Does anyone not 'do' the character meets and greets?

[babymaddie]

We are off to DLp in May for 5 days, Madelane, 10 has been 3 times and has met all the characters and now isnt actually that interested - more interested in the TOT etc etc.

We have Isabella, 2 years old who will take or leave the characters. I'm thinking this time of joining in the scrum of the characters around the Park, as I certainly do not enjoy all the pushing and shoving that goes on from adults.

We are staying at the Disneyland Hotel so guess we will have photo opportunites in the Hotel? Im thinking of not wasting time around the park searching out charcters like we have done on our last three trips, 2 hours waiting for Princess in the heat etc etc. We've done all that with Madelane, and it was great at the time but unneccessary this time, I feel.

Anyone else, kind of, avoid all that sort of thing whilst they are there?

 

[DLPdaft]

from our last trip, when DD was 10, we no longer go looking for the characters. She's only interested in meeting ones which either she's never met before (ie not that many now that we've been to DLP 10 times) or ones that are dressed differently from their usual clothes.

its very liberating - and we loved the Disneyland Hotel morning meet n greet outside Inventions. Duffy had just been introduced to DLP when we last visited and there were always queues to meet him in the park, but he was just loitering by the fireplace with his staff photographer outside Inventions when we met him .

 

[Ms Poppins]

We don't do character searching either. We make good use of the characters in the hotel at breakfast and usually have one character meal during our stay. Has always been Cafe Mickey, but we might try Cowboy Cookout this time.

Woody's Roundup was always good for a quick round of characters too. We avoid the scrums and rarely queue for the organised meets, unless there's a small queue or a character that ds is desperate to see.

I'd like to see the Princess Pavillion this time, but only because it's new and I know I'll love the themeing inside, but it will completely depend on queue times.

We were lucky to meet Captain Jack, who Lewis absolutely loves, but that was just good timing.

For us the characters are just one part of DLP - and whilst I do love seeing them, I won't spend hours queuing to meet them. However, I do know that if one of my lo's was completely obsessed by a certain character I'd do what I could to make sure we met them.

 

[HFJohnson]

My two aren't that bothered about finding characters, although DD will give them a hug if she sees one, but even if they were I wouldn't want to spend ages in queues waiting to meet them. Last year we found plenty of opportunities to meet characters at breakfast in the hotel, in Cafe Mickey and at the 4pm meet and greet in the DLH without having to get involved in scrums or queues.

 

[markpsych]

My kids were never that into it, and I think the character scrums helped to put them off completely (thank goodness!).

 

[ShimmerTinks]

Will be taking my DS for the first time in 8 days, but i dont think he will be to bothered about the characters, i think if we see them on the off chance then we may try and take a pic.
But i dont think he will be bothered about the queuing to meet them, He is 4 so maybe in couple of yrs he may want to more.

I think he will be happy seeing them go by on the parades mainly

 

[Hipster Meg]

When we were there in October the only character we queued to see was Buzz Lightyear as he's our sons favourite and it was the day he was wearing his costume! We refused to join in the scrums; there's just too much pushing but we did find that we met a few random characters while waiting for IASW to open - we met Suzie and Perla there with no one else waiting to see them.

The DLH is an awesome place for meeting characters - as well as the one outside Inventions in the morning there are characters wandering the halls (we met Mickey more than once this way) and when we nipped back to the hotel in the afternoon we often found them in the foyer - we have a lovely picture of our son using Eeyore as a sofa!

 

[wmoon]

We don't do it. DS is 4. We did it a bit a mickeys not so scary Halloween party but it was quiet and it needs to be really quiet or organised for us to
bother.
DS hates the scrums, character meals and characters at DLH fireplace work best for us.

 

[scampbunny]

do they still do the characters in dlh at 4pm?? and is it every day??

its been a while since we last took advantage of this, and they werent doing it every day....

need to start planning more, only a 'few' days to go!!

 

[DLPdaft]

its usually on Thursday through to Sunday for the DLH character dance at 4pm .

 

[RoseBug]

its usually on Thursday through to Sunday for the DLH character dance at 4pm .

We didn't know about this last trip, but will maybe try it out in August on the Thursday or Friday.

We are ALL about the characters - BUT won't even attempt any of the unorganised meets (managed to walk up to Chip and Dale in Feb, but that was it!) as there is no way I would put my daughter through that, and even the organised meets are not even considered if the queue is huge (again, we managed to walk straight into the line for Mickey and Duffy in Feb, and waited no more than 15 minutes!) However, we may consider the Princess Pavilion in August if we get there early enough. We are saving up enough spends to go to Auberge, Café Mickey, Inventions and Cowboy Cookout in August so as to avoid as many lines as possible and hopefully get a fair few characters out of the way, plus we will pop into DLH at breakfast time in the hopes of catching a few!

 

[scampbunny]

thats superb elaine - normally we do mon to thurs so this time being fri to mon we will be well sorted!!!!

ok, another thing to add to my 'to do' list

 

[Woolly]

If you are staying at the DLH then you have breakfast meet & greets, the lobby at 4-00pm and Inventions. Spoilt for choice and all with good easy access.

We do the above and Cafe Mickey and that is more than enough.

Never queue in the parks. If we see someone in the parks and there is no or very small queue we might go for it.

 

[babymaddie]

So, we may get opportunites at the Hotel this year which will be good for the girls, especially with Isabella being young.

My parents are planning on taking her back to the hotel in the afternoon some days so the 4pm opportunity sounds good.

I just cant be doing with the scrums again - its just too much and quite scarey for some children when adults are pushing and shoving them out of the way.

The last 3 times for us was certainly an eye opener and by the third time we had grown pretty tired of it all but liked the organised ones at the New York where we stayed last year - all very organised and much less scrum-like.

 

[sammie1884]

I am wondering this too, Chester is 3 and loves the characters but I hate the pushing and shoving! We will only be going for 2 days this time so I dont know if we should just concentrate on rides and parades/shows?!

 

[RoseBug]

I am wondering this too, Chester is 3 and loves the characters but I hate the pushing and shoving! We will only be going for 2 days this time so I dont know if we should just concentrate on rides and parades/shows?!

I would squeeze in one or two character meals, we went for 2 days in Feb, and avoided all queued meet and greets and scrums, and ate at Auberge and Inventions instead. Everytime we walked past Cafe Mickey there were tons of characters there. My DD had just turned 3 and was so thrilled with the interaction in the restaurants! We'll be doing the same in August! I'd rather pay more for the meals, just to avoid the scrums!

 

[jothp]

Our girls like to meet the characters so we often end up joining the scrums but my girls are quite good at standing their ground and waiting patiently which will often pay off. The girls are normally only interested in meeting each character once per trip so we normally have at least one character meal too so there are less to try and find in the park. In a way I am looking forward to not needing to join the scrums but think it will be a little sad once the girls think they are too grown up for the characters.

 

[wideeyes]

We don't search out characters at DLP, if we see them we will go and they are not in a scrum we will get a picture. My daughter is 10 and not that bothered by characters however still likes the character meals.

 

[Michael623]

I never got this myself. With all of the one-of-a-kind, world-class rides and attractions why would I want to get beat up to have my picture taken with (let's be real here) a guy on a suit? I've been going to Disney parks since I was a kid (30+ years) and i never had an urge to do this. I've done my share of complaining about DLP but I don't share the biggest complaint I read about on this board (character scrum) because I've never actually experienced it.

 

[sammie1884]

I would squeeze in one or two character meals, we went for 2 days in Feb, and avoided all queued meet and greets and scrums, and ate at Auberge and Inventions instead. Everytime we walked past Cafe Mickey there were tons of characters there. My DD had just turned 3 and was so thrilled with the interaction in the restaurants! We'll be doing the same in August! I'd rather pay more for the meals, just to avoid the scrums!

I am hoping we will manage to squeeze in a character meal, we did cafe mickeys last time and loved it so will prob try to do that again!