character meet & greets

[DMLAINI]

I know you can reserve tickets at online check in to meet some of the more popular characters. Where do you get the tickets?

 

[deliela999]

We were on the Dream in March and they never gave out tickets. When we got to the events they had a list of people signed up and checked us off.

 

[Cruising Engineer]

We were on the Dream in March and they never gave out tickets. When we got to the events they had a list of people signed up and checked us off.

So where did you sign up?

 

[lklgoodman]

So where did you sign up?

You sign up for it online, just like you do for tastings, port excursions, Palo/Remy, etc. They used to give out tickets, but like pp said now you just show up and give the cm your name, they also don't give out tickets for the character breakfast. You need to make sure you remember when you sign up for stuff now since they don't give out tickets anymore, If I remember correctly, I think the app will show when your stuff is though.

 

[Cruising Engineer]

You sign up for it online, just like you do for tastings, port excursions, Palo/Remy, etc. They used to give out tickets, but like pp said now you just show up and give the cm your name, they also don't give out tickets for the character breakfast. You need to make sure you remember when you sign up for stuff now since they don't give out tickets anymore, If I remember correctly, I think the app will show when your stuff is though.

Thank you. 2020 will be a first for us cruising with kiddos on a family vacation. Just wanted to know where to go for the princess and character greetings. Very familiar with tastings and Remy/Palo but clueless about characters.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Thank you. 2020 will be a first for us cruising with kiddos on a family vacation. Just wanted to know where to go for the princess and character greetings. Very familiar with tastings and Remy/Palo but clueless about characters.

Be aware not all character meet & greets have tickets. Only the Princess Gathering and the Frozen characters, AFAIK. All others, you just line up like in the parks to see them.

 

[Cruising Engineer]

Be aware not all character meet & greets have tickets. Only the Princess Gathering and the Frozen characters, AFAIK. All others, you just line up like in the parks to see them.

Thank you @PrincessShmoo . As I posted, this upcoming is a first for the 2 of us (Gold CC) with family (7, 5, 4 yo) on their first cruise. Yikes.

 

[JoeFromSeoul]

So, they no longer deliver paper tickets to the staterooms?

 

[lilsonicfan]

And character breakfast! I think that is also at guest services.

No more paper tickets - saw some guests say they missed their character breakfast as they forgot which day it was

 

[deliela999]

I didn't know about a character breakfast. Do they do those on the 3 night? The only ticket we got was a formal invitation for BBB, which was adorable and my daughter loved. I got up at midnight the night we could book (first cruise so last to book extras) to make sure I got princess and frozen gatherings and a BBB appointment. I got them all but time choices were pretty limited. We thought the character interaction on the cruise was WAY better than anything at the park, including the character meals we did. The characters take a couple minutes to really interact instead of just saying hi and posing for a picture. Goofy did ballet with my daughter and I have awesome pictures of her telling off Captain Hook for being a sneaky snook, then he tried to steal her tiara. After that we went up a couple levels to see Captain Mickey on the balcony and she pointed out Captain Hook onboard and that he needs to keep an eye on him since Mickey is the captain of the ship. It was awesome! Some of the princesses twirled with my daughter and they all talked to her for a minute.

 

[olafLover]

.

 

[deliela999]

No, the character breakfast is only on cruises 7 nights or longer

Thanks, I guess we'll have to wait a while for that. I wanted to make sure we didn't miss something great just because I didn't know about it. We wanted a 7 night next but with the fall 2020 schedule being all weird we compromised on a 4 night over Christmas next.

 

[fredandkell]

I was delivered paper tickets to my princess and frozen gatherings last July 2018 on the magic.

 

[Dug720]

I was delivered paper tickets to my princess and frozen gatherings last July 2018 on the magic.

Things have changed since then. There are multiple reports of much more recent cruises where tickets were not given out but names were checked off a list.

 

[Calantha]

No tickets on the Fantasy last week...just a listing in the app for Frozen, princesses, and Char Breakfast. Still got a Palo invite on paper though.

 

[Mango7100]

No tickets on a 5 day Dream Cruise this week for the Princess meet and greet and the Anna and Elsa one...just had your name on the list with your time reservation. Every other character was a line up and wait.

 

[hnthomps]

As others have said, there will only be a few with reserved spots. And even then there will be lines! So you'll have a ticket for a specific time period, but so will hundreds of other people. On our first cruise we had princess tickets and still waited a long time (I think 45 minutes), but later in the week so many people bailed on the ticketed times (bc the princesses are out a lot for non-ticketed meet and greets) that there would have been no line - we walked straight back to Anna and Elsa, if I remember correctly.

Our daughter was character obsessed last time (you can see in my second report below). We saw all the characters many many many times. The only ones that are hard/ where you have to wait for a long time outside of the ticketed events are Peter Pan and Hook/Smee on pirate night. Our usual strategy was to arrive 5-10 min before the scheduled start time of a meet and greet. That would put us at the front of the line, and really minimize the waiting. We sometimes (ok, pretty often) ended up being the last in line for one character/first in line for the next rotating into that spot. No one would object - so if, for example, Mickey was 4:15 - 4:30 and Goofy 4:30 - 4:45, we could show up at 4:25 for Goofy and get to meet Mickey and Goofy back-to-back. The handlers would suggest this, and make it clear. Because most people arrive at the scheduled time, so no one ever thought we were cutting or anything like that. Sometimes we'd swap with the family right behind us - so we'd be last for Mickey and second for Goofy or whatever.

 

[Dug720]

As others have said, there will only be a few with reserved spots. And even then there will be lines! So you'll have a ticket for a specific time period, but so will hundreds of other people. On our first cruise we had princess tickets and still waited a long time (I think 45 minutes), but later in the week so many people bailed on the ticketed times (bc the princesses are out a lot for non-ticketed meet and greets) that there would have been no line - we walked straight back to Anna and Elsa, if I remember correctly.

Our daughter was character obsessed last time (you can see in my second report below). We saw all the characters many many many times. The only ones that are hard/ where you have to wait for a long time outside of the ticketed events are Peter Pan and Hook/Smee on pirate night. Our usual strategy was to arrive 5-10 min before the scheduled start time of a meet and greet. That would put us at the front of the line, and really minimize the waiting. We sometimes (ok, pretty often) ended up being the last in line for one character/first in line for the next rotating into that spot. No one would object - so if, for example, Mickey was 4:15 - 4:30 and Goofy 4:30 - 4:45, we could show up at 4:25 for Goofy and get to meet Mickey and Goofy back-to-back. The handlers would suggest this, and make it clear. Because most people arrive at the scheduled time, so no one ever thought we were cutting or anything like that. Sometimes we'd swap with the family right behind us - so we'd be last for Mickey and second for Goofy or whatever.

Captain Jack Sparrow is another with LONG lines! Both of my past cruises, the line has been “closed” (as in a CM is standing behind the last person the time will allow to give newcomers the bad news) before he even gets off the Black Pearl!