Would you do a character meal if your kids don't like characters?

[skeettafic]

So my kids are super excited about our Disney trip next year and now that everything is booked, I've been working on trying to plan out our must do restaurants. I had figured some of our character meal choices would be CRT, Chef Mickey, Garden Grill, BOG and Tusker House - not all but probably several of those.

Well, my silly kids - DON'T LIKE CHARACTERS! - like none at all. My DD doesn't want to do BBB because "I'm not really into princesses mom" (yeah, she's 7) and DS completely turned his nose up at the idea of Mickey! These are the same silly kids who have NEVER had pictures taken with Santa or the Easter Bunny. They truly don't like characters/costumes, etc. I have a feeling we won't be waiting in line for any autographs!

So knowing that, are the character meals worth it at all? I was really looking at maybe still doing CRT and Tusker House for breakfasts since then we can get into the parks but I also know that there are tons of places to eat and if I can avoid dealing with buffets and extreme crowds, then why force the character idea. Neither DH nor I have ever been to Disney so we don't have anything to compare it to.

Thoughts?

 

[Ro Z]

Don't do it. My DS is now 27. He never liked the characters. Well he liked them but didn't want to interact with them. We would find them and he would look at me and say Mom will you get______s autograph for me. I tried to get him to go himself but he wouldn't do it. The only autograph he got for himself was at super soap weekend. At 17 he nearly ran over people to get "Greenlee" autograph!!! We didn't force the issue with character dining. Today, like I said he is 27 has a GF of 6 years. We still don't do the characters!!!

 

[DisneyTravelers2008]

If they decide they are into the characters after you arrive....they might have a change of heart if they get swept up in the "Disney magic"....there are lots of chances to do character meet and greets and get pictures and autographs with out doing a character meal.

And, there are lots of other cool places to eat that dont involve characters....The Sci-Fi diner, Coral Reef, Boma, Sanaa, Ohana, Whispering Canyon, etc....

 

[JZCubed]

I can't help but think that yours is a trick question.

How about this, if they are able to stand in line to greet the Characters, then by all means keep/make an ADR for a Character meal. If not, why risk it.

Otherwise, I agree with the previous post, there are other special Disney dining options that the kids might enjoy.

 

[Fantasmiss]

So my kids are super excited about our Disney trip next year and now that everything is booked, I've been working on trying to plan out our must do restaurants. I had figured some of our character meal choices would be CRT, Chef Mickey, Garden Grill, BOG and Tusker House - not all but probably several of those.

Well, my silly kids - DON'T LIKE CHARACTERS! - like none at all. My DD doesn't want to do BBB because "I'm not really into princesses mom" (yeah, she's 7) and DS completely turned his nose up at the idea of Mickey! These are the same silly kids who have NEVER had pictures taken with Santa or the Easter Bunny. They truly don't like characters/costumes, etc. I have a feeling we won't be waiting in line for any autographs!

So knowing that, are the character meals worth it at all? I was really looking at maybe still doing CRT and Tusker House for breakfasts since then we can get into the parks but I also know that there are tons of places to eat and if I can avoid dealing with buffets and extreme crowds, then why force the character idea. Neither DH nor I have ever been to Disney so we don't have anything to compare it to.

Thoughts?

YES! I love charcters and would definitely do them anyway!

Btw: you've picked all my favourite character meals apart from Garden Grill, which is my least favourite restaurant anywhere! So if I were you, I'd get rid of Garden Grill and keep the rest

 

[goofyintoronto]

If they decide they are into the characters after you arrive....they might have a change of heart if they get swept up in the "Disney magic"....there are lots of chances to do character meet and greets and get pictures and autographs with out doing a character meal.

And, there are lots of other cool places to eat that dont involve characters....The Sci-Fi diner, Coral Reef, Boma, Sanaa, Ohana, Whispering Canyon, etc....

I agree with this. They might have a change of heart once they get to Disney. Since neither of you have ever been, I would book at least one character meal. The breakfast food at Tusker House is amazing. So is Crystal Palace!!! Theyre two of my faves!! Plus the characters are great at both. So even if theyre not into characters, the food is pretty darn tasty if you ask me. So its a win win situation. I think everyone should experience a character breakfast at least once in their disney life.

For what its worth, my DS12 put up a fuss when i booked Crystal Palace this past trip. But once he was there, he loved it!!!! For the record, he still likes characters are requested Tusker House (which he did get, cause i love characters too). But he put up a fuss with crystal palace cause he's not into pooh characters. Totally got into it once he was there. And he's a preteen! (going on 13 soon). So you never know.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

Figured I'd point out that BOG isn't a character meal.

And if they're not interested in it... Are you? It's your vacation too, afterall. If they don't want to go and you do, tell them to enjoy the food, but this meal is for the grownups.

This January is the first time I've ever been with kids... Yet all of my previous trips had at least one character meal. So you do the math on that one.

 

[720L]

If they decide they are into the characters after you arrive....they might have a change of heart if they get swept up in the "Disney magic"....there are lots of chances to do character meet and greets and get pictures and autographs with out doing a character meal.

And, there are lots of other cool places to eat that dont involve characters....The Sci-Fi diner, Coral Reef, Boma, Sanaa, Ohana, Whispering Canyon, etc....

Agree! "Disney Magic!" How can they turn down a character when it's right next to them? Garden Grill is one of my fav character meals.....it's a very peaceful meal because there aren't many people around you....you just watch "Living with the Land" ride as the restaurant slowly turns. Very cool.

 

[ttintagel]

FWIW, I didn't think I would enjoy a character meal, but I had a ball at the Crystal Palace when I tried it.

Do they just not care one way or the other about characters, or do they actively dislike them? (I remember one baby at another table was so scared of Pooh she cried when he got near her.) If it's the former, and YOU would enjoy it, I'd say go ahead and book it. Otherwise, save your money.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

http://youtu.be/G7X54cJvVUk

 

[3pletprincesses]

I think that I would pick 1 and only 1 character meal that everyone would enjoy. then if the kids want to seem ore characters, yo ucan always wait in line at the parks to see them. BTW my DDs, who are now 6, never wanted to do BBB and we go once or twice a year. They also don't like to wear the hot costums dresses all day. We only change right before the meal and get change right after the meal. They say the hairs at BBB doesn't look pretty and it looks to be too pulled and it would hurt them. They prefer having a real tiara and a crown braid done by me. That being said, I don;t think BBB looks terrible but it looks like it's really pulled back. I can see why they would think that it hurts LOL

 

[It'sWDW4me]

I can share my experiences:

2007 - DS informs me that he is 11 years old - WAY too old for characters and he IS. NOT. interested in character meals. I booke LTT (still character dinner at that time) and a breakfast at Chef Mickey's. He. had. a. blast!!!! A CM breakfast is now a must for every trip and I'm sure a dinner at LTT would be too if they still had character meals.

2008 - traveling with my mom and youngest DB who is 6 months older than DS so they're both 12 during this trip. I booked a CRT dinner and expected to get flak (surprised that I didn't get as much as I was expecting though) from the boys. They didn't join in the pic with Cinderella but they BOTH totally enjoyed the dinner. They liked CRT so much that for our last trip (2010), they were both 14 and were disappointed to hear that I didn't book a dinner at CRT. I've since been told that we MUST dine at CRT whenever we finally get to go to WDW again.

So I suggest that you book the character meals but maybe just 2... 3 tops. The kids may be surprised themselves by how much they like those meals!

 

[jesswindsor]

I have done several character meals with no kids. We were going for the characters, not the food. The food is nothing special, well Pooh's Puff was really good, but I wouldn't book a character meal again just for the food.

 

[carstinsmom]

Instead of BBB, you main want to try the Main St. Barber Shop they do fun styles for boys and girls but not over the top. Lots of gel and Mickey Confetti involved, lol. They use to use colored gel but I read they don't have it any more.
As for the character meals, I wouldn't definitely try at least one just for the experience, maybe one of the more low keyed ones like Cape May at the Beach Club. Although I love them, Chef Mickey's and Crystal Palace can be a little overwhelming, especially if you aren't into it. Tusker House is a breakfast favorite of ours.

 

[skeettafic]

Thanks everyone!

When DD was younger, she was definitely fearful of anyone in a character suit but she'll be 8 so now she isn't scared per se, she just doesn't really like them very much so she won't freak out if they come by us but she isn't going to go out of her way to meet them, talk to them, etc.

DS will be 5 when we go. I think because of his age, he's still a little afraid of the characters at this point but by next year it might be different. But then again, maybe not - my kids are pretty adament about this kind of stuff and I end up making them miserable if I try to push them to do it so I absolutely will not do that this time! Maybe

DS did seem excited about the castle even though its princesses and I guess that's one experience that seems really Disney to me. And it seems that overall reviews are good for Tusker House so I think those will be the two we start planning with and go from there!

Thanks again everyone. DH can't understand why I want to go over these things hundreds of times so it's nice to be able to share with others who don't think I'm crazy for making a dining plan a year in advance!

 

[skeettafic]

Instead of BBB, you main want to try the Main St. Barber Shop they do fun styles for boys and girls but not over the top. Lots of gel and Mickey Confetti involved, lol. They use to use colored gel but I read they don't have it any more.
As for the character meals, I wouldn't definitely try at least one just for the experience, maybe one of the more low keyed ones like Cape May at the Beach Club. Although I love them, Chef Mickey's and Crystal Palace can be a little overwhelming, especially if you aren't into it. Tusker House is a breakfast favorite of ours.

I think we're looking at doing Pirates League if they want to do that but I didn't realize the Barber Shop did stuff for girls, too. Thanks!

 

[dmdelight]

op-no, not anymore-but we tried!

we did both cp and th purely for the early adr rather than the characters or the food available.it was our first time on ddp and our children were not keen.

the following year, we "negotiated" 1 character meal-at cp-we were seated late and the park had already opened by the time we were finished eating-therefore defeated the object of early adr.this was with the kids desperate to get out of there also!

our next vacation-all character meals were dropped-this was even with fd!

note-the characters will skip by if you indicate to them you do not wish to interact.

 

[Hoosier37]

When we went for our first trip, the kids were 11 and 8. I asked if they wanted me to book a character meal and they both said no way. Well, by the time we left they both regretted not doing a character meal, because once they were at Disney and caught up in the magic of it all they wished they had.

 

[Sparkly]

We did our first character meal in Feb at Crystal Palace. The food wasn't particularly good (well, except for the eggs and of course Mickey waffles) but meeting the characters was amazing and they're all so cute and cuddly. I now really want to meet Eeyore and give him a big hug again