Prepping a 3 Year Old for Characters?

EvieBug said:

Hi! We have booked our next Disney trip in November of this year, and it will be our son's first time. We last went in 2011 when our daughter turned 4. Our son will be 3.5 when we go, and while I am not terribly worried about most things, I admit to being worried about characters.

Last time we went, we only did one character meal, and my husband was surprised how much he enjoyed it. Seeing our daughter parading with princesses was a bigger highlight for him than he expected. So this time around he's requested MORE character dining.

Our daughter was not at all freaked out, and was thrilled to meet the characters. Our son is a bit more clingy though, and he takes 10 minutes generally to warm to new people. I know I can let characters know to tone it down, etc, but I'd hate for him to have just warmed up to the idea of shaking Mickey's hand and now the character has moved on, know what I mean?

So - I'm looking for tips for prepping a 3-3.5 year old boy on being ready for characters! I have heard to take him to Chuck E Cheese, and we have that on the radar. Any other suggestions or options? I'm struggling to think of other places that might have costumed people to get him used to.

I might be over thinking this but I'm just trying to be ready! Thanks for any help!

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Julylady said:

One idea might be to "play" character greetings at home. After we returned home, my 3.5 year old loved to play Disney. She would put on her princess dress and then want me to pretend to come to her at a Meet and Greet. She would fake sign my autograph book, ask me a question or two "What is your favorite ride?", and then we would pose for a picture with her making fake camera sounds. We would laugh at how spot on she was with how the princesses actually behaved! Since your older daughter has been there before, maybe you could play this game at home with her and your little one?

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tina.tina said:

When my DS was 5, he had never met a stranger. He was sitting on DH's lap on the train at Dollywood. He initiated a conversation with the stranger sitting next to my DH and climbed over onto the guy's lap before DH realized what was going on! He grew up seeing characters at parades and was fine with Chuck E. Cheese at DD's birthday party a couple of weeks before the WDW trip. We also watched You Tube videos and talked about what would happen when we met them at character meals.

At WDW, he was fine with face characters like the princesses. DD still teases him because he washed his (1 hour old) Simba face paint off before we went to dinner at CRT so the princesses would be able to "see how cute he really is." He seemed fine with Mickey when we met him "backstage" as the very first thing we did after walking through the gates at the MK on our first day. We met Mickey, watched the show on the castle steps with Mickey in it, & went to eat at Chef Mickey's. When we got to Chef Mickey's he didn't want anything much to do with any of the characters. It was the same at Garden Grill a few days later. When we ate at Crystal Palace was at the tail end of our 10 day trip, he gave Tigger a "high five" but that was it.

So, no matter how "prepared" you think they are, it might not work, but I wish you luck.

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