Character or Princess Meals??

[FSUGrad97]

What's a good age for the character or princess meals?

My daughter will be 2 when we go in December, and I would like to take her to one of the princess or character meals but I am afraid she will be too young, even though she does like Belle.

Any thoughts??

Thanks!

 

[rarrington]

I'm going in 2 days with dd 2 1/2 and dd 5 1/2 so I'll find out then! We have several of both character and princess meals lined up. I have heard - and it makes sense - that the princess meals may be better because the princesses have a "real face" as opposed to a big costume that may seem scary to small children. My girls are not big fans of the Easter bunny or Santa Claus, but would love the attention of a beautiful princess! And I don't think 2 is too young. She may not remember it later on, but I'll bet she'll be all eyes and quite intrigued for the moment! And you can get lots of pictures that she can look back on. Good luck!

 

[Aidensmom]

The princesses may be less scary to a 2 year old than the other characters, because of the aforementioned "real face" issue. My experience with DS is that at age 1, he was afraid of nothing, but once he reached about 2-1/4, characters were scary to him. Now at 3, he loves them again....

 

[tink2]

Both of my children went to WDW at 2 1/2 and had many character meals. Here is our experience:
DD- very timid and shy, character meals were the best thing we did b/c it got her warmed up to the characters. We had a character meal a day- Mon. at Crystal Palace- scared to death!!! Wouldn't touch the characters. Tuesday at Hollywood and Vine- when it was a character meal- she at least got her picture made with the characters and hugged Minnie. Wednesday at Garden Grille she finally 'got it' and was sitting in Chip's lap. Fast forward to Thursday at Crystal Palace again- bouncing with Tigger and wouldn't let Pooh go. For some reason she was always scared of Pluto that year- never would touch him! But the only way I think she would've ever warmed up was through the character meals instead of a quick meet and greet. It made our trip so much better!!! We did CRT that year too- very magical!!! She LOVED the princesses- Snow White dubbed her the 8th dwarf!
DS- not nearly as scary- was a little afraid for about 5 minutes of our first meal at 2 1/2, but quickly got over it and had a ball!!!!!
I say go for it. If they are scared, it will be a good way to get them used to the characters and will make the trip better. The characters are very good about judging if a child is scared or not and responding properly. If they see they aren't going to get over it, they'll back off. Have a magical trip!!! WDW is so fun with toddlers!!!