Gung Hay Fat Choy, Happy Lunar New Year, wishing everyone happiness and prosperity this upcoming year, in the Cantonese dialect of Chinese. If you don’t know, I am half-Chinese from my mother’s side of the family, as my grandparents immigrated on a steamboat from Hong Kong, which uses the Cantonese dialect, to Bakersfield, California in the early 1960s. Grandpa did not want to see any body of water again after that, so they settle down in Bakersfield in the Central Valley that does not have any bodies of water near there. At home, we celebrated by eating Chinese food, and the parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, give their children, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren respectively, Lucky Red Envelopes with money to symbolize luck & good wishes for the year.
This year, I was away from family to celebrate Lunar New Year, so I did a video call with them, ate at Panda Express, played Overwatch on my gaming channel as they had new skins & seasonal game modes, and I went to Disney California Adventure for their Lunar New Year Celebration!
To fill the gap of the slower off-season in Disney California Adventure when everyone is back at school & work, they have their own Lunar New Year Celebration from January 20 to February 15, 2023. It is a Lunar New Year festival between the Festival of Holidays and the Food & Wine Festival. It celebrates the Lunar New Year for Korean, the Year of the Rabbit for the Chinese, and the Year of the Cat for the Vietnamese. Similar to the Festival of Holidays, they have information boards, decorations, background music, food carts, activities, merchandise, and character meet & greets of those cultures celebrated at the festival.
The information boards about the Lunar New Year are robust to help inform all of the park guests about how Lunar New Year is celebrated in Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese cultures. A nice touch is on the zodiac calendar, they show a Disney character that their species relate to the animal represented on the calendar. This year is the Chinese year of the Rabbit represented by Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and then Ortensida for the Vietnamese year of the cat. All of the areas were well decorated for the celebration, and they had Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese music in the background as well.
The food cart menus were swapped from holidays to the Disney culinary twist on Asian cuisine. I personally had dinner & a beer, for dinner I had mandarin moose cake and a Quesabirria egg roll. The quessabarra is a carnitas quesadilla in a hard taco shell, but it is wrapped up in an egg roll. The mandarin moose is shaped like a mandarin with chocolate pieces on top as the leaf & steam, inside has a white moose and mandarins in the middle. The drink I had was Brewery X’s green tea rice beer lager, it was on the light & crisp side at about 5% APV, and the taste was good as the green tea taste was on the lighter side. The beer is not listed on Brewery X’s website, so I have to have it during the festival to try it. I also had a seasonal churro, the almond cookie churro with sliced almonds, cookie crumbles, and almond-flavored icing. There were many more dishes, however, I was there myself, and I could only vouch for so much food, check out the full food & beverage list here.
For the festival food carts, you can purchase a Sip & Savor Pass, which for $50 or $42 for Magic Key Holders, prepays for six nonalcoholic cart drinks and food items that qualify for the stubs. The alcoholic drinks like the Brewery X Green Tea Larger beer below, does not qualify for the stub.
They also had a wide selection of Lunar New Year merchandise as well, ranging from T-shirts, Spirit Jersey, plush Mickeys & Minnies, drinkware, Minnie ears, art, and more. Many clothing items had rabbit Disney movie characters such as Judy Hopps, Thumper, Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh, and more.
There were activities as well such as arts and crafts, and they even had a lucky wish wall where guests can put their wishes for the new year. I did two wishes, first was “To get a good following on my travel content and help guests plan their trip to Orange County! -AntSol Travel” this is a bit self patronizing but it is my wish for this year. After posting it, one of my family members suggested doing a second one with “Good health & prosperity for friends & family!” More well wishes for the people I know than just myself. You can get free calligraphy for the zodiac animal of your birth year, wishes, or a phrase that is not too complicated in Mandarin from trained calligraphers. The three I got were wishes, It is in order from left to right: long life, wealth, and safe travels (for AntSol Travel.)
They had festival executive character meet and greets. Next door to the wishing wall was the meet & greet area with rotating characters including Mickey & Minnie in their Lunar New Year Clothing, Mulan & Mushu, Oswald, and Ortensida. I only met Raya from Raya and the Last Dragon, located at the Redwood Creek Challenge. There wasn’t a Photopass photographer, only a character’s handler, so this was the best picture he took on my phone.
When Mulan and Mushu are not doing meet and greets, they are doing a small processional parade, which I got to see & record on the main video at the top of the post.
Melody of China is a San Francisco-based musician who specializes in Chinese music of the past & present on traditional Chinese instruments. Vocal Seoul is a Cappella group from Los Angeles that sing to the beat of Korean music of the past & present with an amazing beatboxer!
For World of Color, they do a preshow during the Lunar New Year Celebration, Hurry Home. Going home to see family during the Lunar New Year is important for them. It follows a lantern on its journey back home for Lunar New Year and even meets Mulan on the way there.
Overall, Disney did a great job for the Lunar New Year festival making sure guests are informed about the celebration, the festival area is well-themed, the food carts had food of the cultures, and meet & greet characters of those cultures.
AntSol Travel 