive list of seasonal foods, check out the official Disneyland Halloween Foodie Guide and see what peaks your interest!
So let’s dive in to some of the tasty (or less-than-impressive) foods that caught my eye at Disneyland Resort for this year’s Halloween season!
Disneyland
Pumpkin Cold Brew
Location: Royal Street Veranda
Price: $7.29
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
If you’re a fan of sweet pumpkin-flavored coffee, I recommend getting this one! The pumpkin flavor is sweet and pretty strong, but it doesn’t mask the nice earthy flavor of the cold brew. And the cold brew itself has a bold flavor but isn’t overly bitter. I love the added crunchy texture of the toffee and crispy pieces on top as well!
It does seem like the experience varies when you get this drink. I felt that my drink was nicely sweetened, but I have heard from others that their drink was way too sweet. So miles may vary with this one, but I hope they improve their consistency.
I will also note that this was called the Pumpkin King Cold Brew and came with a Jack Skellington topping, but by the time I got this drink, they changed the name to Pumpkin Cold Brew and removed the Jack Skellington, so that could have also impacted the other ingredients, but I can’t say for sure.
Pumpkin Spice Fritters
Location: Royal Street Veranda
Price: $6.99
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
The pumpkin spice fritters are almost like a really nice counterbalance to the Pumpkin King Cold Brew. In a single order you get three pieces of pumpkin spice fritters with a cream cheese icing dip.
The fritters themselves are super crispy on the outside and warm and fluffy on the inside. The texture of these are really fantastic. The fritters are coated in cinnamon sugar coating, but the overall flavor is not too sweet. It definitely gives more of a spice-y flavor than a sweet flavor. Though the cream cheese icing is plenty sweet if you have more of a sweet tooth - add as much or as little as you like!
Pumpkin Cheesecake Taverne Cold Brew
Location: Red Rose Tavern
Price: $6.79
Rating: 🎃 🎃 / 5
Not sure if it’s just me, but after trying several cold brews from Red Rose Tavern, I think their coffee drinks have a strange aftertaste that I’m just not a fan of. The pumpkin flavor in this coffee is pretty good, though I wasn’t really getting a cheesecake flavor from it. And because of the aftertaste, I generally wasn’t a fan of this drink. It’s not terrible, and it was worth a try for my curiosity, but I wouldn’t get it again, especially since there are other great coffee drinks around the park.
Churro Loops con Cajeta
Location: Rancho del Zocalo
Price: $6.99
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
This one is pretty delicious! The churros themselves have a dark brown coating that’s a mixture of the different spices that are used for the churro flavor. These churros are a bit different from the ones you can get at the churro carts around the park in that the coating itself isn’t sweet and it’s pretty well spiced. The brown coloring made it look overcooked to me, but I was surprised at how soft and flaky the inside one while the outside was still nice and crunchy! The cajeta comes in a small plastic cup that you can use to dip the churros in, and the cajeta is the primary source of sweetness for this treat. My primary qualm with this treat is that the price is pretty high for four small churro loops.
Tip: if you’re only ordering dessert at Rancho del Zocalo, you can skip the big long line at the main entrance since that’s primarily for the main dishes.
Fantasyland Garlic Cheesy Brat
Location: Edelweiss Snacks
Price: $12.99
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
The garlic cheesy brat is filling and tasty! The bratwurst in the center is well spiced and flavored and has a really great texture. The pretzel bread is soft, though the bread itself doesn’t have too much flavor on its own. But the cheesy garlic spread is really delicious - very savory and cheesy and lots of nice garlic flavor. I only wish there was more spread!
Because this is primarily bread, this is really filling. So I recommend sharing this with someone if you want to try more food!
“Ghost” of Anaheim Burger
Location: Galactic Grill
Price: $16.49
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
I tend to be cautious about Galactic Grill burgers since they’re often quite dry, but this “Ghost” of Anaheim burger was pretty okay! The patty itself was pretty juicy. They were very generous with the slow and it was a refreshing balance to the patty and the spiciness of the ghost pepper salsa verde. However, the spiciness actually wasn’t very well spread across the burger. There were parts of the burger that were super spicy and parts that weren’t spicy at all.
Darth by Chocolate (returning)
Location: Galactic Grill
Price: $7.29
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
This is a fan favorite and returns every year for a reason! The chocolate ganache is super rich and decadent, and the raspberry flavor adds a tartness that helps cut the extreme richness of the chocolate. While I do really enjoy this, the first bite is always best in my opinion, and then it gets just a tad overwhelming. This isn’t something that I can eat in one sitting - share it or take it home and finish it slowly.
Boo-gogi Toasted Cheese Sandwich with Corn Cheese Soup (returning)
Location: Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe
Price: $15.49
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
I feel like this sandwich and soup combo is best in the chilly evenings. The toasted sandwich is packed with meat in the center and is super savory (and also quite messy!). While the meat isn’t exactly what you’d call bulgolgi, it’s still very flavorful and really hits the spot. The corn cheese soup is actually my favorite part though. It’s very reminiscent of corn pottage - it’s nice and creamy, and savory with a hint of sweetness from the corn. A super comforting cozy dish.
Supernova Pretzel (returning)
Location: Pretzel Cart near Star Tours
Price: $8.75
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
Sometimes all you need is a simple, slightly spicy, cheesy pretzel. This is a basically a jalapeno and cheese pretzel covered in hot cheeto dust. I’m already a fan of these things separately, so I also love when they’re together!
In execution, this is super messy to eat. And I have to say, the pretzel textures at Disneyland can be hit or miss. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a super soft, fresh pretzel. If you’re not, it can be tough and dry, and kind of unpleasant to eat. I happened to be fairly lucky with my pretzel when I tried this one, but I have had less than stellar experiences, so miles may vary with this one.
Disney California Adventure
Peanut Butter Cold Brew
Location: Cappuccino Cart
Price: $7.75
Rating: 🎃 / 5
I had high hopes and really wanted to love this drink, but I absolutely could not. It’s the one thing on this list that I can confidently say I don’t want to get again. I know lots of people love it, so if you’re curious, I’d say it’s still worth a try.
I am a fan of peanut butter, which is why this drink was intriguing. And a couple good things about it: the peanut butter flavor is definitely prominent, and the peanut butter itself isn’t too sweet. So this drink overall is not a super sweet drink. Flavor-wise I think they did a great job at giving the flavors they’re claiming to have. However, the texture was really not it for me. In terms of creaminess it was almost too creamy to the point where it almost made me feel a bit queasy. The first few sips were great, but as I continued drinking it, I enjoyed it less and less until I was glad to be done with it. I couldn’t even eat the peanut butter M&M toppings by the end because I was so peanut butter-d out by that point.
So I guess if you’re obsessed with peanut butter and want to drink a liquid version of it, this might be really be a winner, but otherwise it’s just a bit too much.
Mater’s Haul-o-Ween Cone
Location: Cozy Cone Motel 2
Price: $5.99
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
This ice cream is so delicious I would get this over and over, and I have already gotten it a few times this season. You have the choice of getting the full ube soft serve which is the the Mater’s Haul-o-Ween cone flavor, or you can get an ube and vanilla swirl. I see that most people actually really enjoy the swirl, maybe because there’s a nice balance between the two flavors, but I love going all in on the ube.
The ube flavor is super prominent, the soft serve is thick and creamy, and it’s just so good if you’re someone who loves ube desserts. Is this the most ube-flavored dessert I’ve ever tried? No, but it’s still really good. For the most part, I feel like Disney does a great job at hitting the ube flavors in their desserts that I’ve tried throughout different seasons, and this might be my favorite of the bunch.
The only thing I’d skip on is the black sprinkles. For the aesthetic it’s great, but it doesn’t really add anything to the flavor. To me, it’s just additional chalky sugar that you have to get through to get to the good stuff. But if you’re a sprinkles person, then you might really enjoy it!
Villainous Double Cheeseburger
Location: Smokejumpers Grill
Price: $16.49
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
This is a really decent burger. The patty is pretty juicy and the arugula and aioli is nice. It is quite spicy, especially as you continue eating it, so it’s good to be aware of that if you’re sensitive to spicy foods. I did somehow feel like something was missing from this burger though. I’m not quite sure what, but it felt like it lacked maybe some of the umami that I might have been expecting. The spiciness is there and the texture is there, but I wish there was just a little more flavor packed into it.
You also get a side of crinkle cut fries which are nice and crispy.
Asian-Inspired Spicy Pork Tacos
Location: Studio Catering Co.
Price: $11.49
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
These tacos were pretty good, but they’re definitely not my favorite. The serving size was three tacos, which was pretty filling for me, and I felt like the meat portion in each was pretty generous. The kimchi and picked vegetables were very much needed for this dish because the meat is just so savory and salty (perhaps too salty?). I also think whoever prepared my tacos went really heavy on the sriracha aioli because these tacos were spicy. My lips and mouth were burning and it was almost painful by the time I got to the last taco. I’m not super great with spicy foods, but I can typically hold my own pretty well. But these tacos were far too spicy for me.
Similar to a lot of the other dishes, I think it depends on who prepares the food exactly how your dish is going to taste. I think there’s a chance that these tacos can be the right level of spicy, but mine wasn’t it, at least not for me.
Taro Bread Pudding
Location: Aunt Cass Cafe
Price: $7.49
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
This one was sooo good! Disney’s really doing their Asian-inspired dessert flavors right!
The taro and coconut flavors are there, but they’re not overwhelming or overly artificial. The texture is soft and chewy, somewhat like a cross between a mochi cake and a Vietnamese cassava cake. It’s definitely on the sweet side, so I would say this is a great dessert to share with someone else, or a few others. The whipped cream adds additional sweetness and the bread pudding is topped with boba. While I’m upset all I got was four measly boba balls (jk), the texture of them was actually really good! They were perfectly chewy and I just wish I had more of it!
Ursula Shake
Location: Schmoozies!
Price: $13.79
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
Another Asian-flavor inspired dessert that I think is somewhat of a winner!
The Ursula shake is a taro and coconut shake that actually uses real taro! The graininess from the taro does come through the shake and the color of it is a very natural light purple-gray color, unlike the bright purple color of artificial taro. The taro and coconut shake itself is amazing, and if I could get that by itself, it’d probably be closer to a 5/5 rating.
The aspects that bring this drink down for me are all the other things they add to it. The cotton candy just doesn’t go with this drink - I get it, it’s supposed to be Ursula’s hair and that makes it really cute, but flavor-wise I don’t think they complement each other. The black sprinkles on the side which is also added for aesthetic purposes also doesn’t go with the drink and makes the experience less pleasant because the sugar actually melts if you keep the drink long enough and runs down the cup, making it sticky and kind of gross. The whipped cream that they use on top is a very thick kind of whipped cream that clumps together, and clumpiness is not a texture that I enjoy for whipped cream, adding another element of ick for me.
Since we can’t make adjustments to the drink (like remove all the unnecessary parts of it), I wouldn’t get this again. But if they ever think about serving just the taro and coconut shake, I definitely would.
Spicy Meats Pizza
Location: Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta
Price: $9.49
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
This was the first food item that I’ve tried from Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta. The pizza itself is pretty good! The pizza dough has a nice bounce to it, though it is on the thicker side of pizza dough. The different meats on top of it have good flavors, and the ranch is a nice addition as well. This one isn’t too spicy, but there is a slight kick from some of the meats, so it’s very mild but still flavorful.
Garlic Cream Cheese Bread
Location: Food Carts in DCA (near Paradise Garden Grill & Incredicoaster)
Price: $9.25
Rating: 🎃 🎃 🎃 / 5
If you like soft sweet bread, you’ll mostly likely enjoy this one! The bread is essentially Hawaiian bread rolls with cream cheese in the center and topped with garlic and some honey. Maybe batches vary, but my bread had very little to almost no honey. The garlic flavor is pretty good, but I wish there was more. And the cream cheese is pretty good in the center.
I’d say this was a pretty good snack to try, but it’s quite pricey for what it is, and I’ve had better similar bread at other eateries outside the park. Obviously, if you’re in the park, this is the most accessible and it’s pretty good. So if you really want to try it, I say go for it.
If you’re looking for a similar dish at restaurants in Orange County, I recommend trying the baguette bowl at Goobne Chicken in Fullerton, or the truffle cheese bread at INI Ristorante in Fountain Valley!
I’ve had some pretty good eats this Halloweentime! While a few of these items weren’t a hit for me, I do always applaud the efforts of the food department at Disneyland to give us new flavors and dishes every year! Though I will forever miss the pumpkin cheesecake from Jolly Holiday and hope that every year they bring it back.
