1st Night Dinner - Character or Not?

[LeeAnn]

Thinking of doing a Character dinner for the 1st night there to get in the Disney mode. Which Character Dinner I do?

Already did the 1900 Park Fare. Thinking of Chef Mickey (did the breafast before). Is Chef Mickey dinner good? What other non-park Character dinners are there?

If not a character dinner, what do you recomend to get into the Disney mode and ready for the park the next day.


Any other non-park activity.
EWP
Fireworks from resort.
?

Thanks for your help.

 

[dzneelvr]

LeeAnn: we do Ohana's the first evening. It's such wonderful food after a long travel day and you can relax at your table for as long as you want. Walk around the Poly, scout out the unique items in the 2 gift shops and art gallery. Then take the monorail over into MK for the evening WISHES. Its a great start to the Magic

 

[stacy6552]

Hoop Dee Doo Revue! Its a great way to kick off your trip!

 

[shoots]

We did Chef Mickey's dinner on our first night last trip and were glad we did. After a very early morning flight, we appreciated a 5 pm dinner with the characters to put us in the mood & of course to get some great photos.

A couple friends did this too and found that by getting Mickey's autograph etc. on the first night was good so they didn't have to search him out in the parks.

After dinner we just took a tour on the monorail and saw the castle etc, but didn't venture into the parks. We explored and swam at our resort before dinner and crashed shortly after!! All set for a fuller day 2!

 

[Cookie Princess]

We like the quality of the food at CM's better for breakfast than dinner. The dinner was a big disappointment. BLAH food. However, we loved 1900 PF for both breakfast and dinner.

 

[Jen D]

We did Chef Mickey's once. It was fun for dd, but the food was a bit disappointing. I like the idea of character dinners, but after my experience at CMs I'm sticking to breakfast when it comes to buffets.

Ohana is a nice choice, if you don't want to do a park you can watch Wishes from the beach.

Or... if you want to splurge... eat somewhere in the Boardwalk area and then take an Illuminations Cruise.

 

[ktink]

Our DD's wanted CM's for dinner the first night that we're there. And I had read someone's post on here saying that CM's is their "ritual" so we decided to try it this year and see if it puts us in the "Disney Spirit" not that we really need any help.

 

[lacy1101]

Count us among the families that do Chef Mickey's for dinner our first night in Disney! We did it for the first time on our 2002 trip and loved it! The atmosphere was wonderful and I enjoyed the food. It almost feels like Disney is giving you a welcome party!!

 

[ep4244]

We're doing the Princess Storybook Dinner in Norway our first night to get us in the Disney mood.

 

[familyfirsttimer]

I second (or 3rd or 4th) Chef Mickey's. I actually planned this for our first night by accident. Well, I just mean I didn't want to have to leave a park to go to it on any other day so we chose our fist night there for dinner. It was GREAT! Loved the character interation and my DD's were so excited. It made a FANTASTIC start to our first trip there. I will plan a character dinner for the first day every time now. I also agree about the autographs, my DD's got 6 that night and were so amazed! It made it easier to not wait in long lines to see them again too. Fr example, Mickey's line at AK was really long and it was a hot, hot day. Minnie only had @10 people in it so we waited for her(and glad we did-she looked so cute in her Safari gear) but it really did take the pressure off of finding the characters.
Have a great trip. I am jealous, I want to be back there now!!!!