character meals- are they worth it?

[dachsie]

I have really enjoyed the character meals. I went to 1900 Park Fair by myself and had a blast. Made friends with the couple and their little girl seated next to me and helped them with pics and they did for me. I have also been to Chef Mickeys multiple times and have always enjoyed it. Also went to Crystal Palace, LTT when they had characters and CRT. The smiles on your kids faces will make it worthwhile.

 

[Disneyaddictz]

IMO you have to go for the character experience, if we leave dinner or breakfast and feel it was a great food experience then it's just a plus, our kids love it and we love seeing their faces. For us the character meals are 50% of our disney trips!! Plus no character lines in the parks!!!

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[Dad2PrincessesPirate]

IMO you have to go for the character experience, if we leave dinner or breakfast and feel it was a great food experience then it's just a plus, our kids love it and we love seeing their faces. For us the character meals are 50% of our disney trips!! Plus no character lines in the parks!!! Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

Exactly!! We only waited for Mulan and Jasmine/Aladdin.

 

[pumpkinpatchquilter]

We always do a slew of character meals because I just sort of feel like it's part of the Disney experience. I want my kids to have those memories. It's wonderful because you sit and enjoy your dinner in the air conditioning and the characters come to you instead of waiting in a line outside in the heat while your kids are bored and cranky. For that alone, even though the food is nothing to write home about, it's totally worth it! We usually do free dining, but even if we didn't get free dining we'd pay for at least one or two. It's just a favorite thing that we look forward to.

 

[tb1972]

Our kids are 9 and 11 and cannot give up the character breakfasts! They have fond memories of CP especially. Next trip we're have two character breakfasts : CP and Ohana.

 

[tb1972]

duplicate

 

[nugov2]

I think they are well worth it. We try to do one every day of our trip(mostly breakfast). To me the immersive experience is what makes WDW special. I like to add as many of those experiences into the trip as we can.

 

[GigiDisneyfreak]

Is the food worth the $$, generally no. My kids will be 16, 22, and 2 when we go and they love to do the character meals. I justify the price for us because we are going to sit down for a meal anyway and now we get to eat, relax, have the character appearances without waiting in lines, and it is climate controlled. Sometimes it is about the experience and not the food quality.

 

[chloelovesdisney]

Since 2 girls I would recommend akerhaus. 4 princesses, just not Cinderella. Buffet, but this is the one meal I actually like. Works if early morning people. This would also set you up for getting to frozen line early if set time right.

Also recommend garden grill. Food is decent. Have kids meal. Both family style. Also good character interaction.
Agree with other posts. Paying for the experience, not necessarily the food.

Akershus has Cinderella sometimes, the picture in my signature is from breakfast there.

 

[tazadd0420]

Akershus has Cinderella sometimes, the picture in my signature is from breakfast there.

I figure the op could call ahead and check? We had just never seen her there. Did not want to get op's hopes up. Thanks for the update.

 

[brekken1]

We love character meals! Great experiences for our family. It also saves us a lot of time waiting in line to meet the characters in the parks.

 

[chloelovesdisney]

We enjoy the character meals and we save time overall since we would be stopping to eat anyway. We don't stop and see very many characters in the parks (we do the Character Spot in Epcot but not much more).

They have raised the prices over the years and it is getting less worthwhile imo. I'm cutting back on the number of character/sit down meals per trip, at some point the price is just too high for what it is. Instead of dinner now we do breakfast.

At least now your 2yo will eat there free.