A fan favorite nighttime parade, Paint the Night, has returned for this special event, but for the first time is taking place in Disney’s California Adventure® Park. Paint the Night Features more than one million lights, special effects, and high-octane music on a variety of floats featuring favorite Disney and Pixar characters. This parade is a must-see, which also means that you must plan on finding prime viewing locations far in advance of the parade start time, which for this particular trip wasn’t going to be the best use of our time. Disneyland® Resort offers many special dining packages with reserved parade viewing locations to add to the viewing experiences for guests, and on a recent trip in April my family decided we would try one.
After much deliberation, we decided on the Sonoma Terrace Paint the Night Reception. A few factors went into this decision, but one thing that may have most influenced this location was that this dining experience took place during the parade. This meant no sitting on the hard ground while trying to wrangle overtired children well past their bedtime. This meant we didn’t have to miss out on park time for dining earlier in the day and then still later return to a viewing area for the parade – it was a one-stop parade experience.
Sonoma Terrace is part of the Golden Vine Winery in the Pacific Wharf neighborhood of Disney’s California Adventure® Park. It is a beautiful outdoor patio with seating right at the street. Seating for the reception begins about 45 minutes before the parade begins, but we wanted to make sure we would be able to be seated at a table right on the street, so we lined up about 30 minutes before that time. Once the check-in process began, they verified our reservation and asked us where we preferred to sit, you have the options of front row table seating or second-row bar height table seating. We are team #sitascloseaspossible, so we were seated right at the front. Our seats were truly the best in the house, comfortable cushioned chairs that all had great vantage points of the parade route.
After being seated, our waitress quickly came to take our drink orders. Included in your reservation are soft drinks, beer, wine, and specialty drinks such as Hot Chocolate. Each guest is allotted two drinks. It was a chilly evening, so my children were very excited to order hot chocolate. My husband and I took advantage of the adult beverage offerings. (**It is important to note that you MUST have your ID with you. Regardless of how old you appear to be, you will not be served alcohol without an ID with you. We saw someone be refused because they did not have their ID). While we waited on our drinks, we were each served a charcuterie plate to snack on during the parade along with a bread basket for the table. The adult charcuterie plate included a delectable sweet and sour sampling of meats and cheese along with olives, red peppers, zucchini, broccolini, and grapes. The child’s charcuterie plate included ham, grapes, oranges, strawberries, cheeses, and goldfish. My kids are pretty picky, and were relieved that there were no green foods on their plates!
After our drinks were delivered, we had time to enjoy our food before the parade began. Refills were offered and then it was time! The PA announcer kept everyone informed of when the parade would be starting, and once it was time, the lights around the park are turned off except for the twinkle lights, and special parade lighting. The night we watched the 8:45 pm parade, the route began just past Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta on the pier, and traveled down past Paradise Gardens, past Ariel’s Under the Sea Adventures and then made its way towards Sonoma Terrace. I really liked our viewing location and we had great interaction with the parade participants. My daughter was very excited to see her favorite princesses, and they could all hear her shouting their names and were able to make direct eye contact and wave back to her. That right there was worth it for us!
After the parade was over, we were given our take-home-ready desserts. The adult dessert is a cute little box of four chocolate truffles. The children’s dessert is an individually wrapped Pixar themed caramel apple (which I was a little jealous of because Disney® Parks caramel apples are one of my favorite things ever). It was so nice to be served these to go as we were so full from our charcuterie plates, and we were also way past our bedtimes. We ended up eating them the next day as a snack!
Overall, I found this parade viewing option to be well worth the time and money for my family. It was very child-friendly; I didn’t have to worry about keeping them quiet during a meal inside a nice restaurant, and the children’s dining options were fantastic. I also loved the location being front row to the parade, we felt very VIP throughout the whole experience. I would recommend it to anyone and cannot wait to go back! As the Paint the Night Parade music says, “When can we do this again”??
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Sara Parr
Travel Planner