Character Interactions

Please give me some ideas of what we can expect from character interactions on the boat. I will be on a 4-night cruise on the Dream in September with a 1- and 3-year old. We're spending one day at Magic Kingdom before the cruise and figured we'd avoid waiting in lines for characters then because we'd have plenty time on the boat. But DH says he's read that the lines are long and it can be a pain. What's your take? My kiddos will want to see princesses, Mickey, Minnie and Jake for sure. I know they have the ticketed met-and-greets and various appearances scheduled throughout the day. Are we going to find ourselves wasting time we could be doing other things and rearranging our schedules to try to catch characters? Or do you find that you can participate in all the other activities you want and still happen upon enough characters to keep the kids happy?

I was on a 7 night Fantasy, so I can only speak for that.

There are a lot of characters scheduled. If we showed up 10 mins before schedule, we were 1st or 2nd in line. If we showed up at the scheduled time, we had a 5-10 min wait.

Right when we got on the ship, there were unscheduled characters on the balcony that the kids were able to walk right up to.

We only had crazy long lines for the princess gathering (skipped it) which is now ticketed.

For the Sea Ya Real Soon party, there were about 12-14 characters in the atrium with no photographers- it was take your own pics- and my girls literally got to walk up to almost all of them. There were maybe 2-3 people in front of us for all of them. We jumped from line to line and saw about 10 characters that I took pics of the kids with in about 10 mins.

My kids were constantly bumping into characters in the halls who would interact and visit with them- princesses would stop and talk to them and pose for a pic and many of them "knew" my kids by the end of the cruise, chip and dale would stop and dance with them and play ring around the rosie, pluto would stop and pretend to dig for bones with them. Rapunzel came up to us in the hall when my grumpy 4 year old had to leave dinner and we were walking to the kids club. She knelt down and talked to her and then took her hand and walked her to the kids club with me.

The clubs themselves also have plenty of activities with the characters. I would often pick up my kids and they'd be curled up in a princess's lap reading a story.

Also, wake up with Disney Jr and other dance activities in D Lounge and dance parties were very close encounters. The kids got to dance up close with Goofy and Jake and for some of the activities, there would only be 6 or 7 other kids there.

This was all for a September cruise.

We did not have Aurora on our ship, so we stood in line for her at the park after, and gosh, it was more waiting than almost all of our waits combined on the ship.


Also, Disney is super strategic and the main characters- Mickey, Minnie, et al have difference costumes for difference days/events. DCL attire, tropical attire, CC attire, Pirate attire, formal attire... so even if we hit them up and got a photo, we had to get a photo for each "costume".

Thanks so much!!! That's really encouraging to know they're out and about the boat and not ONLY available at their set times/places. Funny, I had read that Aurora rarely had much of a line at MK, so that's one I was planning to meet then! I guess we'll see if that works!

BethanyRichardson said:

Thanks so much!!! That's really encouraging to know they're out and about the boat and not ONLY available at their set times/places. Funny, I had read that Aurora rarely had much of a line at MK, so that's one I was planning to meet then! I guess we'll see if that works!

Click to expand...

It was at Epcot. And it wasn't terrible, but it was rainy and a longer wait than on the ship.

We did WDW followed by a 3 day on the Dream last year and the waits on the ship are nothing compared to the parks. Make sure you see characters who are not on the ship while at the parks and save everyone else for the ship. We went right when Frozen frenzy was at its peak and people were waiting 4-6 hours to see Anna and Elsa at Epcot. We saw Anna after waiting 10-15 minutes. Your longest wait on the ship will probably still be shorter than your shortest wait in the parks.

BethanyRichardson said:

Thanks so much!!! That's really encouraging to know they're out and about the boat and not ONLY available at their set times/places. Funny, I had read that Aurora rarely had much of a line at MK, so that's one I was planning to meet then! I guess we'll see if that works!

Click to expand...

I think on the shorter cruises you don't find the characters wandering around as much. And make sure you double check the characters. I know they change from time to time.

Is Jake even on the Dream? I know he's on the Fantasy, but I never saw any Disney Junior characters on the shorter cruises.

We saw Jake on Pirate night

ETA- it could change. For example we saw Ariel and based on things I've read I don't think she's appearing recently.