Character breakfast questions

[hnthomps]

Hi All. I'm planning the first trip (since I was a kid in the 80s, that is) to Disneyland for my family.

We've basically tacked this brief stay onto a trip elsewhere in Cali. We'll be staying in the Grand Californian for 2 nights (arrive early AM on thursday, fly home sunday). We want to do a character breakfast the day we fly home, as our flight is at 12, so we won't really have time to go to the parks.

Which one should we choose? How early do we have to book? Are there characters we aren't likely to run into during our two days in the park? How long does breakfast take? How early can we go?

My 3 year old is very into the princesses and Minnie, etc, but my 5 year old son is less so. He's not anti-princess, but...he's a 5 year old boy.

We did the Disney JR character breakfast on the Fantasy last spring, and it was...underwhelming to say the least. But it didn't cost additional money. I'm assuming that in the parks things run a little smoother?

 

[figment_jii]

There are three options for a character breakfast outside of the parks:

• Surf's Up with Mickey and Friends at PPH,
• Storyteller's Critter Breakfast at GCH, and
• Goofy's Kitchen at DLH.

Storyteller's probably has the most unique characters (woodland creatures like Meeko, Kenai (the bear from Brother Bear), and Chip & Dale) of these three. Surf's Up usually has Mickey, Pluto, Daisy, plus Stitch. Goofy's usually has Goofy, Chip & Dale, Pluto, and Minnie.

The meal with the most unique characters is Minnie's Breakfast at the Plaza Inn (in Disneyland). Dis'ers have reported seeing some combination of Minnie, Eeyore, Tigger, Pooh, Max (Goofy's son), Rafiki, Fairy Godmother, Chip & Dale, and Captain Hook. Ariel's Grotto (in DCA) is the only princess character meal.

It looks like breakfast typically starts around 7:00 am. I would allot at least an hour to 90 minutes to eat and see all of the characters. Dining reservations open 60-days in advance, but sometimes they're slow to load them into the system. So if you log into the system at the 60-day mark and no times show as available, it probably means they haven't loaded them into the system yet opposed to already being fully booked. Keep trying and usually (with a week or two), they'll add them to the system.

 

[hnthomps]

Do the breakfasts in the park require purchasing park entry? Presumably yes?

 

[figment_jii]

Yes, you'd need a ticket if you wanted to dine at the Plaza Inn or Ariel's Grotto.

 

[Elima2015]

Yeah, you have to have a park ticket to dine at the two inside the park. We did Surfs Up! at PPH and thought it was fun. We saw Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, Pluto, and Stitch. My 4 year olds loved the beach theme and the little dance breaks they did. I would allow 90 minutes and try to book an earlier time in the morning. I think we had an 8:00 reservation and were seated right away, but the lobby was packed with people waiting when we left. With a flight to catch at 12, I wouldn't want that stress.

 

[IheartRapunzel]

I went for my first visit in August. I did Ariels Grotto, where I met Ariel, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Belle and Tiana
At Goofy's Kitchen I met Goofy, Minnie, Chip, Dale, and Pluto

 

[Sagginit]

I was underwhelmed by Goofy's Kitchen. We saw the charcters but the interactions weren't that amazing and it was the usual characters. The decor to me was also very blah, just like fancy hotel buffet. I don't remember any dancing or activities either when we were there (we were just two adults but still you notice if a child filled Conga line goes by lol). I would say this should be your last choice of the options at the hotel. I was looking at the one at Grand Cal for our trip next week just because the venue looks nice. Also as far as early booking I have not booked anything for next week yet as I am still trying to sort out our park schedule. I found any restaurant or time I checked in the last two weeks was open. I had no issues getting a reservation at Goofy's Kitchen last November (first week) and only booked a week out. So if you want to be safe then definately book early but this is not like WDW if you are thinking of their system and think you need to book the first day things go live. I think many people skip TS meals entirely when there which means tables don't fill up as fast.

 

[agamble]

The characters at Storytellers, Meeko and the Brother bears, cannot be found in the park, so that makes them kind of special. It's also in the hotel you're staying at and therefore would be the easiest of the three hotel buffets to get to. The breakfast there is decent and includes traditional hot and cold breakfast foods including an omelet station.

I haven't done the other two hotel breakfast, but I've heard good things about Mickey's. However, all of those characters can be found in the park.

 

[PoohCorner99]

We've done Goofy's and Surf's Up on non-park days and both were great experiences. Goofy's was a few years ago, before the refurb. Aladdin and the Mad Hatter were awesome and we had great interactions with them. The scene at Surf's Up (dance parties) allows for a lot of silly character interactions, too. We have some hilarious photos of Micky photobombing Goofy.

 

[monorailrabbit]

We did 4 of the character meals last visit - as 2 adults, no kids... I know that makes us super nerdy!

We both liked Storyteller's the best. Plaza Inn was fun, but it took over an hour for us to see the characters, and we still ended up missing some. We did see Geppetto, Pinocchio, Minnie, Tigger, Eeyore, Chip, Dale and Capt. Hook, but missed the others. For us it seemed a little disorganized, characters missed our table completely, or we would miss them because we couldn't figure out how they were making their rounds. We were also kind of underwhelmed by GK, but enjoyed it - the characters did dance during our meals. AG was fun too - a great way to see the princesses without waiting in lines in the park - this one was VRY organized and efficient!

We booked at the 60 day mark, but I'm not sure how necessary that is - for what it's worth, on all the meals except ST, we heard at the check in desk that they were all booked solid for that day.

Kenai, Pinocchio, and Geppetto were the ones we saw at the meals that we didn't see in the parks, the others we saw, but skipped since we had seen them at breakfast, and we felt that saved us some time in the long run!