It's a foodie's dream! In the past two months, we visited four theme park food festivals in Southern California: Knott's Boysenberry Festival, Touch of Disney, Taste of Universal, and SeaWorld's Seven Seas Food Festival. Who came out on top as the ultimate theme park festival? Let's find out.
We scored the festivals on four criteria: price, amount of food included with admission, quality of food, and overall organization by the theme park. We weighed each category according to its importance in the overall experience (in our opinion, of course). For each category, first place will receive 20 points, second place will receive 15 points, third place will receive 10 points, and the last place will 5 points. We will calculate the weighted average of each at the end of the post to figure out the BEST of the theme park food festivals (in the area).
Price (10%)
This one is an apparent loss for Disney, as expected. For $75, you would get admission to the food festival at Disney California Adventure, a $25 dining gift card, parking, and unlimited Photopass downloads. The Photopass was insignificant for me, considering the long lines to take photos in the popular picture spots. Parking was also not a significant value considering that we had to park at the Mickey and Friends parking structure. Since the tram was not in operation, we had to walk the usual tram route in addition to the already laborious walk from the escalator to our parking spot.
As expensive as Disney was, it was nothing compared to SeaWorld's $106 per ticket! Granted, admission to SeaWorld included viewing the animals and access to some of the outdoor rides. The festival voucher also included six food items. However, the price did NOT include parking which was another $25. SeaWorld takes last place for the price.
Knotts Berry Farm was much cheaper at $45. Like Disneyland, this included admission and parking. Knotts' ticket also included five food items, each being well over a value of $8 each. We will go into this further in the next section.
Universal was similar to Knott's in terms of price. Tickets were about $54 per ticket. Parking was another $10 for each car. The tasting ticket came with five food items, and these were the largest portions of any food festival.=
Price
1st: Knott's Boysenberry Festival
2nd: Taste of Universal
3rd: Touch of Disney
4th: SeaWorld Seven Seas Food Festival
Amount of Food (35%)
Disneyland's food items were disappointingly small but expected. As previously mentioned, admission included a $25 gift card. For reference, for $25 you can get three items (the half Monte Cristo, brisket mac and cheese, and the smores shake). If you wanted alcohol, it gets worse. This Pacific Mimosa, for example, was $15, over half of your dining card. It was slightly better to get a Mimosa Trio for $17 leaving you with only $8 for a food item.
As mentioned earlier, SeaWorld's tasting card included six food/beverage items instead of the five from Knott's and Universal (or the three from Disneyland). So SeaWorld has an advantage in quantity. However, SeaWorld's portion sizes were similar to those of Disneyland's.
Knott's had more regular-sized portions. For example, one tasting could get you one full chicken sandwich, one full burger, or one full corn dog. We also got one full bowl of mac and cheese or tater tots.
Universal takes the win on portion sizes with their gigantic portions. We had a complete burger with veggies and condiments as one tasting. Another tasting was a footlong chili cheese dog! We were so full during this festival that we had to order our last tasting to go.
Amount of Food
1st: Taste of Universal
2nd: Knott's Boysenberry Festival
3rd: SeaWorld Seven Seas Food Festival
4th: Touch of Disney
Quality of Food (35%)
I know I've been bagging on Disney a lot, but here is where Disney starts to redeem itself. Disney's food doesn't feel like "generic theme park" food. The chefs are designing these items with the best quality ingredients. They are also very "instagramable".
SeaWorld was doing great for the first several tastings. The French croquettes and lambchop were extremely flavorful. The ribs from the Caribbean booth were also well seasoned. This would have been an easy second place. However, the tastings from the SoCal booth were terrible. The California Handroll was missing the imitation crab. It was mainly rice with avocado sauce. The lobster mac and cheese was also very average. These last tastings were so dreadful that SeaWorld drops to third place.
Knott's food followed a theme of Boysenberry as it does every year. They do try to be somewhat creative in their food designs so that they can incorporate boysenberry in almost all their items. However, the boysenberry didn't really stand out in many items, particularly the savory ones. Overall, most items felt very much like generic theme park food.
For the most part, Universal's food was also generic theme park food. However, every tasting was delicious. I didn't complain about any of the items. And of course, there was the butterbeer which gives Universal a bit of an unfair advantage when dealing with us Harry Potter fans.
Quality of Food
1st: Touch of Disney
2nd: Taste of Universal
3rd: SeaWorld Seven Seas Food Festival
4th: Knott's Boysenberry Festival
Organization (20%)
Time to bag on Disney again. To order food, we had to use the Disneyland mobile app. When it hits our timeslot, we have to notify the app to start preparing our food. We cannot join the queue for the restaurant until the app tells us that our food is ready, which could take up to thirty minutes. For most places, this queue was extremely long for our food being "ready". The second complaint about the organization was how to use the Disneyland Dining gift card. You can only use one gift card per order. So if you are trying to order for your family, you have to try to make your order around $25. Any balance over the remaining gift card needs to be paid out of pocket (despite whether or not you have other gift cards available).
Knott's had time to practice their organization. They've done the quarantine food festival several times since the beginning of the pandemic (and we've been to almost all of them). Admittedly, the first time was a big mess. But Knott's has really learned from their past mistakes. Queue lines were extremely short since you can get a particular food item from multiple places. With the scannable tasting card, transactions were also effortless.
SeaWorld's and Universal's wait times for food were similar to Knott's. A quick scan of the tasting card, and we were good to go. SeaWorld however had a horrendous entrance line. It took at least 30 minutes to get into the parking lot. Once we finally made it to the entrance, it took about an hour to get to the front gate.
Organization
1st (tied): Knott's Boysenberry Festival
1st (tied): Taste of Universal
3rd: SeaWorld Seven Seas Food Festival
4th: Touch of Disney
And the overall winner based on our scoring system is.....
Taste of Universal!
With its quick lines, delicious themed food, and hefty portions, Universal takes home the gold in this surprising turn of events!
Knott's Boysenberry Festival takes 2nd place, Touch of Disney takes 3rd, and SeaWorld Seven Seas Food Festival takes last place.
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