Best Disney character for a young child or kid to meet for the first time

[brb1006]

One of the very special things at Walt Disney World and the Disney Parks in general is the characters. While alot of kids love Disney characters. Some can be a little intimidating due to their size for a couple children while it isn't mostly viewed by the other children or guests. For parents who have children who experience meeting a couple characters. What Disney character at WDW or Disneyland do you think would be less intimidating or fun to your child especially for first time visitors.


I always find Marie The Kitten from The Aristocats to be one of those very friendly looking characters that most children would not find intimidating or a little frighting looking. She's one of those Disney characters that gives the best hugs next to Minnie and is very cute.

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

Tinkerbell is good too. She is short and not wearing a huge head so she isn't intimidating.

 

[msmama]

Pooh characters. Who can be afraid of Pooh bear?!?!

Also, still mostly recognizable as pooh characters even if you've only seen classic pooh and not the Disney-fied version.

 

[dancemonkey]

My now 20 year old daughter was mortified by tigger.

 

[Mickey1105]

My kids were amazed by the 'talking' Mickey Mouse at Town Hall in the Magic Kingdom. That's definitely a must-do.

I also thought it was very cool that Mickey got down on his knees when he met my 3-year-old daughter. That put her at ease right away and she immediately gave him a hug.

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

My kids were amazed by the 'talking' Mickey Mouse at Town Hall in the Magic Kingdom. That's definitely a must-do.

I also thought it was very cool that Mickey got down on his knees when he met my 3-year-old daughter. That put her at ease right away and she immediately gave him a hug.

We were hoping for a classic moment with Mickey. We were fine until he started talking. The my 13 month old freaked. When we say Minnie later (who was her fav at the time) she would have nothing to do with her and stared at her mouth the whole time, waiting for her to talk.

 

[msmama]

Tinkerbell is good too. She is short and not wearing a huge head so she isn't intimidating.

My son is terrified of face characters. Lol. Cracks me up.

 

[brb1006]

My kids were amazed by the 'talking' Mickey Mouse at Town Hall in the Magic Kingdom. That's definitely a must-do.

I also thought it was very cool that Mickey got down on his knees when he met my 3-year-old daughter. That put her at ease right away and she immediately gave him a hug.

That reminds me of this video of a young boy meeting Marie at Epcot back in 2009. The kid really didn't want to let go when he ran up and hugged her.

 

[brb1006]

We were hoping for a classic moment with Mickey. We were fine until he started talking. The my 13 month old freaked. When we say Minnie later (who was her fav at the time) she would have nothing to do with her and stared at her mouth the whole time, waiting for her to talk.

How did Mickey react to this?

 

[brb1006]

My son is terrified of face characters. Lol. Cracks me up.

Meeting face and non-face Disney characters at the Disney Theme Parks with some children is similar to the Santa Claus experience alot of children would get after Thanksgiving is over and it's getting close to Christmas. Where some children would get scared,cry, and get very nervous around Santa.

 

[Habbott]

We had to go a different route. Our first trip we spent walking a wide area around any characters. My guy was freaked out. We didn't have any character meals planned, as I figured this would be the case. Shortly after we got back he became Pluto obsessed. He decided he wanted to have dinner with Pluto. We ended up doing both dinner and breakfast with Pluto, and then lunch at Tusker House. He ended up really enjoying everyone except maybe Lilo.

With that said, he didn't want to meet anyone in the parks...just at meals.

 

[annadreamsofdisneyworld]

My daughter is 15 months, and we just went last week. She LOVED meeting Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Piglet, Pooh, Tigger, and other characters.

 

[DisneyOma]

Don't go to Goofy first - trust me! Younger daughter was 2 1/2 on our first trip, and she freaked out over Goofy because he is sooooo tall.

 

[leahgoogle]

Both my daughters freaked out when they saw Goofy. Tigger too. They are so tall. DD did the best with the princesses/fairies. Anything totally dressed up, she would not have anything to do with.

 

[brb1006]

My daughter is 15 months, and we just went last week. She LOVED meeting Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Piglet, Pooh, Tigger, and other characters.

Both my daughters freaked out when they saw Goofy. Tigger too. They are so tall. DD did the best with the princesses/fairies. Anything totally dressed up, she would not have anything to do with.

Well Goofy is the tallest of Mickey's friends so I understand why they got freaked out.

 

[jvz82]

We love Goofy!! My husband is 7 feet tall so we always get great pictures with him and Goofy comparing height and shoe sizes. My favorite picture is my avatar with my almost 3 year old daughter hugging Goofy! <3 <3 <3 She was perfectly happy with all the characters, whereas my son has always been really unsure of all the characters. I think it just depends on your child's personality. I think the princesses are a little less intimidating since you can see their faces.

 

[Julylady]

Best characters when my girls were little were the princesses including Belle, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. Any face character that they were familiar with was okay. The worst were Goofy (size), Buzz Lightyear and Woody.

 

[DaniMoon]

I was not sure how my youngest (just turned 5 at the time) would do with characters, so we did a Chef Mickey dinner our first night. I figured if he wasn't a fan, he'd stay close to me and let his big sister get all the attention. But he loved all the character (well, except most of the princesses, not a fan!)

 

[BuzzyBelle]

When DD was 3 she was very intimidated by the princesses. We took her to Akershus thinking they would be the best first characters for her to meet. When she saw Belle at the entrance she began freaking out because she was convinced the Beast must be with her. After assuring her he wasn't there we did get her into the restaurant but she was not overly comfortable with any of them. The first character she actually went to enthusiastically was Sofia. She loves characters now, but that was the first trip that she was old enough to realize what was going on and characters were definitely not her favorite thing then. You never know how they'll react or who they'll take to. And DD isn't afraid of much at Disney- her favorite ride at 4 was Tower of Terror but now that she's tall enough Everest has taken over the top spot.

 

[Amanda Hall]

We went about a year ago and I was worried about our 2 year old's reaction to characters. Our first experience with breakfast at Crystal Palace and he did wonderful meeting the Winnie the Pooh characters. I think having them come to us helped as well. Standing in line later for Mickey he became very nervous and insisted he did not want to meet him (even though Mickey is his favorite). I'm glad we staying in line because he was fine once we got to Mickey. It's that anticipation of the unknown that was a little scary.