Walt Disney World feels magical all the time, but it has a little something extra around the holidays. There’s snow on Main Street, spirited music playing everywhere, soaring Christmas trees on display, and special seasonal versions of rides like Jungle Cruise, which becomes the dad joke-filled “Jingle Cruise.”
The food at the parks feels especially festive during the holiday season. Both of Disney’s special ticketed holiday parties have extensive menus of event-exclusive food and drinks, but during regular park hours—and even outside the parks in Disney Springs—there are tons of new offerings to try this year. Here’s what you shouldn’t miss.
Disney’s Decked Halls of Gingerbread
Things get so festive at Walt Disney World during the holiday season that even the decorations get in on the sweetness. Several of the Disney hotels have enormous gingerbread sculptures and accompanying pop-up snack shops, which have become a beloved tradition over the years. Going to the resort hotels with the installations, like the working gingerbread carousel at Disney’s Beach Club Resort, is a delightful way to spend an afternoon.
At Disney’s Contemporary Resort, bakers build a 17-by-25-foot replica of Cinderella’s castle completely out of gingerbread, which takes more than 1000 pounds of flour and 112 pounds of gingerbread spice to make. You can’t eat it, but you can buy “gingerbread bricks” from the castle at the snack counter, and wash them down with frozen hot chocolate. Pro tip: you can spike it if you want.
At Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort, the hotel’s soaring lobby gets a life-sized gingerbread house, where you walk up to the window and order chocolate-dipped “gingerbread shingles” or gingerbread mickeys. If you’re inspired, buy a build-your-own gingerbread house kit; if you’d rather spend your Disney time Disneying, buy an already-decorated one for your hotel room.
Santa-Worthy Magic Kingdom Treats
Each of the Disney parks gets some festive food at this time of year, but most of it is concentrated in Magic Kingdom. You could snack on a Santa Mickey caramel apple or the famous peppermint bark only served this season, but my strong recommendation is to stop by Main Street Confectionery, which has a custom popcorn stand called the Kernel Kitchen tucked in the back. It’s one of Disney’s best-kept snack secrets, and you can order sweet or savory popcorn and customize it with dozens of topping combinations.
The Christmas offering is Holiday Peppermint Popcorn, which is peppermint-flavored candy popcorn topped with M&M’s, crushed peppermint candy and mini marshmallows, then finished with dark chocolate and white chocolate drizzle. I was dubious about this one, but after one bite I was hooked. The lightly minty, lightly salty popcorn really worked with the sweetness of the toppings. I thought I was just going to try a few bites “for journalism,” but ended up taking this back to my hotel room and snacking on it the whole next day.
International Delights at EPCOT
The food festivals at EPCOT have always been good, but in the past year, the culinary team has elevated the seasonal offerings to a different stratosphere. During the EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays, “holiday kitchens” pop up around the park, many representing seasonal foods from different countries.
You can’t go wrong with almost any of the offerings, and you could spend a whole day walking around the park and sampling food and still not try everything. I especially enjoyed the plant-based chorizo and cotija tamale from the Nochebuena Cocina, the smoked salmon potato latke from L’Chaim! Holiday Kitchen, the beef bourguignon from the Yukon Holiday Kitchen, and the red velvet mini bundt cake with cream cheese icing from Holiday Hearth Desserts. There are more than 100 food and drink options to try across the 17 kitchens, so whatever you do, don’t eat before you get to the park.
The Holiday Adventure Menu at Jock Lindsey’s Hangar Bar
Most of the holiday offerings throughout Walt Disney World are sweet, which is why I was especially excited to try the new holiday menu at Jock Lindsey’s Hangar Bar, the Indiana Jones-themed restaurant in Disney Springs. This time of year, the restaurant becomes “Jock Lindsey’s Holiday Bar,” and has an extensive seasonal menu.
I was tempted by the “Naughty or Nice Deviled Eggs” and “Here We Come A-Croquetting,” turkey croquettes with sweet potato puree, bacon-cranberry jam, turkey gravy, and herbed gremolata, but I went with “O’Ham N’ Cheese Trees” and I couldn’t have been happier with my selection. These Christmas tree-shaped snacks are made with puff pastry layered with pitt ham, cheddar and garlic herb butter, then topped with a pepperjack star and accompanied by sugar plum jam. The best part: they come in a glass dome filled with rosemary smoke, which makes for a dramatic presentation and finishes the “trees” with a pleasantly herby infusion.
People rave about the Hot Chocolate Grail Flight of three spiked hot chocolates served on a tray that says “You have chosen wisely,” but I was on too much chocolate overload to try it. Instead, I went with the Eternal Snowfall, a vodka/gin/rum concoction with chipotle-pineapple syrup and snow-shaped candy as a garnish. There’s also a glittering Holiday Cherry Cocktail, a Merry Margarita and Jock’s Holiday Martini on the menu.
The Seasonal Confection at Gideon’s Bakehouse
If you love big gooey cookies, you can’t go wrong at Gideon’s Bakehouse, the bakery sensation that’s still quoting two hour waits in a virtual queue almost three years into its tenure in Disney Springs. In addition to their regular menu of hits like a half-pound chocolate chip cookie that has been named the “best on planet earth,” Gideon’s has a new seasonal cookie every month. In November, the offering is Pumpkin Bread Chocolate Crumb Cookie, which the bakery describes as being made with, “real pumpkin, our house pumpkin spice blend, a little bit of chocolate on the inside, and a generous topping of pumpkin butter crumbs.” I tried it, and even as someone who isn’t crazy about pumpkin spice, I really enjoyed the autumnal flavor combination and the balance of savory and sweet.
For December, Gideon’s really turns it up. For the past two years, the bakery has offered two holiday treats: a “naughty” special cookie and a “nice” one. The naughty Cookie Von Krampus was a dark chocolate mint cookie made with Andes Candy; the nice Kris Kringle’s Cookie was a white chocolate coffee bean that literally glistened with sparkling crystals. This year, the bakery is offering the Krampus and Kris Kringle cookies again, plus a chocolate-mint Krampus cold brew.
Very Merry, Very Jollywood-y Treats
In past years, the only special ticketed holiday event has been Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, which shuts down Magic Kingdom to regular park guests on select nights in November and December and turks the park into a winter wonderland. There’s a holiday parade where Santa and Mrs. Claus appear surrounded by dancing reindeer, a special fireworks show, and characters who don’t normally appear in the park for photo ops.
This year, the menu for the party is absolutely outrageous. In fact, most of the holiday foods at Magic Kingdom are event exclusives. I tried and loved the Holiday Waffle Sundae at Sleepy Hollow Refreshments, which was a red velvet waffle topped with peppermint ice cream, M&M’s, and hot fudge. Around the park, there were tons of other treats like a Sugar Plum Sundae, a Holiday Pot Roast Melt, a Gingerbread Orange Shake, and a brown sugar cake called “Milk and Cookies for Santa.”
This year, Disney added a second, more adult-focused holiday event at Disney Hollywood Studios called Jollywood Nights. Unlike the kid-oriented Very Merry festivities, Jollywood Nights encourages guests to wear vintage glam outfits to experience an Old Hollywood-style variety show starring the Muppets, a spectral New Year’s Eve party at the Tower of Terror, and a stage performance singalong of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Unsurprisingly, there’s a huge emphasis on food and cocktails at the event. On opening night, the lines were too long to try everything, but I did get to have two things from Fairfax Fare that were so good I’m still thinking about them a week later. The Holiday Turkey Popover was a house-made popover filled with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry chutney, and chives; and the PB&J Doughnut was a glazed doughnut cut in half and filled with peanut butter mousse and grape jelly, then dipped in chocolate and topped with crushed potato chips. Other offerings at Jollywood Nights included savory funnel cakes topped with spicy Korean chicken or brisket, sauerkraut, and Thousand Island dressing; Spicy Pimento-Kimchi Dip with house-made wonton chips; Mexican Hot Cocoa Cheesecake; and a cranberry-elderflower Mistletoe Martini topped with cranberries and mint.