Best/Favorite Character Meal

[sweakley]

We need to schedule 1 character meal for 2 Adults, 2 12 year olds (1 boy, 1 girl), 8 year old girl, 6 year old girl, and 5 year old boy.

Would like your thoughts on which one to do - preferrably not in the park , so we aren't wasting park hours going to it.

And would you say breakfast is best - or a lunch/dinner to get more bang for your buck?

Thanks in advance!!

 

[Mommy2PrincessAbby]

When the park opens at 9 or 10 we do a character breakfast 1st thing so we can still make rope drop. We love them all... and have only done Ariel's for lunch/dinner so I can't help you with the bang for your buck...

We love Storytellers for the ability to order off the menu--and the great woodland creatures (we've had as many as 11 characters!) Chip, Dale, and Terk seem to be always there, plus we've gotten Baloo, Brer Bear, Brer Fox, Koda, Kenai, Rafiki, Meeko, Pocahontas, Timon...

Surf's Up is the most "fun" we think... love the food, love seeing Mickey and Stitch... sometimes Pluto, Daisy, Minnie and Lilo too...

We've only done Goofy's Kitchen once... I found it too loud, but we are going to try it again this trip. The one time we were there we had Goofy, Pluto, Mad Hatter, & Fairy Godmother. I understand there is a chance to see princesses at this meal too.

 

[sweakley]

Thank you- I guess what I don't understand is "rope drop".
So if the hours are 8am - 12 am, then you can go through the gates at 8am, but rope drop is a different time altogether?

Thanks again for your suggestions

 

[Jenn1116]

We always do Minnie and Friends in the park. If you're worried about park time you can make reservation before park opening, though I've never done it myself. We usually hit it mid morning so its more like brunch, which makes the price more worth it for us.

There's another thread re Goofy's with good and bad reviews. I have the say, it's been a long time since I've done Goofy's and that's because I was not impressed. I too experienced few characters and not-so-great food.

I did Lilo and Stitch but I understand that's changed so I won't bother with my 2 cents on that.

I would like to hear more reviews on Storyteller's since I think I'd like to try that one on our next trip. Would it be worth giving up Minnie's if I had to pick only one?

 

[Mommy2PrincessAbby]

Thank you- I guess what I don't understand is "rope drop".
So if the hours are 8am - 12 am, then you can go through the gates at 8am, but rope drop is a different time altogether?

Thanks again for your suggestions

So, if the park opens at 8, generally about 30 minutes before they start actually letting people in the gates... and then there is an actual rope that everyone gathers behind, and right on time an announcement is made and there is a little countdown, and they drop the rope (well, in DCA they seem to keep the rope now but they move the masses to Carsland behind it to keep people from running.)

Character meals on average take 90 minutes... so if the park opens at 8, you won't be able to finish the meal before the open time.

 

[peyjax]

Well seeing as we only ate at 1 on our first trip I can only recommend it. Surfs Up was an awesome experience for our family. We have eaten at all the character ones at DW and I would place Surfs Up on the top next to Crystal Palace. The character interaction was unlike any other. Not your typical smile and walk on but actual dancing and playing with the kids. The food was great cause it was just not breakfast stuff.

I think a lot has to do with the time you are there. We learned at DW to eat breakfast late. We head to the park for a few hours and get the close to last reservation for breakfast. We have a snack to tie us over (pop tart-churro) This typically leaves a great experience for the characters to interact as they are very few people left and it ties us over until dinner.

We had plans to hit them all as this was a big trip for us coming from the east but never made it as we did not want to miss park time. With the amount of character interaction we got at Surfs Up we felt like we did not miss anything but only enhanced the park experience.

 

[awdsmama]

Minnie and Friends was great in March!

The park was set to open at 8am. I made our breakfast reservations for 7:10am or something like that.

There were a lot of characters, and they rotated really well, no big lags, DS got good time with each etc. My 7yo son got autographs and pics with:

Winnie the Pooh
Eeyore
Tigger
Alice
Mad Hatter
Captain Hook (who pretended to "steal" the book, so DS chased him around a bit, such fun!)
Max
Rafiki
Minnie
I know I'm missing a few as well.

My son ate a few bites of food, nothing much but enough to hold him over to lunch - he was more focused on characters. THe food itself, fine. Not great, not horrible.

There were not a lot of families in there that early so I think that may have adde to the character time etc and we were out of there and into the park by a few minutes after 8am. Lines were still very short, if lines at all. We headed straight for teacups, etc.