Status of Character Meals

We have a trip in early November so our window to book dining reservations is coming up soon. We wanted to do 2 character meals, Topolino’s and Garden Grill. Anyone have information on how these are currently working? Can kids interact with the characters? Disney website seems to indicate the experience is still “modified” but they don’t define in what ways. Any information would be helpful. Thank you!

I haven’t experienced any of these meals personally, but from what I have read from trip reports and blogs, We have a trip after Thanksgiving, so I’ve been reading up on it. The characters remain at a distance and you wave to them. With some of them, you can get a selfie with the character standing in the background. To me, the experience does not sound like it is worth the price tag.

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Still modified.

We did Topolino’s in May and in my opinion it’s totally worth it. That one in particular because the food is outstanding. But the character interactions were really great. They don’t come to your table, but they do make several appearances throughout your meal, stopping behind each table for pics/selfies. And the whole group comes out at one point and dances. My kids (5 and 2) loved it.

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We did Garden Grill in April. At that time they were seating all guests on the lower level and the characters made their rounds on the upper level. They encouraged kids to turn around and stand up on the booth seats to interact with the characters. They still managed good interactions. We also did Topolino’s. We agree that the Topolino’s food was better (did breakfast there and dinner at Garden Grill), but the character interaction was better at Garden Grill.

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I did both of these last week :slight_smile: My niece had a great time talking to the characters and they “responded” with the usual pantomime- they can’t come close or give hugs or high fives but they wave and stop for pics and we were very happy with our meals at both restaurants.

We did Garden Grill in May. My granddaughters stood on the booth seat and turned around to see the characters.
We also did Chef Mickey’s, Cinderella’s Royal Table, Hollywood & Vine, Be Our Guest, all sit and wave from your seat at the table.
Best character interaction was probably Garden Grill and H&V.

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I was there last week and agree with everything here. Also I’ll add Tusker House over GG as there’s no awkward standing on booths. The characters were all a few feet away, dancing and on the same level as you! CRT wasn’t bad but just Cinderella and BoG was probably the worse depending where you are sitting. Also low lighting at BoG makes snapping pics a pain and Beast is always moving…

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