A character finder utility

[EpcotIsMyFave]

T Catt11

Thanks so much for this awesome utility! We are heading down to WDW in 2 days and seeing the characters got me totally psyched!!!

 

[TDS373X]

cool sight I added a couple.(Merlin and Jack Sparrow) I know I have a pic of Big Bad Wolf someplace...We'll be going down soon but not soon enough we can hunt characters. I know I've seen the card characters from Alice In Wonderland before but I didn't see them on your list. They were by the Teacups and were passing out candy for Not So Scary. I was so excited to see them I almost forgot the candy.

 

[SplashCP3]

Thank you for creating this! I'll be at WDW in three weeks, and I will take pictures of all sitings and post them on your site. What a great concept, and now that it is powered by the DIS boards and more people find out about it we might have a legitimate character locater on our hands! Thanks again!

 

[t_catt11]

Loving all of the positive feedback, as well as all of the input from the Dis!

I've had a couple of PMs of sighting data, so I'll enter that myself - including spotting of White Rabbit (from Alice in Wonderland) as well as Rabbit (from the Pooh movies) - both by the same person on the same day!

I'm going to adjust Jiminy Cricket's rating. He used to be much tougher to find, but it is my understanding that he appears daily (or at the very least, quite regularly) at Rafiki's Planet Watch in AK. By that logic, he should really be listed as a "regular" character (criteria being at least one regularly scheduled meet and greet).

I am thinking of breaking the list into several sections on the page. Something like this:

Section 1: Active characters. These would be everyone who rates as Abundant down to Very Rare

Section 2: Event-only characters. Pretty self explanatory.

Section 3: Star Wars Weekend characters.

Section 4: Retired characters. No need for people to have to wade through these (espeically, if we add some of those really old characters to the list) to get to curent ones.


What do you think?

 

[Joanna71985]

Loving all of the positive feedback, as well as all of the input from the Dis!

I've had a couple of PMs of sighting data, so I'll enter that myself - including spotting of White Rabbit (from Alice in Wonderland) as well as Rabbit (from the Pooh movies) - both by the same person on the same day!

I'm going to adjust Jiminy Cricket's rating. He used to be much tougher to find, but it is my understanding that he appears daily (or at the very least, quite regularly) at Rafiki's Planet Watch in AK. By that logic, he should really be listed as a "regular" character (criteria being at least one regularly scheduled meet and greet).

I am thinking of breaking the list into several sections on the page. Something like this:

Section 1: Active characters. These would be everyone who rates as Abundant down to Very Rare

Section 2: Event-only characters. Pretty self explanatory.

Section 3: Star Wars Weekend characters.

Section 4: Retired characters. No need for people to have to wade through these (espeically, if we add some of those really old characters to the list) to get to curent ones.


What do you think?

Great idea! This would make things easier.

 

[vicki_c]

Just bumping in response to a new post on rare characters!

 

[WeatherbySwann]

Wow, this is great! I love the interaction of the website.

 

[tiffsix]

bump

 

[kdzbear]

I tried to send you feedback on the feedback form, but it would not submit. I saw the Bowler Man from Meet the Robinsons in October out at Mickey's Trick or Treat Party at California Adventure. I know that this is not Walt Disney World, but this means that he does still come out sometimes!

[/IMG]

 

[t_catt11]

Wow, I attracted WeatherbySwann? We're big time now, baby!

Thanks again to everyone for the kind words, and for the sighting data! We're currently seeing a couple thousand page views per day strictly related to the character finder... this makes it a MUCH bigger success than I had ever hoped for!

I just tested the form ang received no error. Maybe the server was being stupid? If you see an error, please send the exact message to me.... makes it easier to fix.

 

[Joanna71985]

Just curious- are any SWW characters going to be added?

 

[t_catt11]

I'll be adding them in their own section. I'm also breaking the retireds and show only characters into their own sections, as well.

 

[Joanna71985]

I'll be adding them in their own section. I'm also breaking the retireds and show only characters into their own sections, as well.

Nice! I have a lot of characters to add.

 

[WeatherbySwann]

Wow, I attracted WeatherbySwann? We're big time now, baby!

Thank you for the compliment. I really like how you can check to see the most recent time/place each character has been seen. This especially helps for the rare ones - often I don't know whether one of them is gone for good or just no one has posted their sighting. Now that won't be a problem!

I also had no clue about characters appearing in the hallway outside of the Epcot character spot.

 

[t_catt11]

I've enjoyed quite a few of your posts over the past year, Mister Swann (may I call you that? ). The pleasure is all mine!

This list isn't intended to take away from the like of the Steve Soares (who is the undisputed master of the up to date meet and greet schedule) or of my personal fave, wdwautographs. However, the very nature of what Steve does doesn't allow him to keep tabs on the unscheduled characters, and wdwautographs posts on every page that they just don't have the time to keep all of their fantastic listings current.

My thinking the whole time has been that it's just too much for one person to keep 200+ character locations current... but if we can regularly get Disney fans to post who they saw, and where they saw them, then others will have a better ideas of where they might find a given character.

So far, so good!

 

[t_catt11]

Okay, the sections have been broken up as promised, and I have added a big list of Star Wars weekend characters.

If I'm missing any, please let me know. Also, if you feel that I have a character rated incorrectly (rare event character instead of event character, or vice versa), please let me know.

Let's see those pics and sightings that people have been promising!

 

[t_catt11]

LOL that didn't take long... apparently, someone is watchign this thread!

 

[Joanna71985]

Okay, the sections have been broken up as promised, and I have added a big list of Star Wars weekend characters.

If I'm missing any, please let me know. Also, if you feel that I have a character rated incorrectly (rare event character instead of event character, or vice versa), please let me know.

Let's see those pics and sightings that people have been promising!

SWW characters that could be added are:
Jedi Mickey
Leia Minnie (first out in 2008)
Trooper Donald (first out in 2008)
Vader Goofy (first out in 2008)
Ahsoka? (first out in 2008- she was in the newest SW movie)
Sand people
Cantina band

The website looks great!

 

[t_catt11]

You were a busy beaver... thanks SO MUCH for all those additions!

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll get to those (I'm not in the interface now... will probably be tomorrow) right away.

Should we put distinctive character entries for the Fab characters in SW gear? They have lots of outfits as is... is this just another outfit?

I can see the case for adding them, though.

On a related tangent... is Sorceror Mickey worthy of his own entry?

 

[Joanna71985]

You were a busy beaver... thanks SO MUCH for all those additions!

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll get to those (I'm not in the interface now... will probably be tomorrow) right away.

Should we put distinctive character entries for the Fab characters in SW gear? They have lots of outfits as is... is this just another outfit?

I can see the case for adding them, though.

On a related tangent... is Sorceror Mickey worthy of his own entry?

Nah, you're right. They can just be added under the characters (in fact, I think I did already).