Am I going character meal crazy?

[DisneyNewbieDad]

Our family will be doing our 1st WDW trip in Oct 2017. It will my wife and I and our 3 kids (ages 7, 5, 3) and my in-laws. I'm thinking about how to make it fun for the kids and us. Would 1 character meal each day (6 day trip) be too many? We're planning on the DDP and I know CM's can be a good way to make the plans work. I'd love tips on how many to plan.

 

[aebeauregard]

My family probably wouldn't do one EVERY day. Maybe like once every other day. Most character meals are family/buffet type and my husband really isn't a huge fan of buffets. He thinks food is much better at a order your meal type place, which I think is mostly true. We like having some meals mixed in where you order from a menu. Character meals are fun though and a good way to skip meet and greet lines in the park. Have fun on your first trip!!! Disney is such a awesome family vacation.

 

[ChasingLeslie]

We did four character meals on our 7 night trip in July...I had five planned, but cancelled HV Minnie Dine due to timing. We did Crystal Palace, Akershus, Tusker House, and 1900 Park Fare. We loved them all and will likely do them again next year. I might also add Garden Grill next time!

We like the buffets because everyone can find something they like. DH likes the meat varieties, and the kids tend to eat better.

 

[Lisa F]

I'm doing 5 in 7 days and it's just about right. I'd probably do 4 in 6. We are doing Tusker House, Garden Grill, Ohana and Crystal Palace (breakfasts) and H&V seasonal dine for dinner.

 

[Alice777]

We are not doing any character buffets when we go this November because both of us are adults and will be paying out of pocket. But in your case, as I told my friend who will be going this October, if you are on Dining Plan, why not take advantage and do character buffets everyday. Do your homework and you'll find great tips as to which character buffets for which mealtime. I think since your children are young, they will enjoy meeting all the characters and there will be something for everyone to eat.

 

[Lisa F]

the only reason I would not do it every day is that people might want something a little different than the buffets every day. Also you start getting a lot of character repeats I think. Mickey is appearing at 4 of mine but since one comes with lilo and stitch, one comes with chip and dale, one is in safari with fab 5 characters and one is with the holiday fab 5, I am ok with that. But I'm not sure I'd want to add another mickey to that. Although we don't do princesses (son does not want to!) so with a few princess meals I can see how you'd get there. But I'd still probably cut back some of the mickey meals for a princess meal and do a few fun but not character meals for a break from the buffets.

 

[disneymom0104]

I agree that every day might be much- there are so many other fun restaurants. But definitely do what is right for your family! We are going for 10 days and are doing Tusker House, H&V, 1900 Park Fare, Garden Grill and Crystal Palace. We have done every other character meal WDW offers in the past. My kids love them, we have fun with them- but the buffets can get redundant and the character meals take a bit longer than other meals if you have to wait on characters. Our non character meals will be BOG, Sci-Fi, Ohana, Biergarten and Rainforest.

 

[Micharlotte]

We did one every night on our trip last year and my daughter(8) loved them. She's disappointed were only doing 3 this year! I liked the buffets because I didn't have to worry about what she ate. There was always plenty of options either in the kids side or the adults side. The only one none of us enjoyed was Hollywood and Vine.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

Without reading your original post, only the titile...

If you're doing more than one character meals, that is one too many. Try one for the kids, but overall I find them annoying.

MG

 

[JackieT1182]

I love character meals! Our last trip was 6 days, and we did a character meal for every dinner. I also have one scheduled for each dinner for our upcoming February trip. For our family, I feel that it's a great use of the dining plan. I do agree that the buffet food gets old, but the characters make up for it in my opinion.

 

[mstephen87]

Our family will be doing our 1st WDW trip in Oct 2017. It will my wife and I and our 3 kids (ages 7, 5, 3) and my in-laws. I'm thinking about how to make it fun for the kids and us. Would 1 character meal each day (6 day trip) be too many? We're planning on the DDP and I know CM's can be a good way to make the plans work. I'd love tips on how many to plan.

We LOVE character meals. We have two girls (5 and 9) and it saves us SO much time waiting in lines at parks. This past 6 night trip we did BOG, Akershus, Crystal Palace, 1900 Park Fare, Tusker House and Hollywood & Vine. So much fun for my kids (and us watching). This December we will be there for 7 nights and have BOG (our favorite meal), 1900 Park Fare, Akershus, Ohana (Lilo and stitch), Cinderella's Royal Table, 1900 Park fare breakfast and Tusker House. We clearly don't mind repeat characters. Do one a day, you will not regret it.

 

[DrunkJam]

Depends. There are pros and cons.
The character meals are a great way to meat the characters without queues, and using up park time.
BUT, it can get a bit stressful, you start to worry about getting food in case you miss x character...
Also, it does rather depend on how well buffets work for you all.

 

[RedskinFan]

I think Character meals are a great way to meet characters without having to wait in long lines. With little kids, the meals served family style are more relaxing (Garden Grill, Ohana breakfast, Akershus (Although there is a small buffet there) but I like the variety of the buffets. There is always something for everyone. When my DD (8) was younger she would get so excited to see the princesses that she wouldn't eat but she's not a big eater anyway. You definitely get the most bang for your buck on the dining plan when you go to character meals with kids.

One of my favorite Disney memories was when DD was 4 and I took her to the castle for dinner. DH stayed back with DS because we didn't want to waste the credits. After check in and while we were waiting my little princess kept whispering to me "You know they aren't real Mommy. They are just regular people in costumes. Can we just go?". Once the princesses started coming out though it was a completely different story. Her little face lit up and she excitedly announced every princess to me. Mommy, Mommy, look, it's Ariel! And she was beaming in every picture with a princess. Priceless memories were created that night! It was such a great experience that as soon as we got back to our resort, I went to concierge and booked Akershus breakfast for DH and DD so he could experience DD's pure joy. And that breakfast has become one of his favorite Disney memories. I will warn you that DD didn't eat a thing at that meal and as soon as the princesses had finished coming around she was ready to go. There is no way my child would have waited in line for any of those princesses and I value my sanity to much to try! Even now the only way we do character meets is if the line is very short or I have a fastpass.

 

[MarBee]

We do character meals pretty much every day of our trip. My kids love seeing characters but don't like waiting in line. My youngest also doesn't want to do a long sit down, but having the characters there would allow us to actually be able to chew our food and enjoy the experience. With my kids being little, I honestly don't want to do a sit down meal at Disney unless it's a character meal.
To me, getting the DDP is only worth it for us if we were doing a ton of character meals.
I do try to vary out the characters as much as possible, and not all of them are buffets (Akershus, Garden Grove, CRT, Ohana breakfast- some that aren't buffet that I can think of off hand.)
Enjoy!

 

[StirlingSilver83]

We go to Disney at least once a year, but we missed this year so we are going back in March. We are going with my MIL for the first time as well though. I have 2 kids (10 & 3 at the time we are there). I am in the beginning stages of planning...I don't have to make ADRs until next month. Anyways we are going for 9 days and I have a character meal basically planned for every day except our arrival day. We are planning on doing the following character meals:

Tusker House
Crystal Palace
1900 Park Fare
Akershus
Hollywood & Vine
Cinderella's Royal Table
Chef Mickey's
Be Our Guest (Not a character meal, but you still get to meet the Beast)
Garden Grill
Ohana

We LOVE Character meals, and my feeling about character meals is I would rather sit down to a nice meal and have the characters come to us and sign autographs and get pictures than have to stand in hot long lines to meet characters. We meet about 80% of our characters with character meals. There are still a a few characters that we have to stand in line for but some have FPs for and others we just reading touring plans on best times to meet them so it works out. I just find character meals to be sort of a multitasking thing, eating a nice meal and meeting characters to take pics with and sign autographs. I might be in minority though, LOL

 

[ebradley23]

We're big fans of the character meals. So much easier than waiting in lines to meet characters. This trip we're doing 6 of them in 7 days. We had a 7th booked, but my son was so bashful around the princesses we decided to cancel it a day or two before. The first year we took our son, I'm pretty sure we did one every day.

 

[SillySallySews]

Two summers ago we did five character meals during a four day trip, although one was on checkout day and we left for home immediately after. That was the summer my youngest son had zero interest in eating real food and I figured character meals (mostly buffets) would be loud and busy enough to keep him occupied while the rest of us ate. We did 'Ohana breakfast, Hollywood & Vine breakfast, Chef Mickey's dinner, Crystal Palace lunch, and 1900 PF dinner. It definitely did not feel like too much, and it turned out that my son was so intent on avoiding the characters that he actually started eating real food on that trip lol! Not having to wait in line to meet characters is awesome.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

Our three year old refused to have anything to do with the characters and was scared to death of them.... something to consider if you doing one of these meals every day!

 

[Greenbmw17]

We love character meals. We just got back and my kids are close in age to yours (6,4,2). We were there 6 days and did 3 true character meals (Tusker House, Chef Mickeys and Akershus ) as well as BOG dinner where we were able to take our picture with the Beast.
We discovered that we still ended up waiting in line for Mickey etc as our pictures at the meals weren't great quality but we had so much fun and the interactions were so awesome. We are going back and I had 3 character meals and BOG dinner booked again but decided to try to save money and canceled Tusker House. I was fortunate that all my kids loved the characters but it would have sucked if one of them hated it and we had one booked every day.

 

[addiln]

Last year we did 3 character meals on our 7 day trip and it was perfect. We did CP, 1900, and CM. I was done with buffets after the third one. The kids loved them and we got some great picture as well. I would not be doing them everyday but this was a good amount for us. Everyone is different and if you want to eat at mostly buffets then it is really up to you. Also as one of the pp mentioned not waiting in line to meet any of these characters was a plus. We were able to get all the autographs and pictures we wanted with out losing time in the parks.