8 days, 7 character meals?

[senadler]

We have done close to one a day on previous trips, but only when we are on the deluxe dining plan. We figure we are spending the same credit whether it is a character meal or not. The younger kids love the characters, and the older boys love the unlimited food. If paying OOP I most likely would not pay the premium for that many character meals.

 

[dmea10]

We had a character meal on every day of our trip, so 6 total. My kids (12, 9, 6) loved it. It was the first visit for us, so everything was new to them and they thought it was fun that the characters kept "popping up" at so many of our meals.

I am taking my granddaughter for her first trip. We booked a lot of character meals. We decided the grown ups needed to pick one place without characters and we are going to The Boathouse. I love the character meals but after a day in the parks they are noisy and not very relaxing lol But I know seeing the little one all excited will make it worth it.

 

[robl45]

Is 7 character meals for an 8 day trip too many? We have never had any character dining at all. I have planned one per day. My kids are 9 and 7. Is it too much? Thanks.

I prefer to see the characters in the park honestly. You get professional pictures with memory maker instead of having to interupt your meal every second to snap your own pictures. And more important the food is terrible at pretty much every character meal.

 

[Pmlocke]

I think you have decided to have fun and shouldn't worry about what others think. Character meals I have found are a great way to enjoy yourself, spend time with the whole family over a nice meal, experiance the characters, really get into the disney magic. I don't understand how spending time with your family at a meal and having fun is taking away from your park time. 8 days will be plenty of time for "park" activities and by the way, isn't dining, meeting Mickey, spending time with family a "park" activity? My wife and I, both in our 60's, have had the most fun with our children and now our grandchildren when we are in a character meal setting. It seems that's what our kids remembered the most. Do what feels good for you.

 

[pixarmom]

We did this once for our youngest son's birthday trip. Tons of character meals - almost all character meals. I don't regret it one bit - for that trip and that trip alone. Our son's anticipation of this great fun and endless "choose your own meal" experience (that's what he calls buffets) was priceless. And he did have a great time. But I'd consider a couple factors when deciding.

First, how important is food quality to your family? The only character meal that we think has truly good food is Garden Grill. Opinions will vary significantly, of course, but for us, most character meals range from "that's pretty good for a character meal!" to "wow - that's awful!" When we did all character meals, we ended the trip thinking that Disney food had declined in quality. Then we remembered that this was the result of our own dining decisions, not because the quality of Disney food declined overall. When we returned to our regular dining habits for future trips (which includes a fair number of signature restaurants and no buffets) we were very pleased with food quality! So we are unlikely to have so many character meals in one trip again, but talk to me again someday when I'm a grandmother and I might answer differently!

Second, how much do your kids love characters? Even our then-4-year-old-character-adoring son was starting to burn out after Day 3 - he was meeting so many characters that it became less exciting. Still fun, but we just didn't get the same value out of his response on Day 4 that we did on Day 1. Again, I'm still glad we did it, but character meals were a far more special event when it was just one or two per stay. Really depends on the kids in terms of memories/enjoyment. For our youngest, character meals will likely be his fondest dining memories. But for our older boys, fondest memories are any place with pizza or mac and cheese for the now-17-year-old and signature restaurants for the now-18-year-old.

Finally, how much do you enjoy character meals? If the adults in the group super love character meals, that number of character meals for your trip is perfect! My husband and I have booked character meals for the kids, but we are not interested in them independently. We really value and enjoy a more relaxed dinner and it's a nice break from the parks for our whole family. But if everyone in your group loves a character meal, you have a great plan!

Have a great time!!

 

[TheRustyScupper]

Is 7 character meals for an 8 day trip too many?

1) Definitely ambitious.
2) There is no problem with this, but it can be boring for the adults.
3) The characters will be nice, but the food becomes ordinary . . but the kids will love it.
4) Remember, one goes to character meals for the characters, not for the food quality.

 

[Texas EZ Mom]

Thanks for every one's opinions and input on this. I think we are going to make this trip about character dining and let the kids have fun with the characters. Last time we stood in line for autographs and it took a lot of our time. This cant be too much different. The kids each have certain characters they want to meet (and truthfully, I do, too). So this is the potential plan.
Arrival day, go to Epcot for dinner at Akershus for the Princesses.
Day 1 in MK...The Crystal Palace for Pooh and friends (my choice) lol either breakfast to get in the park early or lunch
Epcot day The Garden Grill for lunch or dinner for Chip N Dale
our no park day will be breakfast at Ohana for Lilo and Stitch (my son's pick) and then we will have dinner at 1900 Park Fare for the Princesses
Our Animal Kingdom day will be Tusker House for lunch (my sister's pick)
and we will eat at Be Our Guest for dinner on our last Mk day. We have done Be Our Guest, but only breakfast and lunch. Never met the Beast.
Even if the food is bad, the experience will be fantastic, hopefully.
We are going without men, so this trip is for the kids and the kid in us. lol.
Thanks again for the opinions.

 

[tobikaye]

Day 1 in MK...The Crystal Palace for Pooh and friends (my choice) lol either breakfast to get in the park early or lunch
...
and we will eat at Be Our Guest for dinner on our last Mk day. We have done Be Our Guest, but only breakfast and lunch. Never met the Beast.

Just a note that with the new opening procedures Crystal Palace does not offer as much of an advantage. When I did BOG PPO in February, they had just started the new opener and they let us PPO guest in about 10 minutes before everyone else. Now, I hear they sometimes let everyone in at the same time. This means everyone will be congregating in the hub so no advantage for Crystal Palace other than eating before the park officially opens.

BOG Dinner - Remember that this is not technically a character meal so the beast is not a guarantee to be there. It would be unlikely that he would be there, but there is always the possibility. Since it is not a character meal, they would not need to have a guest character there like they might at a true character meal.

 

[Lisa F]

your kids are at the PERFECT age for character meals. On my last trip we were there for 8 days and we did Garden Grill, Ohana, Crystal Palace, Hollywood & Vine, and Tusker House so that is 5 in one trip... it was not too many and we did not have any princess meals to factor in... but if I had a girl also (it was just myself and my son) we would have been at CRT and/or Akershus also and maybe would have tried the Trattoria breakfast. You gotta eat anyway and my son loves buffets (it takes the pressure off of trying new things). We did 2 sit down meals a day for the entire vacation too... it's a great way to take a break and have downtime (we did have long park days). Everyone tours differently but my son is now 9, we are doing 2.5 days in the parks and 2 character meals before our cruise. He won't be little and invested in the magic for very long, I want to make the most of this time!

 

[mamamelody2]

Sounds awesome to me! Of course, I'm pretty sure I would enjoy it way more than my kids. LOL.

 

[magical-me]

It depends what you want out of your vacation. For me it would be too much. I would probably only do two per vacation. A lot of those character meals are buffets and I couldn't imagine eating buffet 7 times lol.

 

[jltdone]

when we went for a week 6 nights, 7days. we did 6 breakfast plus CRT and BOG for dinner. Our son turned 5 and loved it and so did we. We are looking at 2018 going again and it wont be any different this time except we are looking at 10 days so that would mean 9 breakfast and probably CRT since we are bring a little girl who has never been to disney before

 

[Duchie]

Our kids have never been too much into them so we would do 1 MAYBE 2 per trip. So one per day seems like an awful lot to me. I would worry about the food getting repetitive. Plus they are EXPENSIVE and I'm starting to question if they are worth the price. In fact for our upcoming trip the kids are thinking they want to forego our usual Chef Mickey's breakfast for Kona. But it's really up to you and what you think your family would like.

 

[Vintage princess]

For our first trip I have 4 character meals in 6 days. I actually have 2 on my daughter's b day because meeting pooh is the most important thing to her and then dinner at chef mickey's with a custom bday cake. I am worried 2 in one day will be nuts but I think it will be special for her so we are going to try it!

 

[wendow]

We only do one per trip (typically 9-11 night stays). That is plenty for us since most characters we are able to meet in the parks. However, you have to do what your family wants. If they love character meals, the go for it and enjoy!

 

[Kingdome8]

WE did it and it was great. Just wish we didn't do as many buffets. Very tired of buffets by end of week

 

[wendow]

In fact for our upcoming trip the kids are thinking they want to forego our usual Chef Mickey's breakfast for Kona.

We had this conversation in our house tonight. I think we are forgoing our usual character meal at 1900 PF or O'hanas for Kona. The character meals are just so expensive and we've noticed a decline in the food for several years now. So, you are really paying for the characters and we can meet them other places.

 

[Nancyg56]

I think it depends on your family. two years ago we took the little girls on y street with us, and booked a slew of character meals between breakfast and dinners. It was right for us at that time, although I did give teh adults a break and took the kids with me and sent them off on character free adults only meals.

WE like the character dining but the issue that I see is that you are going to be eating a lot of buffet and AYCTE meals, and that gets old fast.

I would be sure to try to vary the meals between breakfast and dinner, and try to be sure that I had a mix of the AYCTE and buffet meals. There is a lot to be said for food coming to you rather you always having to go for your food.

 

[DrunkJam]

We have 7 character meals booked in 10 days (DXDP)
My DS said his favourite thing about Disney was eating with the characters, and DD wants to meet lots of them. Plus they do like a buffet, which is less stressful working out what they can eat. (DS has ASD and food issues)
We are looking forward to it.
That said, we also have meals booked at Cali Grill, Monsieur Paul, Le Cellier, Homecomin', O'hana and The Wave. So we get some different choices as well.
But, the character meals are great if that's what the kids are into. You'll get better mealtime behaviour from them if they are having a good time too!

 

[goofyintoronto]

People say character meals take up too much park time. But quite honestly, the way i see it, the break is rather nice. You need some down time. I love character meals. I dont think you have too many BUT the only thing i'd have an issue with is the fact that you have mostly buffets for all of your meals. There are some really great restaurants out there (a la carte). I'd maybe swap out one or two restaurants for a la carte restaurants. Via Napoli is one of my fave places to eat. Amazing pizza and pasta dishes.