Need advice - character breakfasts - too many?

[littlesuitcase]

WE are just under a week now before we are finally at WDW. WE are so excited - and who knows if we will ever go again - but I am planning as if we may not at least for a long time.

After reading about character breakfasts and waiting in line for pics and autographs I decided to go with character breakfasts - part for the magic of the characters but also to double as a meal too. The meals are way more than if we ate in our room or even got counter food - and I am not sure how much the kids eat at them.

My concern now is that I have overdone it - do any of you or have you attended several - is it worth it or should I call and cancell.

Here's what I have booked -

Sunday - Chef Mickey (brunch)
Tuesday - Princess Storybook (brunch)
WEd - Cindy Castle (8am)
Thurs - Donalds breakfast (8am)
Fri - Crystal Palace (8am)

I have also booked on family dinner (Ohana) and a date night for my husband and I (California Grill).

THe rest of the time we will eat wherever - sometimes back at POP or in our room (we are making a grocery stop on the way)

Advice anyone?
Thanks
Helen

[seetheworld]

We LOVE the character meals and usually do one a day as well. They are the highlight of our trip and since there are so many of them, we like to try as many as we can. I say go for it!

[pigget74]

What are the ages of your crew? I know my son loved Donald's but my daughter could care less. It was a very rushed breakfast our time was around the time you are going. We loved Chef Mickey's for dinner. Crystal Palace is a tradition of ours. It is the best place that you can go. We have done Norway and the Palace anf they both were awesome. I know that it is cheaper to do the breakfast, but you have several 8:00 that may make it hard if you have alate night. I would look into seeing if you could get a later seating for some. I know that thecastle your time is what you get, but for the others I would look into it. Good luck--you made some great choices.

[jenjersnap]

We did nearly one CM per day during our trip in December and it was great! The only downside was that we saw a bit too much of Mickey and Chip and Dale it seems (our trip was 9 days long and I think we did 7 CM) so I think your choices are varied and excellent without much overlap. We're leaving tomorrow (oh my!) and have 4 more planned over 5 days with only one overlap from last trip. Have fun!

[littlesuitcase]

Our kids are 8 and 6 - we are planning to be at the parks for opening - we all do better in the early part of the day - and the parks are not open really late when we are there - with the exception of the Friday night - but Saturday we are not planning of getting up early. IF we are going when the parks are open does it make sense to have the character breakfast - or is 45 - 1 hour not enough time. I am pretty sure the parks all open at 9pm the days we have our character breakfasts - except maybe the friday - not sure about that day. IF the park opens at 9 does that mean 8am for an early entry? If so then maybe I can change the crystal palace to a mid morning more like a brunch.

[live4christp1]

I'd say it probably depends on the age and temperment of your kids and the things they are excited about doing. We do one character meal per trip, a breakfast because you can do it first thing, that way we don't have to worry about wet clothes from rides or fountains, etc. We only do one as my kids don't eat very much during all the excitement that is going on. At Chef Mickey's with 5 characters coming around intermittently and Goofy out front, by the time you get pictures, etc.....an hour passes really quickly. We have Crystal Palace scheduled for this trip. BTW - We did love CM, great breakfast items and the party is really fun!!!!!! The rest of our trip we just did counter service....the parks have a lot of choices so that you don't have to just have burger and fries or hotdogs. The Chinese counter service in Epcot is really good. On days we attend parks that close earlier we just get a little snack until we leave the park and then stop to eat. Guess my kids are to much like me, seeing the shows, doing the rides, getting the autographs outrank sitting in a restaraunt for 1-1&1/2 hours. Hope your trip is great!!!!! Oh, I wanted to add also that in the MK if you are planning on any counter service at all, we love Pecos Bill's, it's general fast food but they have a great topping bar with cheese sauce, chili, grilled onions, etc...

[littlesuitcase]

I am not a huge fan of sitting in a restaurant - but I thought the character breakfasts would be fun - more of an adventure than just eating. I have waited in lines in other places for autographs - and pics - and it took up so much time. I thought the breakfast would do double duty - food and characters/autographcs/pics. Meaning we wont be in line waiting in the parks.

NO?

[pigget74]

At Chef Mickey's you have Mcikey, Minnie, Chip, Dale, Goofy, and Donald in the Middle. At Crystal Palace you have Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, and Piglet in the middle. At Donald's in AK you have Mickey, Minnie, Chip, Dale, Goofy they are all dressed in Safari. Castle you have Cinderella, Mary Poppins, Snow White, Belle, and a few more I think. Princess Storybook you have Jazmine, Snow White, Belle, ... At the castle and the storybook you might have some of the same characters. So if you want an assortment of characters then you will still have to stand in lines to see them. Sorry.

[Jamesbyr]

For my kids, one such breakfast per year was enough. If you have specific characters in mind, read up on which meals have which. When my kids were at autograph age (and there is a limit: not too young, not too old), characters appeared unexpectedly and lines would form: you had to be lucky. The worst lines seem to be in Toontown Fair, but I guess that is just because you can't see what is going on. The little booklets they give out each week have pretty good suggestions: for example, specific time that double-decker bus pulls up in EPCOT, where to find Belle in MK, etc.

Also, all those meals add up. In several ways.

[littlesuitcase]

Good points - I am printing off this list of characters and then we can decide what we will give up - I am thinking the AK breakfast - maybe the storybook princess at epcot too - although I have heard a lot of good things about it.

Thanks for sharing your experience - it really helps us newbies!

[pigget74]

Go to www.allearsnet.com and go to the menues. They list which characters will be there.

[JMCDAD]

What we did last time, which worked really well for us is we did a character breakfast every other day. So like 3 in 6 days.
I think we also did one character dinner.
My thinking was I didn't want to to have to be somewhere for breakfast at a certain time everyday.
On the off days we grabbed breakfast at our hotel foodcourt which was really good, was quicker with no set time.

[F1Julie]

DD4 and I usually do 1 character meal a day. They are one of her favorite parts of the trip. You have to eat anyway, so you may as well do it with characters. I'd keep all of them. We have done many of them at 8:00 when the park opens at 9 and the timing is usually perfect. We're usually done around 8:50 and waiting behind the ropes to enter the park.

[HitchhikingGhost]

We are in the same line of thinking as Jamesbyr:

One a year is plenty.

[littlesuitcase]

Thanks everyone - I think one a year is great if you do plan to go every year - but we are not really thinking we will be back - guess that is why we want to do as much as we can. We really want to take the kids to the UK (my husband is from there) and travel a bit in Canada as well - have always wanted to take the train to the East Coast - and we love Vancouver too. WHo knows - but for now we are going with the idea this is our one time trip to Disney.

HElen

[pigget74]

You can;t go wrong with to many CM. We typically do about three in one trip. We do try to mix it up between breakfast and dinner. WE love Liberty Tree for dinner--it also lets us have a break in the late afternoon. WE have alos done some that have the last breakfast seating--do the park a little and then come back for brunch--and then have an earlier dinner and we are set for the day. Just what we do to save a little money to be able to do the CM. You will have a great time.

[Selket]

I would probably mix it up a bit more - have some of those meals as dinners rather than breakfast (unless the budget is an issue). You also need to think of whether you are doing EMH if you're staying at a disney resort - an 8:00am PS will not allow you to make the EMH in time for some of your meals it seems (if not all).

Make the PS's and the beauty of it is that after you're there and you do one or two and decide to move things around you can probably book other restaurants if you want to drop a PS or two. We did a lot of switching times and places for our August vacation once we were actually there.

[DisneyMomx7]

We do a lot of character meals. This way we aren't chasing the characters all over the park. Especially if you are not planning to come back for awhile I would think this is the way to go. The only suggestion I would make is to maybe change one of the character breakfasts to character dinner to break it up a little. CHef Mickeys, Crystal Palace, Liberty Tree Tavern and 1900 Park Fare all do nice character dinners. Have fun.

[TSirgey]

Character meals are great with kids because they stay entertained and you can relax a bit. I agree mixing it up between dinner, breakfast, and lunch would probably be good so you aren't getting to the parks late every morning.

[Del]

I hear you saying that you might not be back again soon, but you'll find towards the end of the trip that you might be restless eating a long breakfast again while you could have gotten a jump on a park day. We've done 1900 Park Fair, CP, CM and the castle. Consider doing a dinner at CP or CM instead of a breakfast to break it up a bit. We typically do 1 or 2 meals a trip. Their favorite is CP and CM. (dd ages now 8 and 5). Good luck!

Del :sunny:

[MECH8T7]

Thanks everyone - I think one a year is great if you do plan to go every year - but we are not really thinking we will be back - guess that is why we want to do as much as we can.

We're going in a few weeks for just over a week. Our first time as a family, so I don't have any experiences to share. However, I've just been fine-tuning our PSs over the past coulple of days and the character meals I've set up for our family are CRT (breakfast), Chef Mickeys (breakfast), and Crystal Palace (Easter brunch). Like you, I do not know when we will be there next and I tried to resist the temptation to book more character meals. My concern was that booking too many meals would interfere with touring the parks or limit our flexibility in enjoying the parks. When I first started planning, I thought 8 nights would be tons of time. But, as I started to do a rough day-by-day itinerary, I started finding that meals I was originally planning were starting to take over the daily plan. For example, breakfasts may prevent you from taking advantage of Extra Magic Hours at one of the parks.

[littlesuitcase]

Thanks everyone - I am going to drop the AK breakfast - I am sure we will see Donald Goofy and Pluto elsewhere. Am also wondering if we should drop the princess storybook breakfast - it is a lunch breakfast (was going to use it for breakfast/lunch) but I see some similar characters. That would leave a Chef Mickey (11am), Castle (8am - not early entry day) and Crystal (8am-this is an early entry day). I wonder if MK is open early on the friday will an 8am not be good? If the park opens at 9 does that mean guest are in at 8am? If so then maybe I should change that one to more like 10:30? That happens to be a day when the kids are going to the tea party lunch at GP so the timing would be ok.

Opinions for this?
Thanks - Helen