Are Character Meals really worth the cost?

[DisDarling]

I know you can find most of the characters from the meals in the parks, so why pay $20 an adult to eat a normal meal you could eat elsewhere? Im just curious if others feel this way. For a family of 4 at each one, it really adds up!
Thanks for any replies!!
D.D.

 

[Harambe]

Yes, I think they are worth it! It is nice not to have to stand in line in the parks to wait for the characters.

However, we only do one character meal per trip. It does get pricey. Our favorite is the Garden Grill.

 

[lillygator]

I guess it depends on the person...I feel they are worth it, simply because I don't have to go 'round the parks in search of characters, they simply come to me!

 

[jtdl]

I think one per trip is worth it just for the "excitement" of it. Seeing the looks on my kids faces when the character comes to the table just to see them is well worth it. I don't agree with the pricing - the food is not worth the price. The breakfast food is just mediocre IMO. In our case my daughter is 13 and a very picky, small eater - there is absolutely no way she is going to eat anywhere near $20 worth of food, but I still do it. Acutally we had planned two this trip, but when I found out we would be paying for "3" adults and 1 child we ditched the second one.

 

[Forever42]

Believe it or not, but FH and I do the character meals for the food. We're in our 20s, so characters aren't a huge deal, but they're a nice addition. The character meals end up cheaper for us (bigger appetites) than regular restaurants.

We've had excellent meals at Crystal Palace, Liberty Tree Tavern, and Garden Grill. Those are the only character restaurants we've done, but the food is very good at all of them.

 

[lorik]

I agree, I don't do the meals for the characters but because they, or any of the other buffets, end up being cheaper than any other sit down restaurant. If you add up the cost of appetizer, entree, dessert and beverage it comes to far more than the cost of a character meal. Also, my kids can get something to eat besides the usual kid's fare of fried foods and burgers. However, the cost savings only applies to dinners. Character breakfasts are definitely overpriced. My DS is 13 and only eats bagels or muffins in the morning. To pay adult prices for him just doesn't make sense. But dinner for him is another story. He is 5' 10" and eats like he is going to be 6' 5" by tomorrow morning. There's no way I could afford to feed him at a regular sit down restaurant in Disney for a week.

 

[Forever42]

Oh, I agree with you on the breakfasts, though. Unless we do it late (10:30-11), we don't eat our money's worth. For some reason we just don't have the appetite early in the day that we do at dinner. Too bad it's not the other way around!

 

[disney4us2002]

Our family of five w/three sons spends too much on dinners anywhere, lol. We've found that at buffets at least everyone finds something they like to eat and the kids love big dessert bars so the characters are just a plus for us.

 

[crisi]

We spent $30 a person on Mother's Day Brunch without characters.....WDW buffets are actually pretty reasonable. And I'd rather spend $20 for a character breakfast - get eggs and waffles and coffee and juice - than $4 for a roll and juice. If its going to be highway robbery, lets make it filling highway robbery!

For us, its a time thing. We can manage to get two things done at once - a halfway decent meal and time with characters. Seeing Mickey and Goofy over breakfast saves us an hour of standing in line to see them later. I have more money than time (and more money than patience for standing in lines to see Mickey) at WDW. So its worth it to us.

 

[Kaycee]

I think character meals are definitely worth the cost!

I hate waiting in line (which is why I also take advantage of FP and EE whenever I can) so I think it's well worth it to have the characters come to me while I'm enjoying my meal.

 

[rcyannacci]

I know it can get really expensive. Since we don't have kids yet, my DH and I can get more extravagent on food. But the character meals are great. Think of it as more than just a meal...it's an experience. But some do have better food than others, so it's worth doing a little research.

 

[Jockaroo]

One option to consider is the ice cream social at the Garden Grill at Epcot. For under $7.00 you get a huge sundae and can have character interaction. We've done this twice. Farmer Mickey, Pluto and Chip and Dale are the characters we saw each time. It was fun, but not pricey. It might be an option to try just to test the water for a character experience.

 

[paigevz]

Because they come to you one at a time instead of you queing to see them........you have something to do (eat) while waiting, you kill two birds with one stone (eating and seeing characters), the characters won't suddenly leave to take a break on your child's turn, it works great for giving shy kids or young kids a chance to warm up to the characters, it's a nice break with disney still all around.........warm when it's cold out, cool when it's warm out, a nice place to sit............................I soooo prefer the meals to queing for characters at the parks! Now we only have to queue for Toy Story and Villains..........boy I wish they hadn't done away with that Villian character meal! We love 'em, it's worth it to us.......and we have 5 planned for our upcoming trip!

 

[Valera]

We love the character meals infact my DM mentioned that the Chef Mickey breakfast was one of the highlights for the trip for us.

This time we went to Donald's Breakasourus (sp) and also enjoyed it. The character meals are noisy so if that bothers you then you wouldn't enjoy it, but we find it great.

Yes you can find characters in the park. But have you ever seen the lines? It is definitely worth the inflated price in our opinion.

 

[SandrainNC]

We just went to our first character meal at Chef Mickey's last Friday. My husband and I agree that the look on my little boy's face (almost 4) was worth the $11 we spent for him to only eat a plate full of parmesan mashed potatoes. And of course, I enjoyed it too. I finally got my hugs from Chip and Dale! We will definitely do one again.

Sandra

 

[Aimeedyan]

YES - they are worth it to us. I should mention we are both adults without children (DH and I). Our family (5 adults) all did the PSB in May and had a BLAST! We don't like standing in lines, and we're not 3! I've stood in lines before, and it wasted previous park time and was boring. I can't imagine being 3 and standing in those lines...

Its so worth the $ (which isn't much in comparison to just a sitdown restaurant) for hte characters to come to us, spend time, get great photo shots, etc while we eat and kill two birds with one stone.

I wouldn't do a lot in one trip - we just did one and were happy, but I would do it with any characters that you really wanted to see to save time in the parks. And the meals are pretty good. If you can swing it, I'd give it one shot and then decide if it's right for your family.

 

[SnowWitch]

I think they are very beneficial if you have young timid kids who are not use to the characters. We no longer do them ourselves, however, this trip my 2 yr old, not to adventurous nephew is joining us. So we have one for the beginning of the trip to give him a more relaxed controlled environment to warm up to them. We have found in the past the quality of many of the buffets have been well "yuck" so no to me personally they are not worth $$. I would rather spend the money at an Epcot establishment. But let me add my kids are older when our baby arrives we'll be at them again but limited one per trip.

 

[cobbler]

This past trip I did 3 character meals and loved them all. I do them mostly for the characters and don't mind paying a little extra to do so. It is very worth it to me to see my kids excited. They come to me and I don't have to stand in line and wait or risk them going in for their "cheese" or "hunny" breaks and missing out.

Plus it is more relaxed and you get some chow too.

 

[HomeSweetDisney]

My family usually does at least one character meal per trip. Both my sister and I are older, (I'm 18 she's 13) but we still enjoy getting some personal time with the characters and not having to worry about holding up a line or rushing to take a picture. Our favorite character meal is the breakfast at Polynesian. We didn't do this one last time so I'm not 100% sure if they still offer it but there are plenty of great ones to choose from. Depends on what characters ya'll want interaction with

 

[fun & fancy free]

I agree the character meals can get pricey. We avoid that by making our at breakfast time. It's cheaper and gets us into the park early. WDW wouldn't be the same without a couple of characters (that's disney characters).