Character dining vs meet and greet

[Honeybee83]

We have a trip planned with my 2 1/2 year old daughter. We have never done a table service restaurant and have a QS dining plan, so any character meals we would do would have to be paid OOP. We thought we might do a character breakfast and were considering Akershus and Crystal Palace. Upon looking at the price it seems like it will be around $70 per dining experience for myself and my husband. We aren't big breakfast eaters anyway and we're wondering if it wouldn't just be better to do a meet and greet with the characters instead. I know you can meet a lot of the princesses, and many other characters, at their designated greeting spots. I think there is somewhere in MK where you can meet many of the princesses in a row as well.

Is there something special that you get at a character meal that cannot be done at the M&G spots? I just don't want to leave feeling our money was wasted.

 

[imthemamahere]

Will you be at Hollywood Studios during your trip? I ask because your daughter's at prime Disney Junior age, and the character breakfast/lunch at Hollywood & Vine is a fun way to meet some of the most popular Disney Jr characters. Jake (Neverland Pirates), Sofia the First, Doc McStuffins, and Handy Manny are at Hollywood & Vine for those meals. They circulate around the room for individual attention at the tables, and they do a little dance party every... maybe half hour or so?... where the kids are welcome to get up and join the characters. My son, who was 2 1/2, then 3 1/2, on his two visits, LOVED it there. I'd recommend doing lunch there - the food's pretty good (for buffet) and it's a fun experience. Doing lunch also removes your concern about not being big breakfast eaters.

If you'll be at Animal Kingdom and want to meet the big 5, I can also recommend the character breakfast/lunch at Tusker House. That's probably our favorite buffet (well, except for Boma at Animal Kingdom Lodge). We normally do an early breakfast there, before rope drop, then head right for the Kilimanjaro Safari ride to see the animals while they're most likely to be active, earlier in the morning. You could go there for lunch instead. The food is good there, and we've had very good character interactions as well. You get to do a photo with Donald (in safari gear) outside the restaurant, then Daisy, Mickey, Goofy, and I want to say Minnie(?) are circulating inside. All in safari gear - very cute.

Another alternative to a breakfast character meal would be the character dinner at 1900 Park Fare. That one's got Cinderella, her Prince, and the wicked stepmother/stepsisters. I have to tell you, the stepmother and stepsisters are AWESOME - really good character interactions with them, especially if your little girl is dressed up like Cinderella! We thought the food there was pretty good - good enough to try the same place for breakfast (with Mary Poppins, Alice, and the Mad Hatter) on our next trip!

I haven't done Akershus - the food isn't my cup of tea, and princesses aren't my son's. But I do know it's popular, and lots of people on these boards recommend it. I was rather unimpressed by the Crystal Palace food, but if your little one likes Pooh & friends, that's the best place to meet them. Again, not so much of an interest for my son, so that's one we're happy enough to skip.

(Truly, any character meal is more about the experience than the food, but I like to at least feel like there are things I'm happy to eat, since I've paid so much!)

On meet & greets: You can meet the characters (many of them) at various meet & greets in the parks. They're great. But there will be a line for each one (Anna + Elsa's line has been upwards of 5 hours long sometimes this spring!!). You can use some of your Fastpass+ allotment on meet & greets, if you'd like - that will help with wait times. There's a website that I've seen recommended here a lot, that I will be consulting when we go to Disney this fall. They list all the characters and where/when to find them in the parks.

http://kennythepirate.com/disney-world-character-schedules/

I hope that helps.

 

[Kristina4109]

We do characters meals every single trip, both DL and WDW. Our reason: we have to eat, and our daughter will insist on meeting characters. We'd rather kill two birds with one stone. It's much more pleasant sitting down in comfortable seats in the air conditioning enjoying a meal and having multiple characters come to YOU, than waiting in several different lines, on your feet, in the sun, and then getting hungry and having to eat anyway.

 

[TempleOT]

For us, we would rather dine with characters than track them down in the parks. We would rather spend the time in parks on rides, etc. this past trip we did chefs mickeys to see the main 5 and it was great. Each character made at least 2 visits to our table during the meal. On a previous trip we did garden grill and had a similar experience, got a lot of time with the characters. It's just a matter of how you want to spend your time.

 

[MandiC]

I really loved the character meals personally. I guess it just depends. I am not a line person so it was nice to see so many characters in a fairly short amount of time doing something (eating) that we would have had to do anyways. We went during a fairly slow time and the meet and greet lines were longer than most ride lines, 45 minutes + unless we got them at a good time.

Which character meals depends on what you want. Crystal palace you could do an 8am reservation and get into Magic Kingdom before open and get the coveted empty main street/castle pictures. I believe it is just Winnie the Pooh characters, no princesses. We did Akershus for dinner and the kids loved it, they say it was their favorite. The food wasn't the best but they liked it better than Cinderrella's Royal Table. It has pretty much all the same princesses. We also enjoyed Tusker House, the food was great and of course you get to see Mickey, Donald, Daisy, Goofy. Honestly though, if it weren't for wanting to get a head start on the parks we would have done our character meals as dinners. We did Hollywood and Vine too, the kids loved it but it was definitely loud and the food was nothing special. That is only a character meal for lunch and breakfast so we did lunch.