Character dining for 2 1/2 year old...Question?

[koadoodle]

I am hoping to get some feedback regarding a dilemma I am having. My DH, DD who is 2 1/2 years old but will be 3 in July, myself, my mom, and my stepfather are all going to Disney in May. My DD currently loves Mickey. She sleeps with Mickey and Minnie at night. She insists that Minnie is Mickey..hasn't gotten the difference yet. Anyway, she hates people dressed up in costumes. We recently went out to eat at a BBQ place and a person dressed up as a pig was walking around. She was ok, but did not want to interact with him at all just wanted to watch him. So I am not sure how she will be with seeing Mickey up close. Granted it is a few months away so this might change. I am trying to show her videos of all the characters on youtube, Disney planning video, and also renting Disney movies. I would love to do a character breakfast with her but am not sure if I am wasting my time and money. She would probably do better with face characters such as the princesses but she is really not into the princesses as much as Mickey. What would you do? Would you book a character meal with Mickey or the princesses or just opt out all together? Do they have Mickey Waffles at the princess breakfasts or not? (I think she would like that!) Sorry for the long post and TIA.

Michele

 

[graceesmom]

DD was 3 months shy of 3 years when we went to WDW last April. At first she was hesitant around the face characters, but she warmed up to them as each meal progresses. By the end of the week she was playing around with the characters. You can probably see the progression in our video from last year.

If you're just planning to do 1 meal, you may want to try a couple of the character spots in the parks to get her used to the idea or just let her look at the characters in the park from from a close distance each day before the character meal to get her accustomed to seeing the characters. Every child is different, but I bet after a few days of seeing them, she'll be ready to give Mickey a big hug.

 

[shawnh199]

My DD2.5 HATES the character at Chuck E Cheese so we didn't know how she would react to the characters at Disney. We watched the Disney shows from the Travel Channel that I Tivo'd over and over (at my girls request) and she did just fine. She is shy around people 50% of the time, but our first characters were at Crystal Palace and when Pooh came to the table (plus she saw them walking around first) she lit up and jumped up and ran and gave him a huge hug!! I was so happy it brought tears to my eyes! Suprisingly, she wasn't afraid of any of them, not even Jafar who came up to her in a parade.

She absolutely loved the Princesses too!

We were at Disney in December. Over MLK weekend we took the girls back to Chuck E Cheese and she still wouldn't go around that character. Mickey good, Chuck E Cheese, not so good. Go figure!

However, all children are different as the previous poster said. You'll have to decide what will be best for you child. If you decide on the non Princess breakfast (although I highly recommend both types) I hope it goes well! Once again I agree with the other poster - try meeting characters in the parks first if you have the opportunity. We didn't have that chance - CP was our first thing to do at any of the parks.

Whatever you decide, have a great trip.

 

[dancin Disney style]

If you're just planning to do 1 meal, you may want to try a couple of the character spots in the parks to get her used to the idea or just let her look at the characters in the park from from a close distance each day before the character meal to get her accustomed to seeing the characters. Every child is different, but I bet after a few days of seeing them, she'll be ready to give Mickey a big hug.

I agree...every child reacts differently....you don't know until you get there. When my DD was 6 she was OK with some and didn't what to meet others.

Great advice to go to the character spots in the parks first to see what happens. You can book your ADR for breakfast for later in your trip and that way if your think it's not going to work you can cancel. You might find that she is OK with seeing the characters but does not what to meet or touch them.

 

[MartDM]

There's really no way to know until you try it. I'd recommend going ahead and booking the character meals you want and then if the first is a total bust, cancel the others.

We did several when my son was 2.5. We watched the videos, visited local restaurants with costumed characters, etc. None of it really seemed to make a difference.

He started out watching them but getting nervous when they came near and even hiding his face in my chest for some that he must have viewed as overly intimidating (Eeyore was one...maybe because he's bigger??). The next meal he wouldn't touch them himself but was amused by their interaction with my husband & myself. By the time we left, he was letting Goofy wear his beloved bucket hat (which nobody is allowed to touch but him!).

My final assessment was that no amount of prepping them does much. It's just, like anything else, a matter of increasing exposure to build their confidence.

 

[amyb9]

DS was a month shy of 3 when I took a chance of booking Chef Mickey's. He would not go near the Easter Bunny, Santa, or anything that had a costume on. BUT- he loved Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and so I thought we would try it for breakfast.

Actually, the day prior we did stand in line at Epcot to see characters- Minnie, Donald, etc and he freaked. The anticipation of standing there just did not work. It was too formal for him.

The very next morning we did the breakfast with complete anticipation of him running out of there but he got into the music and just taking it all in- and I have the very best pictures of him doing the "hot dog dance" with Goofy. He loved all the characters and I felt like I could give thumbs up or down as they came over depending on him at that very point. Worked great for us.

And even though I would not jump at the food - I would say the memories we made that morning were priceless. The picture was a waste of money- don't get sucked in But the memories..... will be doing it again when we go this weekend just for fun. I feel we will waste too much time in a line at the park just for a picture we can get somewhere like this.

Oh- and we also did Garden Grove at the Swan for a breakfast buffet - which fyi was awesome food- and I think it was Goofy and Donald who made their way around. Very low key and even though he was more shy that time- still nice to see characters without the crowd.

 

[skuttle]

We brought DS to WDW for the first time when he was 2.5 years old. His first character experience was at Crystal Palace. Eeyore came to our table first. We weren't sure how he would do. When Eeyore started coming to our table, I could tell DS was getting nervous. Eeyore picked up on it right away and slowed down and stayed away from DS and waved at him. I got up and stood by Eeyore to show DS that he was nice. Then Eeyore slowly made his way towards DS. DS did fine and loved the characters after that! Usually, the characters are really good when it comes to the little ones and not going up and hugging the scared ones.

Also...if you just want mickey waffles, those are pretty much everywhere! DS ate them almost every morning at Mara at AKL during our last trip.

 

[Kimberle]

It really depends on your kid. Our first trip was when my dd was 2.5. She was a "character groupie". All we did was stalk characters. She LOVED the character meals. Some kids are very shy and they don't enjoy them. Character meals are generally very loud and active. She is going to see the characters going from table to table. This alone can frighten some kids. When they come to your table, they are generally "slow" with small kids. They will keep a bit of a distance until they kids warms up.

You have to decide how you think your kid will react. If you're planning other trips in the future, you might want to wait with the meal until she's a little older. If you want to try one, I've found that Cape May b/fast (in BC) is the "quietest". There are only 3 characters and it seems to be much more "lowkey" than a Chef Mickeys or others.

 

[mkleinbe]

My little one HATES anything but face characters up close, but loves them from afar. Mickey, Minnie, Pooh....she'd yell at them and way, but when they got up close, oh no! I'm still glad we did the character meals because she totally enjoyed them as long as they weren't in her space. My advice to you is not to scrap the idea all together.

 

[arielmomma]

DD was 2 1/2 when we went in September. She is terrified of Chuck E Cheese and a chicken that dresses up at a local restaurant here at home, but she was fine at the character meals. We prepared ahead of time. We watched videos on You Tube, looked at pictures of her as a baby and her brother at the character meals. I think that helped a lot!

I must admit though that while she did love Chef Mickey's, she like the dressed up princesses better. With the princesses there was no hesitation because they were just people.

 

[bxtx]

I would agree with the posters that say it depends on the child... but I think the younger the child, the more likely they are to be scared or at least wary of the costumed characters like Mickey & Goofy... my eldest has always liked the full on costumes, my middle child ONLY likes the Face characters (for which read princesses as they are the only ones at meals) and my then 18 month old didn't really like any of them! But he did enjoy Smee and Capt Hook when he was a mere 6 months old!

 

[LAWalz23]

I would make the reservation and see how she does because it will be nearly impossible to get an ADR once you get to WDW. From my experience my sister's kids were shy around the characters before our trip (they were 3 years old at the time). The first character we saw was Goofy at Chef Mickeys and my nephew went up to him right away but my niece was still shy until Minnie came up and "kissed" her, after that she was fine and we spent the rest of the trip getting autographs and taking pictures every time we saw a character (except for Jiminy Cricket, they were both afriad of him for some reason).