First the bad news…as announced November 3 on the Disney Parks Blog, there will be no Disney’s California Food and Wine Festival in 2011 or 2012. The wording was such that some speculated that it just wouldn’t be at DCA, but AllEars has verified with a Disney representative that there will be NO Festival.

I’m very disappointed, since this is one of my favorite events, but I can understand that the construction at DCA would make it difficult – some of the areas they have used in the past for the Festival will not be available. I’m still bummed, though.

Some things that are relatively new at the parks…

The Duffy the Disney Bear Meet and Greet location in Paradise Pier, next to Treasures in Paradise. Jeanine wrote about that in this blog entry. Those who visit the area get an “I Just Hugged Duffy” sticker.

The Tangled Meet and Greet area is located in Fantasyland next to Pinocchio’s Daring Journey. Guests can meet Rapunzel and Flynn Rider.

The new Disney Dance Crew show debuted on October 22 at DCA’s Hollywood Pictures Backlot theater, replacing the Drawn to the Magic show. The show features the new talking Mickey Mouse character, who can move his mouth and blink his eyes. This Mickey also has all the moves, as he brings together two rival dance crews. They perform to modern versions of classic Disney tunes – some of them rather surprising – like “A Pirate’s Life for Me”. After the show Mickey comes out to meet and greet guests – but this character is not the talking Mickey. Same costume, different head (and I’m guessing a different person inside, too!).

One fun thing I noticed – take a look at the glowing logo on the cover of the DJ’s laptop. 🙂

The Disney Channel Rocks! show, which premiered in Florida on October 22 (see the AllEars page HERE, has been postponed until November 26. The new show, featuring music from the Disney Channel’s “High School Musical” series, “Camp Rock” and “StarStruck” will be performed on the Palisades Stage in Paradise Park next to Paradise Bay in the morning and early afternoon.

In anticipation of the upcoming TRON: Legacy movie, opening in theaters December 17, there are several tie-ins at Disney California Adventure. ElecTRONica brings the world of TRON to the Hollywood Pictures Backlot Friday-Sunday nights (it will run nightly from December 17-January 2). In addition to the techno dance party in the streets, guests can view a 9-minute 3D preview of the movie in the MuppetVision theater, experience the LASERMAN show, or enjoy a “Glowjito” or “Digitini” at theEnd of Line Club. (For the true TRON geeks: I still have a computer system that displays “END OF LINE” on my screen when I log off.) And for a real blast from the past there’s Flynn’s Arcade, which has quite a selection of 1980s video games – everything from Air Hockey to Pac-man to, yes, the TRON game. One cool thing: the game tokens (25 cents each) actually are custom “Flynn’s Arcade” tokens!

According to a recent Disneyland press release, ElecTRONica will continue into spring, 2011.

There’s also a new TRON: Legacy encore to World of Color – the very first one. We were told that adding encores was something they planned to do with World of Color, so it’s great to see that we got one this soon after the show opened! The encore runs at the end of each World of Color show as that pesky Master Control Program manages to take control of the show for a while. Disney has stated that the encore will run for several months, so while there is no official end date, it will definitely be with us through the holidays and for some time beyond.

And speaking of the holidays…the Disneyland Resort’s holiday celebration begins on Friday, November 12. At Disneyland this includes favorites like the “A Christmas Fantasy” parade, Sleeping Beauty Winter Castle, Santa’s Reindeer Round-up, “it’s a small world” Holiday, and the “Believe…in Holiday Magic” fireworks. Over at DCA the familiar candy cane-striped letters of “CALIFORNIA” will be back, as well as the over-sized ornaments and decorations at Flik’s Fun Fair. Santa Claus will greet guests at Paradise Pier.

See the Holidays at Disneyland page for more information and photos.