Character Breakfast-Best Time/Day?

[leslieboehm]

Hi all! Looking for some more of that stellar advise I've come to know and love on these boards . I'm trying to get a character breakfast in during my trip in October (23rd late afternoon arrival, 26th late afternoon departure). My mom really wants to do the Surf's Up meal, and we are staying at the DLH, so we have MM everyday (I think?), so we don't want to mess with that. 2 other pieces of (maybe) pertinent info: We will be attending the MHP on Friday and trying to schedule lunch at the Blue Bayou as well. Just looking for some opinions on optimum days/times for doing character meal, with regards to crowds, food availability (if there are buffet restocking issues), and minimizing park time used. This is our once-in-a-lifetime trip, so I want to do it right, you know? Thanks in Advance!!!

 

[mom2rtk]

We really enjoyed doing Surfs Up on our departure day. It was a great way to extend the fun even though we weren't going to the parks that day.

We like doing Goofy's Kitchen on arrival day, or on a non-park day. We love character meals but don't like giving up park time to do them if possible.

 

[GatorChris]

We stayed at PP last trip, but we didn"t take advantage of MM. With 3 kids and a really slow moving wife, we didn't even attempt early entry. So on our first day at the parks, we hit Surf's Up at 8:30, had a good breakfast and met lots of characters before we even hit the parks. It's a great kick off to the vacation for us.

 

[leslieboehm]

We really enjoyed doing Surfs Up on our departure day. It was a great way to extend the fun even though we weren't going to the parks that day.

We like doing Goofy's Kitchen on arrival day, or on a non-park day. We love character meals but don't like giving up park time to do them if possible.

Thanks for your response! Unfortunately, we don't have any non-park days except when we arrive on Wednesday, which will probably be later in the evening, depending on traffic from NorCal. Basically, we are driving up on Wednesday and using our park hopper passes on Thursday-Sunday afternoon before driving back on Sunday. I accept that if will probably take some time away from the parks, but I was thinking about doing it either before or after the EMH...

 

[scrapshappen]

Not sure what the hours will be like when you are there, but we did Surf's Up before the park opened in November 2012 (park didn't open until 10 so even with early entry, we did the first seating and got into the park in a decent amount of time).

 

[pwillunlv]

Hi all! Looking for some more of that stellar advise I've come to know and love on these boards . I'm trying to get a character breakfast in during my trip in October (23rd late afternoon arrival, 26th late afternoon departure). My mom really wants to do the Surf's Up meal, and we are staying at the DLH, so we have MM everyday (I think?), so we don't want to mess with that. 2 other pieces of (maybe) pertinent info: We will be attending the MHP on Friday and trying to schedule lunch at the Blue Bayou as well. Just looking for some opinions on optimum days/times for doing character meal, with regards to crowds, food availability (if there are buffet restocking issues), and minimizing park time used. This is our once-in-a-lifetime trip, so I want to do it right, you know? Thanks in Advance!!!

1. You will, almost certainly, have Early Entry ("EE") every morning. Here is the Early Admission Superthread, which discusses EE (and the differences with MM). Most likely (per touring plans), your EE times will be as follows:

• 10/24 (Fri) - DCA at 7:00am
• 10/25 (Sat) - DL at 8:00am
• 10/26 (Sun) - DCA at 8:00am

2. If the above EE times are correct, and assuming both GK and PCH Grill open at 7:00am, it will be difficult to pull off eating breakfast at either without interrupting some of your EE time.

First off, Friday does not seem like a great day to eat at either regardless, you would theoretically lose almost all of your EE time at DCA that day. Moreover, if you are eating at BB for lunch on Friday, you may want to opt for a lighter breakfast on Friday regardless (especially if you want to eat a Monte Cristo sanwich--and you should! YOLO!).

If you want to maximize your EE time but want to do breakfast at both GK and PCH Grill, I would recommend eating on Saturday and Sunday morning at 7:00am and consider getting there a little before 7:00am to be first in line. Unless you really rush things, there is good chance you will cut into your EE time though.

To get super-technical, you may want to consider doing GK on Saturday and PCH Grill on Sunday. By doing PCH Grill on Sunday, you can cut through the Grand Californian and use their special entrance to DCA. That being said, I would probably only do that if you were running late and EE at DCA had already started--that line can get rather lengthy.

 

[Rubygoose]

I find that the best way to do EE and have a character breakfast is to get the latest seating, at around 10:30 or 11:00. That way, you can make good use of EE and then take a break when the parks start to get busy.

 

[leslieboehm]

Wow, thank you so much for your responses, a lot to consider. We will only be doing one character breakfast, so I'm thinking Saturday is the way to go. Don't know if I can get my mom and kids to eat at 7am (I can do that no problem, lol), so may be a late one for us. Anyone had any issues with food not being fresh/restocked at the later seatings (after 9:30)?

 

[Californiacicle]

We did the first seating at Surf's Up at 7am on our last trip. It was awesome. We were the first family there and it was practically empty the whole meal with great character interaction. On our next trip we would do the same time.

 

[BayGirl22]

I find that the best way to do EE and have a character breakfast is to get the latest seating, at around 10:30 or 11:00. That way, you can make good use of EE and then take a break when the parks start to get busy.

This is what we do too, on park days. We do Plaza Inn at 10:45ish so we have a few hours in the park then a break. Its enough food to cover lunch. We've even done it on a DCA EE day and had no problem spending a couple hours at DCA then hopping over to DL for a late brunch. Plenty of characters too.

The other alternative in park is to do Ariel's for lunch. I'd go with that if you have an interest in meeting the princess, otherwise Plaza Inn has more classic characters.
We only do the character meals in the hotels on non park days.

 

[TheSpooph]

We did Plaza Inn this past week for a late breakfast at 10:30. They stopped serving breakfast at 11:30. The food was ok with some things better than others. Like, the omelet station was good but the sausage was bland.

I will say the characters were great. We saw Minnie, Eeyore, Pooh, Tigger, Chip, Dale, Capt Hook, Perla the mouse from Cinderella and Alice. That more than made up for average food. My DD thought it was great!