Any thoughts on the new character dining experience?

[roctavia]

Our trip isn't until May so I'm hoping things will change even more by then, but thinking about our dining plans.... What is the modified character meal thing really like? We usually do Chef Mickey's and Tusker House and the kids are still young enough to appreciate meeting the characters.

Thanks!

 

[JenM]

We were there last week, we did Tusker House and Garden Grill, and my nephews loved it. They’re 13 and 8 years old, it was their first trip to WDW. The characters can’t come up to your table for any hugs or autographs, but they’re close enough that you can still get some nice pictures - they’ll pose for you from a safe distance. Pluto played peek-a-boo with my little nephew, and Mickey and Goofy played with my older nephew. It was great. We got cards with all of the character autographs, which I’m going to add to our scrapbook.

It‘s different, but it was still fun.

 

[Bellex917]

We did Chef Mickey on Friday and loved it. The kids can still get pics, just not right next to them/hugging. It was still cute!

 

[PurplePigment]

Haven't done either of those recently, but I did Minnie's Halloween Dine and I would definitely say it's still worth it.

It works a lot like it used to. Each table got it's own time, the characters just stood a bit away from the tables instead of going right up to you. After they made the circuit, so the speak, and gave each table their own time, they wandered a bit and interacted from a distance. At least from my experience, they know how to make the best of the restrictions and some really cute and fun interactions were happening.

I was with a group of adults, but I can say that the kids at the other tables were all over it (aaaaand so were we).

 

[kanerf]

I did the Hollywood & Vine. It was ok I guess, but not worth the extra cost you pay for the buffet versus others without characters.