Disney characters are all over the place, but unlike in the commercials, they typically don't just come running up to you (although Russell from UP did come give J a high five on the way to his station!). You have to stand in a line to meet them and today I want to talk about wether or not that's something that's worth your time.
If your kids LOVE the characters and are older and are way into the autographs (think 4-8 or so) it is definitely worth your time. The characters are engaging, life-like and seeing them will blow your little ones minds! Sometimes those things are more important to kids than riding a ride and we've seen that in every trip. If ever are kids are that fixated on autograph collecting I know we'll make it a priority. You can do your best to avoid lines... ask cast members near character stations when they'll be back and get there 5 minutes early to jump in line before everyone else notices them and gets in line too. You can also go to "meet and greets." There's one in every park with various characters. Magic Kingdom is Mickey/Minnie & the Princesses, Epcot is Mickey and the gang, Animal Kingdom is Winnie the Pooh & Mickey and the gang, and Hollywood Studios is Sorcerer Mickey, the Incredibles and right now Winnie the Pooh but that character usually changes to correspond with the most recent Disney movie release. There's also scenes set up like the one above where you meet certain characters and there's character dining at select restaurants in every park. I LOVE character dining because the characters can spend a lot of time with your table and get a lot of pictures.
If your kids do NOT love the characters and are scared of them, be selective. J loved meeting them at 5 months, but was terrified at 17 months and again this last trip at 25 months (see above). We still opted to wait 10 minutes in line to meet Mickey because E loved the characters (at 10 months) and we wanted a pic with them and 'ole Mick. Otherwise, we only met characters if we did not have to stand in line or if the line was limited to one or two families before us. Since it was always unpleasant, we just didn't want to do it a lot and E wasn't old enough to really care about missing out so when we could we did, but we never went out of our way to make it happen. J did however LOVE seeing characters from a distance. My boys love Buzz so one day in Magic Kingdom we saw him from about 100 feet away. J waved and yelled, "Hi Buzz!!!" but when we asked if he wanted to meet him he would say, "No picture." Lol. He said that about every character by the end. So funny!
Meeting Character Photo Tip
There will be a Disney Photo Pass cameraman stationed at each character who will snap your family photo but then you'll have to pay a ton for it. There will also be a cast member there for the character. If you give them your camera (set everything to auto and turn the flash on!), they'll snap a bunch of pics and they'll be yours.
ALSO tomorrow we'll start talking the financials of a WDW vacation! :)
1 comment:
I majorly cracked up at the "no picture". Hilarious. I was terrified of them, too, little man. No worries.
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