Best character meal interaction

[dopeyfanatic]

Which place gives you the best interaction? Planning one meal for my friend's girls. I have boys so I don't want something princess themed because it would bore them, and her oldest daughter would probably prefer a variety anyway. Thanks.

 

[canadian_ehngel]

I've never been anywhere else, but we love Goofy's Kitchen. The food is fantastic, too!!!

 

[1Mouse2RulethemAll]

Which place gives you the best interaction? Planning one meal for my friend's girls. I have boys so I don't want something princess themed because it would bore them, and her oldest daughter would probably prefer a variety anyway. Thanks.

Mickey's surfs up breakfast at the PPH.


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[Mercenary]

Hands down for us is the Minnie's BF at The Plaza...

 

[larina]

This is a tricky question. The interaction is...well different at different places. We went to all the character breakfasts (Ariel's did do breakfasts during our stays) over our two trips last year. Here was our experience:
Goofy's Kitchen: Quite a few characters that come by the table. I've heard they do some walk around the restaurant, but we didn't see that in May (and were there almost 2 hours).
Surf's Up Mickey: Quite a few characters including Mickey (only one with the Mouse Man himself!) and Minnie! Here they do an interactive dance with the kids that is so much fun. We think it is the best interaction/bang for your buck! We liked it so much in May, we did it again in December, and we'll do it on our next visit as well.
Plaza Inn: Lots of characters come by your table and visit for a decent amount of time. Didn't feel rushed (or like we were bothering them) like at Goofy's Kitchen. My 9 year old daughter especially loved this one!
Storytellers: Fewest characters (besides Ariel's) I think at this one. The characters are forest type animals, from Brother Bear and Brer Rabbit mostly, I believe. My son (he was 3 and 3 1/2 on our trips) was afraid of "Giant Mickey Mouse" and the other big characters he's used to seeing small on TV, but he wasn't so afraid of the big bears. Maybe because they are supposed to be big? I don't know, but this was his favorite character meal by far! Storytellers also has much better food than the other buffet breakfasts, or you can order from the menu. This made it my parents favorite character meal too!!!
Hope all that helps a little.

 

[coaches24]

Haven't done goofys or mickeys but have done Minnie's and the interaction was great. The characters didn't just stop at the table for a few seconds and move on. They stopped and interacted with DD and the adults. They also come around a few times and not just one and done. Capt hook was esspecially fun to joke around with. They also got all the kids up to dance when we were there and each character was dancing with the kids and Minnie went around to get a dance with each kid. It was very cute. While I can't compare other character meals (except AG princess which doesn't compare even if you wanted that one) I can say that Minnie's was a fantastic experience.

 

[bibbidibobbidibecky]

Let me preface this by saying I haven't been yet, but I heavily researched this very thing and settled on Minnie and Friends at Plaza Inn.

We have two girls and one boy and this looked like it would cover characters they all would like plus there seems to be SO MANY, so I feel like we won't have to spend much time waiting in line to see characters. My girls insist on meeting Merida, which I'm not looking forward to--in July

So there, for what it's worth!

 

[hlbtimes2]

We've done Minnies, Ariels and Goofy's. Our favorite, by far, is Minnies. We've always had great interaction with characters there. As the others have said, they usually come by multiple times during the meal, and they play with everyone at the table. We have had Tigger roll on the floor with our daughter when she was young, and fly like an airplane with my son. One visit Max was playing with my sons hair, pretending to use ketchup as a style aid so their hair would match. On our recent visit my husband didnt want to get in pictures. Some of the characters insisted that he was in them.

At Goofys it was always a quick picture and sign the autograph book. At Ariels it was even a quicker stop at the table.

 

[Isatricia]

We went to Goofy's Kitchen in April and where we were seated the characters did NOT come to. Aladdin was in that section when we arrived so we saw him immediately. We ate a leisurely dinner - food was mediocre at best. We ate dessert. No other characters came by. 20 minutes after we were finished eating, we finally asked the waiter if we were going to have the opportunity to see any other characters. They had walked close to our section, but NEVER came to us - we had 2 daughters with us dressed as princesses. Finally the manager came over and said he had told them all to come see us, but it took another hour of sitting there to see them all. There was no parade around, no music, no dancing, etc. We were very disappointed!

 

[larina]

Isatricia's experience sounds similar to ours. We also had to ask about several characters that went to the tables all around us but did not stop at our table at Goofy's kitchen.

 

[jennabennabofenna]

Our experience at Goofy's Kitchen was awesome. We will def be going back there. So yea.. i recommend Goofy's

 

[ZanderMan]

Hands down for us is the Minnie's BF at The Plaza...

Agree 100%

 

[mystic_path]

Hands down for us is the Minnie's BF at The Plaza...

I 100% Second this. I also love Goofy's Kitchen which comes in for a very close tie for first place. Goofy's has excellent food, and quite a few characters, but the Plaza for me has always had more characters then any character meal, and the food there is also very good. Plus your in the park, so you can keep on playing as soon as your finished eating. The plaza is also very good for either both boys and girls. But it really depends on who their favorite characters are. I really loved the Plaza simply cause we got to see characters you dont normally see around the park like Rafiki, and the purple dressed mouse from Cinderella. We even saw Captian Hook and he's not one you typically get to see unless its Halloween.

 

[cgh]

I think part of it comes down to who do you want to see? We did surf's up and goofy's kitchen last year and much preferred surf's up. The characters there were the ones that DS knew (Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, Pluto, and Stitch (didn't know that one)). It was VERY interactive and pretty quiet. We saw characters multiple times. There was a dance too. Food was decent. We all thoroughly enjoyed it and will do it again when we go. (we had a 2.5 year old at the time).

Goofy's Kitchen was available at dinner which was a big plus. All the characters did not stop at our table and there were characters that we were not familiar with. (we have not seen all the Disney movies-and my 2.5 year old has only watched Clubhouse and now Cars). So yes, we had a lot of characters, but it didn't mean much to us. I think Aladdin was there when we went-so there might be 'princess movie' characters there.

Minnies is intriguing because it has winnie the pooh and Minnie.

I would probably base it on who you most want to see and what fits in your schedule. I think having a dinner is great because I want to spend the morning in the park.

 

[JadeDarkstar]

plaza inn had 10chr and good food and is the cheapest (yes that's bad but to some it matters alot)

 

[larina]

See, the food matters to me too, quality more than options for our family.
The food at Storytellers is, hands down, the best quality of the 4, but there aren't the most choices, if that's what is important to you.
The other 3 are fairly close in quality. Surf's Up may have less choices than Goofy's or the Plaza Inn, but nothing distinctive I can thing of. Oh, Goofy's has a salad bar too, I think, don't they? The other two don't have that. At the Plaza Inn, you get your own drinks, as well as food. I'll admit, I don't love that aspect.
If it matters to you, you can get 'drinks' at Storytellers and Surf's Up, and I'm guessing at Goofy's as well since it is in a hotel with a bar area.

 

[silence]

We have done all of the character breakfasts over the years, though, the last time we did PPH, it was Lilo & Stitch, not Mickey.

Our ranking goes like this:

**Minnie & Friends - LOVE this one. We go every trip. We love the food and the character interaction is top notch, we never have felt rushed.
**PPH - again, we did Lilo, but we like how the restaurant was smaller
**Storytellers - the characters didn't really appeal to my kiddos
**Ariels - the only place to get the princesses really, we do this one when we don't want to stand in the horrid lines at PFF. However, the visits are always so short as they have a lot of ground to cover
**Goofy's - We have been here numerous times. Except for our very first visit, we have not had good experiences here. We have done dinner and breakfast. We sit and wait and wait for the characters that never seem to come. I have sworn we will never go back, especially since we have never had this type of experience at any of the other character meals.