Character meals are great but it's sure hard to eat!

lecach

<font color=darkorchid>Will not get out of bed unl
Joined
Sep 11, 1999
We did the Crystal Palace breakfast and the Tusker House breakfast. The food was great but it was so hard to eat! Trying to make sure we were at the table when a character came around, and getting DS to eat was tough. We lucked out that we were seated at the beginning of the character rotation so once we saw them, we didn't have long to wait for their visit to us. And it was great getting in both parks before they opened. At MK we were at Dumbo 5 minutes after rope drop (we had 8:05 ressies). At AK we had to wait FOREVER for our waitress to bring our credit card back. We just saw everyone streaming by to the safari. Our ressies there were for 8:15 but they seated us at 8:05.

All in all we thought it was worth it. But boy - it is really hard to eat!
 
I agree...my kids don't eat anything at character meals.

The first one we ever went to, my DD was 2 1/2. Literally, we were walking out the doors of the Crystal Palace still standing on their front porch area and she said, "I'm soooo hungry. Can I have popcorn?" :rolleyes:

Yes, I just spent $100 on *breakfast*...now I have to run out and buy an overpriced bucket of popcorn, too. :laughing:
 
I could see that being a bit of a problem.........but my family LOVES the character meals!
 
Me and my wife were just talking about this. We love the family style meals. This allows you to enjoy the kids with the characters and not have to worry about rushing back from the buffett. Too bad there aren't more family style meals with characters.
 


One of us stays at the table with the kids while the other one goes to get food for self and the kids. Then when the 1st person gets back, the 2nd person goes to get food.. So, the kids never miss the character and we don't miss the food. We will make the kids eat when no characters are at our table.
 
One of us stays at the table with the kids while the other one goes to get food for self and the kids. Then when the 1st person gets back, the 2nd person goes to get food.. So, the kids never miss the character and we don't miss the food. We will make the kids eat when no characters are at our table.

This is what we did. We had early reservations each time but once, so we were pretty much opening up the place. If we saw characters when we got there, I would hang back at the table with the kids because I was the "official" photographer. My DH takes horrible photos. :rotfl2: A couple of times, there were lots of characters coming in a row, so rather than have me miss them, he ran up to the buffet and got me some basics to tide me over until I could see what other non-standard items they had.

DH commented at Crystal Palace when the entire group of 8 or 10 at the table next to us went to the buffet at the same time upon arrival and missed Piglet and Eyeore, that they apparently didn't know how these character breakfasts "worked" because no one stayed at the table. :lmao: At this point, we were waiting on pins and needles for Tigger to get to us so we could boogie to Dumbo before the line got long.
 


we like the breakfast at CRT, but find the characters almost get in the way of our meal! - so we just wave at them, and they continue on to the next table, usually having an anxious, happy child!
 
One of us stays at the table with the kids while the other one goes to get food for self and the kids. Then when the 1st person gets back, the 2nd person goes to get food.. So, the kids never miss the character and we don't miss the food. We will make the kids eat when no characters are at our table.

That's exactly how we do it, too. Brilliant minds, I say!!!
 
Our problem was that we ALL wanted to be there since it was DS's first trip to WDW. We managed to shovel in plenty judging by the tight fit of my work clothes today :)
 
We're another family who has a food runner. It works brilliantly for us, and if the boys plates are too much to balance with my own we...

Sit down - boys get settled with one parent
Other parent gets food for boys and comes back to table to cut up food for boys
Second parent goes and gets food for themselves
First parent goes and gets food for themselves, and any supplemental food that the boys need.

That being said, we loved LTT and having the characters without the running, so I agree with PP that more family style character meals would be awesome. Those buffet lines can get awfully long sometimes.
 
Our problem was that we ALL wanted to be there since it was DS's first trip to WDW. We managed to shovel in plenty judging by the tight fit of my work clothes today :)
i can never fiqure how you can walk 4-6 miles per day and weigh the same when you get home? anyway my dd is 15. we still do cp for breakfast.(usualy twice.) we always look forward to it. :thumbsup2
 
Wow, I sure am glad I read this thread, because DH and I have two character meals planned for our son (and they're for DH too because he loves the characters, lol). I had no idea that the characters rotated to the tables once and if you weren't there, then you just miss them. I suppose it makes sense. I don't know why I didn't think about it. In any case, I'll just let DH stay at the table while I go get the food since he would be sad if he missed the characters. I like the characters too, but I won't be nearly as disappointed as DH would be if he missed them. Of course, DS will hopefully like them too. He'll be 2.5, so we'll see. :)
 
Wow, I sure am glad I read this thread, because DH and I have two character meals planned for our son (and they're for DH too because he loves the characters, lol). I had no idea that the characters rotated to the tables once and if you weren't there, then you just miss them. I suppose it makes sense. I don't know why I didn't think about it. In any case, I'll just let DH stay at the table while I go get the food since he would be sad if he missed the characters. I like the characters too, but I won't be nearly as disappointed as DH would be if he missed them. Of course, DS will hopefully like them too. He'll be 2.5, so we'll see. :)

I think that my post made you believe this, but I don't think it's true. You don't miss them completely, but I do think it will prolong your dining experience if you aren't at your table the first time the character comes through. We were done eating our breakfast at CP and still needed to see Tigger. From the looks of the loop that they did, Tigger had about 10 or so tables to to go before he got to ours. I asked our server if Tigger could come to our table at that point because we wanted to leave. The server said she'd see how many more tables were left before ours, but that Tigger had to stay in formation, or whatever term she used for the cycle that they had. I totally understand that. I'm just glad we didn't have to wait for a missed character because the others were on the other side of the restaurant. No telling how long we'd be stuck there. The waiting isn't bad if you are actively eating, but we already paid our bill and were just sitting there waiting for Tigger. Luckily, there were some tables of adults before us who didn't linger long with Tigger.

After being at 4 character meals, I completely understand the posts of parents complaining that so-and-so never came to their table and they had to hound the server to get the character to visit or had to wait a long time. They are probably buffet meals where the family was up at the buffet when the characters came by. :laughing:
 
After being at 4 character meals, I completely understand the posts of parents complaining that so-and-so never came to their table and they had to hound the server to get the character to visit or had to wait a long time. They are probably buffet meals where the family was up at the buffet when the characters came by. :laughing:

Actually we've never been at the buffet when the characters came by but have had to force the waiters hand in getting the characters to the table or get autographs at CP. It's because of the parade thing they do or the character needs a break. They leave their rotation and then come back and start at the beginning instead of where they left off. It's incredibly frustrating that it is SOP for them to do that and it happens every single time we've eaten there. I'm in no hurry to go back and deal with that again.
 
We use a runner, too...but my kids are always so distracted with all the business going on in the restaurant that they don't eat much.

I'm probably going to get blasted, but I'm not a huge buffet fan anyway (the food is usually substandard)...then add to it all the chaos in a character meal... :headache:

I let my kids pick out one for each trip...then we eat at nice sitdown, quiet, cool restaurants the rest of the week where we can all take a breath and relax.
 
Actually we've never been at the buffet when the characters came by but have had to force the waiters hand in getting the characters to the table or get autographs at CP. It's because of the parade thing they do or the character needs a break. They leave their rotation and then come back and start at the beginning instead of where they left off. It's incredibly frustrating that it is SOP for them to do that and it happens every single time we've eaten there. I'm in no hurry to go back and deal with that again.

Just my own two cents worth of commentary on missing characters at CP.
This is what happened to us last August when we were at CP for dinner: we got to see all the characters except Pooh (who just happens to be my favorite), and when we said something to our waiter he just kinda shrugged it off and told us we missed him when he went by our table - basically tough darts on your birthday!! So we said something to another table's waitress, and she took us right over to Pooh, and we were able to have pictures taken and get the autograph, and as mentioned in the above quote, it happened when Pooh was going off rotation, but they were gracious enough to accommodate us (I wonder if it was because I was pouting :confused3 ).

So, I guess we all get different reactions from different waitstaff or character "handlers". Go figure!!
 
I think that my post made you believe this, but I don't think it's true. You don't miss them completely, but I do think it will prolong your dining experience if you aren't at your table the first time the character comes through. We were done eating our breakfast at CP and still needed to see Tigger. From the looks of the loop that they did, Tigger had about 10 or so tables to to go before he got to ours. I asked our server if Tigger could come to our table at that point because we wanted to leave. The server said she'd see how many more tables were left before ours, but that Tigger had to stay in formation, or whatever term she used for the cycle that they had. I totally understand that. I'm just glad we didn't have to wait for a missed character because the others were on the other side of the restaurant. No telling how long we'd be stuck there. The waiting isn't bad if you are actively eating, but we already paid our bill and were just sitting there waiting for Tigger. Luckily, there were some tables of adults before us who didn't linger long with Tigger.

After being at 4 character meals, I completely understand the posts of parents complaining that so-and-so never came to their table and they had to hound the server to get the character to visit or had to wait a long time. They are probably buffet meals where the family was up at the buffet when the characters came by. :laughing:

Oh, ok! I get it now. The characters are on a rotation, and if you miss them, you just have to wait until the next rotation which can be time consuming. I understand now. :idea: Thank you for helping me to understand.
 

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