Character experiences

Some people love them, some people hate them, but let’s talk about them! Character meet and greets! Personally, I prefer to do a character meal so I don’t feel like I’m wasting time in lines. I honestly don’t know if I would take the time to see any characters if I wasn’t with my kids.

What are some interesting character interactions you’ve had? What are some funny things to say to get funny reactions out of characters? I’ve got a couple:

  1. My youngest son was 2 on our last trip. He had just learned to blow kisses. He got great reactions from all the princesses at Akershus.

  2. Garden Grill lunch. Right after Chip and Dale left our table, they spotted Mickey at the next table over. One of them picked up 2 round serving trays and held them up to his head tp maker fun of Mickey’s ears while the other got Mickey’s attention.

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Chip and Dale danced with me at GG breakfast in August. Of course, my family just watched and didn’t take a photo or video :roll_eyes::roll_eyes: But it was still a super special first morning!

On our last day Sorcerer Mickey got really excited that I had Ariel ears and an Ariel T on and made a big fuss of me.

My son really hates character meets so I have no cute kid stories.

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Oh, there’s so many. Two of my favorites have been at CM’s. DS took his first Disney trip when he was 11 weeks old (yes, I’m that mom). We had dinner at CM’s and Minnie kissed him on his forehead–it was priceless. Another great CM moment–we celebrated the girls 13th birthday at Disney. We had dinner at CM’s (it used to be a tradition–we’ve let go of it now) and they gave the girls birthday cupcakes. Just as they went to blow out the candles, Mickey popped up behind them.

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My family (DH, DD5 and DS15) visited WDW for the first time last year. I had read in the UG that all ages really like the character meet and greets, so I booked one character meal per day so we wouldn’t be waiting in the parks or wasting FP’s on them. DS15 grumbled so much while I was planning about having to spend spring break with princesses. Then, about 8 weeks before the trip he finally looked at the UG and asked if we were going to have dinner at the place with Winnie the Pooh and Tigger. I hadn’t booked CP, b/c DD5 wasn’t really into Pooh, and I figured DS15 would be “too cool for school”. Boy was I wrong. With the help of the Reservation Finder I got us a dinner reservation at CP on our first night, DS15 had a great time and he really enjoyed all of the character meals.

My family’s favorite character meal was Storybook Dining. We were staying in WL and foolishly just went down to dinner without bringing DD’s autograph book. The host asked if we had a book to sign and I told him not to worry about it, as we had met Snow White at Akershus a few days before, so DD would be fine. The host must have talked to Snow White’s helper because when she came to our table she was so great. She made a big deal about remembering DD and asking what she had been doing since we saw her last. It was amazing, DD hadn’t really been aware of who Snow White was before our trip, but after that dinner Snow White was her absolute favorite princess. Grumpy and Dopey were super fun and silly and DS and I loved meeting the Evil Queen.

We were supposed to be leaving in 3 days, I am so sad to not be going back. We are hoping to be able to go in 2022.

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While we enjoyed meeting characters and princesses at Tusker House and Akershus, I found the meet and greets much more personable. I don’t know if it was the look of sheer wonder and belief on the face of my 3.5 year old DGD but so many of the face characters chatted with her, asked her questions and took the time to pose for so many photos. At Princess Fairytale Hall, Elena wrote a note for DGD to deliver to her friend Rapunzel. Aladdin and Jasmine, Gaston, Merida, and so many others really took time to make it special. If we get to make our December trip, I will schedule character meals, but we will still take the time to get in line for the meet and greet opportunities especially with the face characters.

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Donald at CM.
It was half marathon wknd. Plenty of people were wearing their medallions from the race everywhere. One lady was wearing hers next to our table at CM’s. Donald comes around and “asks” her if he can hold it. She handed it to him, and then he took off running - SPRINTING around the room. The entire place laughed and cheered him on. After a few laps, he returned to her table. Goofy (or Pluto - forget which one, but one of the dogs) showed up to the table. Goofy starts “telling” Donald to give the medallion back, but Donald refuses, “telling” Goofy that he was in the race, and won 1st place for the medallion. (Donald Duck #1, of course!) This was all mimed PERFECTLY, they had to have practiced it plenty of times. So after they go back and forth for a while, Donald concedes with his head hung low, and reaches his hand out with the medallion for the lady to take it back. Every one was clapping because he finally conceded. It was so well mimed. When the lady reached her hand out to take the medallion back, Donald snatched his hand back and started SPRINTING around the room again. The entire place ROARED with laughter.

My 2nd best was during EMM at Hollyweird. We were walking to TSMM when it was down TS alley, before they moved the entrance. Woody and Buzz were having a M&G and NOBODY was there. Buzz literally grabbed and pulled us into the M&G for pictures with him and Woody. We were there for 10 minutes, and nobody else showed up the entire time.

3rd was the Jawas at Launch Bay. One of them distracted me during a photo, while another one stole stuff out of my backpack. I had no idea. They got my son to play along, gave him the finger to mouth “Shhh” sign, and as we were walking away I got a tap on the shoulder, turned around, and a Jawa was waving my phone slowly at me.

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I go as a solo adult - or with friends or family - and definitely do character meets!!

Some favorite interactions over the years:

1 - Cape May Cafe breakfast over Christmas 2010 (the Northeast Blizzard). We were at one of the tables that the seating was booth on one side and chairs on the other. My sister and I were on the booth side, and Goofy decided we needed to be thisclose to each other and literally sat down and squished me into her. If he looked over and we were separated, he would come right over and repeat the process. The kid at the table near us thought it was hysterical. (And yes, that friend communicated it to the next friend so that it continued for our entire meal.)

2 - 'Ohana breakfast the day after my first marathon. My dad is not the biggest fan of Stitch, but he humored us and played along. We were late enough the characters made a few rounds. The last one, Stitch picked up the carafe that had held my dad’s coffee (it was empty and Stitch did shake it a bit to make sure before continuing) and tried to drink it. Finding it empty, he looked at all of us and my dad said “It was me Stitch. I drank it all.” and Stitch stomped and did a “Talk to the hand!” signal.

3 - Solo trip, meeting Dug and Russel in Animal Kingdom. I had gotten a popcorn bucket earlier. The handler who was taking things from people and taking personal camera/phone pics took the bucket to set it down and Dug came over to try and get it. Got a lot of cute pics of that.

4 - Solo trip (and also with a friend) meeting Chip and Dale on the trail around Dinosaur. More than once we’ve ended up having a dance party to the music that’s playing.

5 - ANY interactions with Captain Jack Sparrow on Disney Cruise Line are amazing!!

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Truth is, we don’t really do Character Meet and Greets as a general rule. But there have been attempts. I probably have shared these already, but I’ll put them here for posterity.

  1. For our 2016 trip, we convinced our DS6 to meet one of the Star Wars characters, and decided on Chewbacca. To our surprise, he agreed, since he had previously shown little interest. So we dutifully stood in line until his turn came. He went up to Chewbacca, who tried to interact with him. But DS became irritated. He asked, repeatedly, “Do you know where I can find the red light sabers?” And Chewbacca responded as he does…in unintelligible gibberish. At this point DS slams the palm of his hand against his forehead in defeat and exclaimed, “Ugh! I should have asked someone who speaks English!”

  2. Same son, now 8. We were at Islands of Adventure, and while I was off riding Hulk or something with the older kids, my wife convinced DS8 to meet Spider-Man. It wasn’t long before DS was inquiring Spidey about how, exactly, his webslingers work. Spidey was a good sport about it and answered all his questions well before he finally posed for the picture.

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All the Marvel meets at IOA are brilliant. DS thinks he is too old now :disappointed_relieved:

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I have a 6-year exactly like that one…parenting him is an experience. Am I right?

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Indeed! :slight_smile:

Then it is your duty to embarrass him by meeting them yourself and tagging him on social media so his friends can see

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This is me “starting a lawn mower” with Goofy one inebriated night in Epcot 10 years ago:

But on our last trip, with DD4 in tow, we met something like 68 characters in 6 days… she was way into the meet and greets. And even pretends to be a princess here at home. We have to wait in line and bring a book for her to sign. She takes her picture with us and makes sure we’re not nervous… so pretty much, those are the best ones.

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I posted one in the early memories thread, but a more recent one comes to mind. We took DD when she was 4ish and waited to see Mulan. My daughter was wearing a shirt that had a picture of a slice of white bread plus a bowl of rice because she is half Asian. Mulan thought this was hysterical and spent some extra time with her and even gave her the big lipstick kiss on the cheek. My daughter still brings it up from time to time and she is a teenager now.

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I went with my 2 Boys, ages 8 and 5. A couple of meet suggestions that may not be your first thought:

  1. Cinderella’s Royal Table for Boys! The Princesses LOVED them and asked them to be in their Royal Guard or if they would come be knights at their castle, etc. My boys felt very special and loved the experience of being in the castle.

  2. Character Meet at Epcot with the Disney Visa- we were 2nd in line and met Minnie & Pluto in a room by ourselves with the flash of our Disney Visa Card. It was quick and easy and really special for my boys. (Check the times, it’s only available at a certain time)

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The Vader version of this at HS. I only had one person in front of me. The normal wait without the Visa was over 30 minutes.

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Oh I drag him to all the ones I want to do. I haven’t got any interest in the Marvel ones for myself, it was just fun seeing them interact with him. But if he isn’t going to interact, there’s no point.

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When my oldest son and as 2, we had the last breakfast sitting at Chef Mickey’s. They were closing briefly to switch over to lunch and we were the last ones there. As we were getting up to leave, Goofy came over, took my son’s hand and walked him around the restaurant, giving him his own special tour. It was like something out of a commercial and my son was so happy!

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I have a few that I liked.

Husband and I did 1900 Park Faire dinner. Madame Termaine came over and when my husband posed for a picture her took her arm correctly. She went a few tables down and tried to pose with another guy who had no clue how to take her arm and remarked that this other guy did it just fine.

I saw Buzz and Woody once and I told Buzz that I saw Emperor Zurg taking with Darth Vader and he was all ready to go out running and find them.

I saw Capt Jack Sparrow at a MNSSHP once and gave my camera to the cast member. He promptly told Capt. JAck to look out as I had a canon (my canon camera) and he jabbered the whole time. I assured him I would not be like Elizabeth Swan. He was AWESOME.

At the same MNSSHP I saw Terk, Tarzan and Jane and began grooming Tarzan and Jane was all like SOCIAL GROOMING, it was fun.

I once called Chip Simon and Dale Theodore, and they got all upset until I apologized and called them by their right names.

Meeting Rapunzel I had a messenger bag, she asked me if I kept my crown in there, I told her no my frying pan, to whitch we had a small chat about.

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We were at CMs and I was coming to terms that Goofy wasn’t going to make it that morning for whatever reason. I overheard the table next to me with three little kids talking about how Goofy would come next so I told the parents “goofy actually isn’t feeling good this morning, but maybe you’ll see him in the parks”… the dad instantly changed the conversation to “do you think Goofy goes to the vet or the doctor’s office?” and surprisingly the three little kids were less upset about Goof than I was haha

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