Characters at DL.... help?

AmyK

Mouseketeer
Joined
Feb 1, 2007
Messages
110
3 weeks away from our trip, my 9 year old decides she DOES want to meet a few characters. We had been planning on mostly rides/attractions, and not spending a lot of time character hunting.

Ideally she said Cinderella, but I told her princesses are hard and we didn't want to spend lots of time waiting in line. Maybe Mickey or Minnie at their houses, although I hadn't built that into my plans and may need to re do plans for her.

I've read that characters are often on Main Street. Where else would we happen upon some? I don't think she'll need a lot to make her happy, just a few signatures and pictures.
 
Main Street will have quite a few throughout the day. Brer Fox and Bear is usually outside Splash Mountain. There is a Pooh and Friends meet and greet area over there too. Woody and Jesse are typically outside Big Thunder Ranch near the BTMRR exit. In DCA, there is usually someone near the Animation Building and sometimes Sully is outside Monsters Inc. Toy Story characters are near TSMM. These are typically the guaranteed places to run into someone. I'd definitely do Mickey's House. Its a lot of fun.
 
3 weeks away from our trip, my 9 year old decides she DOES want to meet a few characters. We had been planning on mostly rides/attractions, and not spending a lot of time character hunting.

Ideally she said Cinderella, but I told her princesses are hard and we didn't want to spend lots of time waiting in line. Maybe Mickey or Minnie at their houses, although I hadn't built that into my plans and may need to re do plans for her.

I've read that characters are often on Main Street. Where else would we happen upon some? I don't think she'll need a lot to make her happy, just a few signatures and pictures.

Are you doing just DL or DCA too? The reason I ask is that we found Minnie and Mickey at DCA and the wait times were almost non existent.
If you want to meet Minnie and Mickey in DL your best bet is Main Street. If you wait at their houses you will definately be standing in line. The main problem I have found with main street characters is people flock over and they close the line quickly.
 
Are you doing just DL or DCA too? The reason I ask is that we found Minnie and Mickey at DCA and the wait times were almost non existent.
If you want to meet Minnie and Mickey in DL your best bet is Main Street. If you wait at their houses you will definately be standing in line. The main problem I have found with main street characters is people flock over and they close the line quickly.

We will be at DCA as well.

I probably sound like a grinch that we don't want to look for a lot but we spent a good chunk of time at WDW 3 years ago with characters. I was hoping this time to not have to worry about that as much. Really don't want to give up prime early morning time for characters, but also don't want to spend an hour in line. I'm hoping we'll get lucky and run into a few to sign our maps. I'm not sure how to handle it really. I don't want to disappoint her, and pictures are fun to have of course.
 

If you get to pixie hollow right around the time it opens you shouldn't have to wait long, and that's a fun character meet.
My daughter loves that one the most.
I know PFF is a long line, but depending on how many days you stay it's a good way to meet a lot of princesses in a short amount of time.
 
Last June we passed by PFF while riding on the train and saw a short line. We hadn't planned on a visit but the short line was very tempting. So we hopped off the train and got in line. Ended up meeting 3 princesses in less than 30 minutes. I guess it doesn't hurt to check things out if you're in the area.
 
What about Character Meals? Minnie's is great she is the only main character outta the fab 5 but you get a lot of others, Alice in Wonderland, Gepetto, Fairy Godmother and the mice, etc... and the food is yummy!
Also in DCA lunch or breakfast at Ariels Grotto has the main princesses and you dont have to wait in an hour long line not knowing who you will get. There is usually Ariel of course when you enter, Cinderella, Snow White, Belle, Aurora. Lunch seems more worth the money for the food and its yummy too. :goodvibes
 
One more thing, i have noticed that sometimes Snow white is at her little grotto area near the castle and the line to see her isnt too bad. but of course in Summertime that can be different. The park schedule will give you character meet n greet times and area info as well.
 
We've seen Minnie (in an aviator outfit) by the airplane (near Soarin') in California Adventure. We've also seen both Mickey and Minnie out in Town Square (at the start of Main Street) in Disneyland as well as in their houses.

We happen upon a lot of characters at Disneyland--some we wait in lines for and some we just find. It is fun and part of the magic for us. I think the longest we waited in line was thirty minutes or so at Pixie Hollow and that was the longest we have EVER waited to see characters. None of us really enjoyed that wait, but my children did enjoy seeing three fairies at the end of the wait!
 
Thanks everyone. I've talked with both girls some more and the main characters they want to see are Mickey, Minnie, and then Goofy, Pluto and Donald if we can find him. Would we be able to find them at Toontown too, do you think? I think if the lines at the princesses at Fantasy Faire aren't too bad we may try for Cinderella.

I'll re arrange my plans a bit and we'll go ahead and make time for Mickey ad Minnie's house and try for the others that same morning. Then if we see other characters without crazy lines we'll see how we feel then.
 
The other princess option, of course, is the Ariel's Grotto meal. It's not cheap, but if you want guaranteed princesses, it's one way to go.

We went with PFF for our last trip and we went on our Magic Morning. We got there at 8:30 and were the third group in line when they opened. This might not be worth the time investment for a short trip but it was our 4th of 5 days of Disney and while DS (13) opted to ride BTMRR 6 times instead, DH and I were just fine with a quiet half hour.
 
Oh- and at PFF you get 3 princesses but you don't know who you're getting until you get them. You could easily stand in line and not get Cinderella. We got Tiana, Ariel and Belle.
 
If there is a specific character that you want to see you can ask at the City Hall in the morning as they have a list of the characters that will be out and about, where and what time.

We saw a few Princesses around the Castle with no lines at all in the late afternoon, after having lined up for 30minutes to see three of them at the PFF.

Good luck :)
 
AmyK I have to laugh! My sons 8 & 6 had no interest AT ALL in meeting the characters and getting autographs - no matter how exciting I told them it would be.
Until we walked 10 feet inside the gates and saw Mickey & Minnie upon arrival!
5 seconds into our first family Disney vacation and they were hooked! :lol

They LOVED meeting the characters - and quite frankly it's almost impossible NOT to bump into them!
We loved the randomness of it and never did get a *schedule* It was just hit or miss and we were super lucky. They made me get them an autograph book on Day 2 and were so *into* it for the whole trip.

Hope your daughter has a great time with it!
 
I would also suggest making time for a meal at Ariel's Grotto. That way you'll knock out quite a few of those Princesses. I'm usually the one trying to get my son to take pictures with the characters. I LOVE my pictures! They are all over the house. But he's 13 year this year, I'm not seeing him wanting to do it. Hmmm wonder what I could bribe him with for mickey pic. ;)

We've gotten the main characters on Main Street first thing in the morning quite a bit. Sometimes before the rope drop, so there was no wasted ride time. And yes we've gotten Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto in Toontown. I've personally only gotten Mickey in his house (when it comes to Toontown), and that line was a bit not worth it to me. I've found it easier to get him on Main Street.
 
We seen mickey, minnie, pluto and goofy all right inside the gate as soon as we walked in. They were in the area where the buildings on main street start. It really won't be too difficult to see them and then go on your way to the rides.

If you don't want to spend a lot of time hunting them down maybe do a character meal?
 
Thanks for all the tips. What we've done is tweaked the plans so there is a visit to Mickey and Minnie's houses. That'll take care of those 2. The rest they (because now 11 year old big sister is climbed on board with wanting to meet the Fab 5 if possible) know if we see and can stop, we will. Our 3rd and last day we're leaving pretty flexible because i don't know what they'll want to repeat etc so that would be a good morning to stop as soon as we come in the gates to see who we want to see. The first 2 days are more planned to get the rides we want.
 
We were there in March and for my girls meeting characters was a huge part of the trip, but I also didn't feel like we wasted a ton of time waiting in lines.
We did Mickey's Toontown morning madness one day and got Mickey, minnie, goofy, chip and dale with a 5min. wait for Mickey and less then that for the others, we were second for chip and dale. We happened upon pluto just coming out and were first for him, The princesses we discovered were easier then we thought, everytime we went somewhere in the park we strolled past the castle and at several times during the day they would be there, we got Belle, sleeping beauty and Snow white that way (it took two times through because they don't stay out real long, we also saw Cinderella and the FAiry Godmother there but got cut off (thankfully we did the princess meal too). We also found the pooh characters by their ride and Jessie and Buzz and woody across from TTMM. We did always see the characters on Main Street in the morning but didn't want to waste that time. Oh we also ran into Alice and the Mad Hatter by the castle one day. Really it was fun to just run into the characters.
 
I'm usually the one trying to get my son to take pictures with the characters. I LOVE my pictures! They are all over the house. But he's 13 year this year, I'm not seeing him wanting to do it. Hmmm wonder what I could bribe him with for mickey pic. ;)

.


I solved that with my 13 year old son by providing him a much adored baby sister. He will do all sorts of "lame" things for his baby sister. Pose for pictures, ride Small World, sing "Smoke Two Joints" over and over in public...

Although that may be more effort than you're really willing to put into a Micky picture. :rotfl2:
 
We found that the character dining is the best place. It's where we found most of the ones she wanted to meet
 



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