Today, we’re making a pit stop with Kent Walker at the brand new Cozy Cone Motel in Disney California Adventure for snacks!

When they were putting the plans together for Cars Land, someone must’ve asked, “So what are we going to do with the Cozy Cone?”

The Imagineers knew that it had to be a part of the new addition to Disney California Adventure, but in what form should the Cozy Cone Motel be accessible to guests? In true Imagineer fashion, someone came up with the perfect solution – snacks! Each cone could be its own concession stand selling a specialized kind of snack.

Atmosphere

Walking down Route 66 into Cars Land is like dropping yourself into a computer at Pixar studios. Radiator Springs is just as you remember it from the Cars movies.

Walking past Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree, you see Fillmore’s Taste-In on your right as you keep on going. After passing Sarge’s Surplus Hut on the right, you come across the courtyard for the Cozy Cone Motel on the other side of the street.

The front part of the property has a cool water fountain and a spot where you can meet Lightning McQueen or Mater at various points throughout the day.

Here’s our good friend Roger with his daughter Katie, our son Ty (6) on McQueen’s hood, Ethan (4), and me, hangin’ with Lightning.

Although you can’t enter Sally’s Office, make sure you stop by to check it out. How cool is the Buzz poking his head out from underneath the orange traffic cone? “Go! Stop! I said stop!”

Behind Sally’s office, where you can see all sorts of cool Cars knick-knacks if you look through the windows, are the five different Cozy Cone Kiosks. Each has its own different snack and beverage selection.

From left to right, they are:
o Cone #1: Churro Bites and Ramone’s “Pear of Dice” Soda
o Cone #2: Soft Serve Ice Cream and a “Route” Beer Float
o Cone #3: Two different selections served in a bread cone. The beverages are Fillmore’s Fuelin’ Groovy’ades. Adults can even get them with the addition of some Vodka.
o Cone #4: Pretzel Bites with cheese sauce and Red’s Apple Freeze drink.
o Cone #5: Flavored popcorn and Doc’s Wild Grape Tonic

The lines when we were there on opening day were EXTREMELY long, with the wait for the bread cones checking in at almost forty-five minutes. As much as I wanted to try the Chicken Verde Cone, I couldn’t justify making my family wait in the hot sun so I could ooh and ahh over the newest and coolest snack.

Eats

On that hyper crowded first day, we did, however, wait in the much shorter line for the pretzel bites and a Red’s Apple Freeze. The pretzel bites were very tasty, with nice big pieces of rock salt on the dark brown pretzels.

Rather than the standard oblong shape of most soft pretzels, these were much more round, about the size of a golf ball. The flavor was great, and they were nice and moist on the inside. They’d have held their own without the cheese sauce, but when you dip a bite in, the tang of the cheddar works especially well.

As far as the Apple Freeze goes, I have to admit that I’m researching a twelve step program to deal with my addiction. With every sip, I loved it more and more.

It’s basically an apple juice slush with Toasted Marshmallow syrup incorporated into it. On top is a passion fruit/mango foam. While the foam is just fine, it’s the combination of apple and toasted marshmallow that is at the heart of my addiction.

If you’ve ever wondered what a caramel apple would taste like in liquid form, then the alchemists at Disney have found the answer. Over the course of our trip, I had three. And wanted three more.

Over the next few days we returned a couple of times for more snacks. Although we never got around to trying that Chicken Verde cone I was so interested in, we did try the Churro Bites and the flavored popcorns.

I did talk to a guy standing in line next to me who was eating the Chili Cone Queso. While I watched him eat with a little envy in my heart, he told me the chili was very tasty and he LOVED the Fritos in it. He said it would’ve been perfection if they’d snuck in a few at the bottom of the cone as a nice little surprise.

The Churro bites were your pretty standard churro with a nice, rich chocolate sauce to dip it in. My son, Ethan, preferred the churros sans chocolate sauce, which made me all the happier because it meant more chocolate for me!

I have to apologize for the picture, because we had already started munching before I remembered to take a picture (the same goes for the flavored popcorn).

We didn’t try the ice cream, which if the lines are too long is the same soft serve they serve at Paradise Pier Ice Cream Co. One addition, though, is that you can get your cone dipped in chocolate if you want.

A tip about the “Route” Beer Float – it doesn’t have to be root beer. Jennifer got a Fanta Orange float on our last trip and loved the Creamsicle nature to it. Feel free to steal her idea and try your favorite soda with the ice cream.

The flavors at the popcorn Cozy Cone rotate, and the day we got popcorn, my wife Jennifer got the Dill Pickle and I got the Cheddar and Bacon. Both were tasty, but a bit more subtle than we had expected.

With the Dill Pickle one, it wasn’t as dilly as Jennifer would’ve liked; and the Cheddar and Bacon one wasn’t as bacony as I would’ve liked. That said, we both LOVE those flavors so our expectations may have been a bit overblown by our desires. Here’s a picture of the Dill Pickle Popcorn.

There are a couple of cool things you can get as far as the popcorn and drinks go. You can get the popcorn in a Lightning McQueen souvenir carrier. While we didn’t get one, it was very cool looking – and the wheels actually turned!

We did, however, get the souvenir cone filled with soda. It comes in either 16oz size or 32oz. We opted for the larger one and filled it with matching Fanta Orange soda. With such a huge base, there’s no way it would fit in a cup holder, but the handle worked really well with the hook we had on our stroller.

One tip – make sure you only grab it by the handle, since the top will come off and your soda will crash to the ground if you hold only the top part.

A quick note on the pictures. It’s a big cone, but it looks a bit deceptive in the pictures. The Adirondack chair that it’s sitting on is a kid’s size one.

Magical Memories

On our way out of the craziness that first day, we looked up and noticed what was clearly a VIP area on the roofs of one of the buildings. I saw a guy taking pictures with his phone. When he moved his phone away from his face, it was none other than Disney’s Chief Creative Officer and Pixar head honcho – and oh yeah, the director of both Cars movies, John Lasseter.

So after he took a picture of me (and about five thousand other people), I took this picture of him. Thanks John! Cars Land is amazing!

Overall

Disney did a great job in utilizing the Cozy Cone theme and was very smart in splitting the lines up so you only have to wait for what you want. It makes it much faster to expedite for the cast members, so everybody gets their food faster.

I would assume that the lines we saw will calm down, even after the first day they were much more manageable. And to those of you who are drinking Red’s Apple Freezes – I’m insanely jealous, and my mouth may be watering a little bit.

Kent Walker is a lifelong Disney fan from Colorado who grew up in Los Angeles and has visited Disneyland over fifty times. He converted his wife, Jennifer, into being a Disney fanatic, and she loves Disney — maybe even more than he does now! His two children, Ty & Ethan, have been to Disneyland a dozen times already – and can’t wait for the next trip. He loves sharing his enthusiasm and knowledge of all things Disney with fellow Disney fans and anyone else who wants to catch the Disney bug. Kent shares his thoughts on music, movies, Disney & more in his blog In Case You Were Wondering.