Good places to meet/see characters

[swilphil]

We will be at WDW with our two toddlers July 10-15. Where are some good places to see or meet characters without waiting in huge lines?

We have two character meals set up, and I know we can check the daily schedule for characters. From what I've seen the times are pretty broad, like from 1 to 4 p.m. We go to Al's Toy Barn, but the best time we had last year was when we just ran into 3 princesses at World Showcase.


At Epcot, I've read some things about the Holiday Bus and Pooh characters by the maze in UK. Does anyone have more detailis about this?

 

[DisKim]

I have never seen long lines for characters in any of the countries in the WS in Epcot. That's a good place to go. I actually felt bad because Pooh and Eeyore had no one to see them in UK and my kids had already had lunch with them the day before and were not interested.

 

[luvmk]

We have had good luck meeting characters in every park.

M.K- Town Square-variety of characters
Adventureland-Peter pan characters
Castle after the show-Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, etc..
Toon Town-Pooh and friends, Cinderella and Suzy

Epcot-We happend to run into the character caravan by the America area. We saw a variety of characters then.

MGM-We haven't found as many here, but I know they are around. In front of the hat, we found several. The best for us was Donald, as he can be hard for us to find. Al's Toy Barn obviously has Buzz and Woody. We saw Jessie there last time.

A.K- By the gates early in the morning we have seen Rafiki, Timon, King Louie and Terk. We also find Baloo in the park. Rafiki's planet watch has Rafiki, Stanley and Pocohontas. Pooh and friends are on the way to Dino Land. Camp Mickey and Minnie is also great if you get there first thing in the morning. We saw Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto with no wait. In fact, nobody else was in line or even in the area. Oh, Lilo and Stitch are also easy to find in A.K.

All places have some line, but they didn't seem too bad. The best way to see characters without waiting is the character meals. I'd say the best way to see some of the princesses is with a character meal. You get to see most of them at once.

Hope this helps a little.


Rachel

 

[Drcell01]

The character bus at EPCOT shows up every so often and parks at the gateway to world showccase between the two gift shops near the water.

As for other places to meet characters, MK has some of the best opportunities. Characters are usually available at the entrance to Main Street scattered around the flag pole area at various times (check the guide available as you enter MK in the tunnel under the train station). There is also a character meet & greet area in Fantasyland where the old 20,000 leagues of the sea attraction was located (however, this may not be open now as construction has started to convert the old attraction site into something else).

 

[sunking]

if you show up for opening at epcot, the character bus will come out and greet people as they flow past the pin trading station near the electric umberella...we were there last week and noticed that every stormed by them without anyone stopping to see the characters...even mickey was just standing there with no one to greet....

 

[meeko_33785]

World Showcase is a great place to find characters. Usually they are in the back of the pavillions hidden in gift shops or such so they often have short lines. Belle and Beast are in France, Pooh and friends as well as Mary Poppins are in United Kingdom, Aladdin in Morroco, Pinocchio characters in Italy, Snow White in Germany, Mulan in China, and Sleeping Beauty at International Gateway.

At MK, Town Square is my favorite place to look for characters. If you go in the morning, you should find a lot of characters here. Also, if you go into the Expo Hall behind Tony's sometime between 11 and noon, you may find a Princess or two as well. Also, Toontown at 10am when it opens has short lines for all the characters they have there (Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Max, Pluto, Chip, Dale, Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, Cinderella, Suzy, Perla, and others).

At AK, there are usually a bunch of characters there with reasonable lines. As you'd guess, it's mostly animal characters here like Timon, Baloo, Terk, Meeko and others (I've even seen Jane from Tarzan there once). Also if you go to Camp Minnie-Mickey while the Lion King show is going, you should find short lines for Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Koda, and the other characters there.

 

[swilphil]

Thanks everyone! I have lots of good ideas now. We are staying at the Swan, so we will be at MGM and Epcot a lot, esp. World Showcase.

Now we just have to find some characters at MGM. I remember reading somewhere that people had good luck finding characters here. Any place other than the Sorcerer's Hat?

Thanks again!

 

[mommyflower]

In MGM, you can find lots of characters.
If you walk down Mickey Avenue (it is the street with Who Wants to be a Millionaire on it) there are trailers that the characters come out of. There is almost always someone out there when we go. Also at the end of that street there is a spot where you can see Sorcerer Mickey and he usually has a very short line. Back by Al's Toy barn you can find Kermit & Piggy across the street. They usually have a short line because everyone bypasses them to see Woody & friends. In Commissary Lane you can find Mike and Sulley.
There are set times when lots characters come out infront of the hat. Just ask a CM or check your times guide. Some of the characters get long lines and some of them get hardly lines at all.

My DS is 3 and we spent most of our last couple of visits just meeting characters. It is his favorite part, he loves them. One bit of advice on the character meals. If you kids like characters as much as my DS does I would be prepared for them not to eat much. When we did our character meals DS was too excited to eat. We just ended up getting something to munch on afterwards.

Also the Character bus in Epcot is fantastic. The times and locations will be in the times guide for Epcot.

 

[swilphil]

Wow, Tabitha. Thanks for the great information. We really like the MGM park. Last time we just saw the Al's Toy Barn characters and Kermit and Miss Piggy.

My son will be so excited to see Mike and Sulley. They are his favorite (this week!). He's been watching Monster Inc and playing with Sulley and Mike dolls, I mean action figures.
Do you know how often Mike and Sulley come out? I don't remember seeing them on the park guide.

 

[mommyflower]

There is a little sign where Mike & Sulley stand that says the times. I don't remember what they were. They come out of a garage door that has the Monster's logo on it.
I suggest going to the Tip Board, it's the place that has all the show times & ride wait times, at the corner of Hollywood Blvd & Sunset Blvd. Ask there for the times. If they don't know they can call and find out. We did this last time we were there. Also sometimes you get just Mike or just Sulley.
I also forgot to say you can see Lilo & Stitch next to the Animation tour. If you go into the walk way for the tour on the ground you will see Stitch's foot prints. Follow them back to were Lilo & Stitch are.
Good luck finding them all. My DH & I love seeing our DS interact with them. It's so much fun!
Have a great trip!

 

[JFrey4240]

We always go to the Toontown Hall of Fame in MK at night (after 8 pm-Easter/Summer) to see the characters. The lines are very short (there usually are three seperate lines--cinderella & mice, pooh & friends, minnie & friends) and sometimes no wait. Also it's nice because there aren't alot of people waiting so you can spend extra time in the room with the characters. Afterwards there is also a very short or no line at Goofy's Barnstormer (kiddie rollercoaster) across the street from hall of fame. So after going through all three character lines in about 30 minutes you can hit the Barnstormer a couple of times. We've gone about 3 times within the last year and this has always worked for us. Go late in the day and you won't have to wait.

 

[redskiesx25]

For me, the world showcases were the best...we saw Mary Poppins, Pooh and Tigger in England, Belle and the beast and Aruara (spelling) in France..
also, near the tea cups in MK we saw the mad hatter, tweedle dee and tweedle dum, and the white rabbit, and coming out of the muppets 3D we saw kermit and miss piggy

 

[Disney Debbie]

We were there the 2 weeks ago and MGM was CRAWLING with characters in front of the Sorcerer's Hat. This was in the afternoon and we saw Belle, Cinderella, Jasmine & Aladdin, Mulan and whoever that little red dragon thing is, Baloo, Peter Pan and Captain Hook, Snow White, Hercules, and I can't remember who else but there were 10 different characters or pairs at one time out there.

We also saw them several times in Epcot at the different WS locations. I saw Jiminy Cricket for the first time! He was with Pinocchio and Gepetto in Italy and there was hardly anyone around. That's the only character we took a picture with this trip just because I'd never seen him before.

 

[swilphil]

It sounds like Epcot and MGM will be great for characters, and I imagine not as long a wait as MK.

In Epcot, someone mentioned the characters are at the back of the pavillions. Are they actually in the pavillions, or behind them?

Also are the characters INSIDE the gift shops? I usually avoid the nice gift shops with two toddlers!!

Thanks, you guys are awesome with all these great tips.

 

[Disney Debbie]

By "back of the pavillion" they mean you have to walk INTO the pavillion some of the time to actually see them - they are sometimes - but not always - out front. When we saw Jiminy Cricket he was beside the little stage area near the fountain - but the other two were right in front of the tower so you would have easily seen them if you were just walking by.