Character meal - Mickey or Minnie?

[Mrs CP]

I am trying to decide between a character meal at Surf's Up with Mickey or at the Plaza Inn with Minnie. We will be doing lunch at Ariel's Grotto another day to see the princesses. My kids are 5 (boy) and 6 (girl). They love to dance, so the dancing at Mickey's is really appealing, as I know my kids would love that. However, everything I've read says that Minnie's has way more characters. What happens at Minnie's though? How do they interact with the kids? My son likes Mickey and my daughter likes Minnie. Are there characters for boys and girls at both? I don't want both our character meals to cater more to my daughter. Thoughts?

 

[The Lucky Bug]

We did Breakfast with Minnie on Sunday the 20th. The characters we saw were: Minnie, Eeyore, Fairy Godmother, Tigger, Hook, Rafiki, Max, Gideon, Chip and Dale. Definitely works for both boys and girls. The way they interact is typical of any character meal where the characters come around to your table to visit.
We haven't done Ariel's character meals only Minnie's and Storytellers café. At Storytellers we saw Chip, Dale, Meeko, Koda and the other brother bear (can't think of the name). There may have been more characters but I can't remember. They have a park ranger who leads the kids around the room singing a song. It is more "outdoor" or "forest" themed.

Personally I prefer the food at Storytellers but I like the convenience of Minnie's being inside the park and the amount of characters more so we end up at Minnie's most of the time.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

Depends on what you want more. Minnie's definitely has more characters, but in my opinion the food, atmosphere and character interaction is WAY better at Mickey's. Also, do you want to stay in the park (Minnie's) or do kind leaving?

Even with the number of characters, we have left Minnie's disappointed the last 3 times. Characters skip by our table and if you're outside, the closer you get to lunch, you have people sneaking in the sides to eat and using it as a meet & greet. In our experience, the CMs haven't cared- or not enough to stop it.

 

[millie0312]

I haven't tried Mickeys but we are trying Minnie's for year 2. Like pp have said I strongly recommend going early!!! We had to hurry to eat, leave our table to wait in line to meet Minnie or "lose our chance" and despite me being forced to go to CM's several times because characters skipped us (either because they thought they had already seen us or because inconsiderate people allowed their kids to run up and ambush them before they got to us ) we still missed out on several characters... However- despite the bad we STILL met maybe 7-8 characters and several came twice (so my kids were ok and by the time we waited around ready to leave lol) and I thought the food was fresh and good- I've also had similar issues at Storytellers (we didn't meet Chip and Dale at CHIP AND DALE's breakfast lol- moral book an early time!!!) which has the most amazing food!!! Anyway if we had gone early like we are doing this year I bet the whole experience would have been much better and honestly it's very easy to meet Mickey (or Minnie) in the parks in several places so we choose Minnie's based on the amount and the amount of unusual characters as well as if the food is decent- so weak recommend Minnie's and strong recommend Storytellers (I've seen mixed reviews on here about the Mickeys meal mostly about the food but no personal testing yet). No matter what I'm sure you'll enjoy it!!

 

[sbakersub]

We did Surf's Up with Mickey earlier this month on a Sunday, had a 10:30 reservation but got there around 10:00 and were seated shortly thereafter. When you arrive you are directed to where Mickey is standing for a photo op and some personal interaction, so having that guaranteed time was great. Then Minnie, Daisy and Stitch also came around the table as we ate. So not so many characters, but good quality There is some chance to dance with Stitch if the kids want to....ours didn't, but bounced in their seats to the music. The food was good...definitely mixed temperature which is pretty much unavoidable with a buffet, but tasty and there was plenty of it. We haven't done any of the other character meals so don't have a comparison point, really, but I was not disappointed with the Surf's Up experience.

 

[Mich1218]

We did a first thing in the morning last summer and latest seating 2 weeks ago. I was a little worried about character interaction, etc. and it feeling rushed, but it did not. They started putting away the food a little earlier than I would have liked, but if we asked, they brought it fresh from the back. We met Minnie, Fairy Godmother, Captian Hook, a penguin, Chip, Dale, Max, Rafiki, Eeyore, Tigger, and Pooh. I think besides Minnie and Fairy Godmother, they were all very boy-friendly. Interaction was as good as it was at 7:30.

 

[Mrs CP]

Thank you for all your replies!! I think we will go with Minnie's. I like that it is in the park so we don't have to leave the park and walk all the way over to the hotel for brunch. Plus, we can go meet Mickey and his gang throughout the park. I think the kids would enjoy meeting some of the characters we don't see elsewhere.