How many Character meals?

[momfor4]

I am trying to decide how many Character meals to go to? We are going Oct. 1st, 4 kids- 8-4 yrs. 3 boys, 1 girl. We have never been to disney, so I have been thinking we will do alot of Character meals, but the more I think of it I thought I should get others opinions!?? I am pretty sure we will get Dining Plan, I would like to do HD Revue 1 night, and Bkst or lunches for character meals- but how many is too many?? Maybe a dinner if you recommend. We will have 7 nights total- 5 days in the parks.

I was thinking of seeing princess at Norway, then 1 or 2 with Mickey and Minnie w/ friends and maybe 1 with Pooh etc. How many is too many? We aren't going to these for the food, but the characters so we want good interaction but don't want to use up more than 2 hrs. per meal. How long would you allow normally for these?

Any suggestion of how many is too many for Character meals would be great! Thanks!

 

[gillenkl]

we are doing one per day - alternating every other day such as
monday - character breakfast
tues - char dinne
wed - char breakfast
thurs - char dinner
etc....

also, make sure you look at the menus before making your reservation - some will have foods you like better than others.

 

[McKelly]

We always try to do character meals that we will see different characters at, sounds like you plan to do the same. We do Crystal Palace for the Pooh characters, there are several with Mickey and friends, Chef Mickey's will have all of the main ones, Mickey, Minnie, Chip, Dale, Goofy and I think Donald (?), and of course a Princess meal. We usually only do three. They sort of get on my DH's nerves. Eat, stop, Eat, stop, Eat, stop, he just wants to eat.

Once we are seated, it generally only takes 1 hour for us to eat. But we don't usually linger too much because we want to get into the parks.

Also, with three boys, they will probably love Sci-Fin Dine-In at MGM, which is a themed eatery, no characters though. Have a great time!

 

[mommykds]

We do a character meal every other day. For our 10 day trip this year we have 4 planned. I wouldn't do every day with a character meal as they get quite hectic...I know for us we get out the camera & video as soon as we sit down..then we only rush to the buffet so we don't miss any characters..then you have a mouth full of food when they come over & you have to get the pictures & autographs...not a restful meal but very enjoyable none the less. We love the meals with the characters but also like every other meal to be non character so we can relax & just eat.

Also mix up what characters you are going to see. I wouldn't do Chef Mickeys one day & then next do Garden Grill. Enjoy!

 

[Msslaydbug]

Our trips are on average 10 days and we tr to do 2-3.

 

[mom2isaac&ella]

August is our kids' (DS4 & DD2) first trip to WDW too. We are planning 3 character dinners for our 7 day stay - CP w/Pooh, GG w/Mickey & then 1900 Park Fare for Cinderella. PF is in the Grand Floridian, so we are going there for dinner on our planned rest day. I'm thinking this will save us park time on the days we do the parks and give us some fun "Disney Magic" on the day we are planning on sleeping late & swimming all day. PF is also less expenssive than the MK Cinderella restaurant. Garden Grill & Liberty Tree Tavern (I did this one on a previous trip & it was good) are family style, so you won't have to get up and go the buffet & may ease some of the hecticness others spoke about. Have fun!

 

[crisi]

We do one or two. Two last time with six full park days on our third trip in five years. It depends on what your priorities are. We usually do Ohana breakfast at the Poly - timing the reservation so we are at the MK right around opening. This time we also did the Norway princess breakfast - timing it so my daughter and I were eating right at rope drop while my husband and son rode Mission:Space a few times.

You do want to note as a first timer - 2 hours per meal - particularly with kids, is going to cut into a LOT of attraction time. With five days and four kids, you are going to wonder at the end of the vacation why you never did get a chance to go to Tom Sawyers Island or that you would have really liked to see Mickey's Philharmagic one more time (and you'll wonder this even if you bolt down hamburgers from counter service).

I don't find food at character meals to be very good. You may get tired pretty quickly of character meal food.

Make sure you aren't planning meals in such a way that you have to criscross the world. You are going to be surprised how big 51 square miles is.

Most character meals are buffets. We thought that our kids started handling buffets well about six - before then, they were really much more work for ME than I wanted - after hours of standing in line, walking, standing in line, walking - I really wanted to sit in one place and have people bring me food.

 

[mom2kazkids]

We will be at WDW for 9 nights and 8 full days this April/May. We have right now a total of 6 character meals and maybe 7 if we get into the new Toy Story meal. We have so far:

Crystal Palace for Breakfast
Chef Mickey's for supper
Princess Storybook Breakfast
Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner
Cinderella's Royal Table for breakfast
1900 Park Fare for breakfast on the day that we leave.

Barb

 

[lovinpoohbear]

We will be doing a character meal for each day! We love seeing the characters and getting great pictures with them! It also helps to have some form of entertainment for my soon-to-be two year old!! He can barely sit still in restaurants!

 

[karen l]

We also try to one one a day. The pictures we get are usually great & the memories help us get through the non Disney days.

 

[danalee]

We did 3 in 7 days and my son loved them , so our next trip we will go to a couple more in our 7 days!
He loves seeing the characters and that's what it all about, for me anyway! (oh and him )
Have fun!

 

[DLANGE3386]

we also do one a day but try to time it for midday. for example we are going to ohanas for breakfast at 11am that way we won't need to eat lunch and can instead just snack later before heading back to the condo. we also find that it is not that much more money and most are all you can eat buffets

 

[Wendy31]

Relatively speaking, we do a lot of character meals because DH & I would rather see them in the air-conditioned comfort of restaurants than stand in line to see them.

However, we do try to plan a variety of character meals & plan the character meal to go w/ the park we're either at or nearest to so that we're not zipping back & forth all over WDW.

For our upcoming 7 night stay, we have the following character meals & other TS meals planned:

Arrival Night (Tues) - MK for Spectro & Wishes

Liberty Tree Tavern dinner

Wed - MGM

If the Toy Story breakfast/lunch becomes a reality, I'll try to schedule it for this day.

(We also have dinner at Mama Melrose's planned for our FDP.)

Thurs - MK

Crystal Palace lunch

Fri - EPCOT

Garden Grill lunch

Sat - MK

CRT lunch

Sun - AK morning/afternoon & EPCOT for Illuminations

Donald's Breakfastasauras

(We also have an ADR at San Angel Inn for dinner.)

Mon - EPCOT/MK

Princess Storybook breakfast

(We also have an ADR at WCC for our last dinner.)

Tues - Departure Day - MK for EMH morning

Chef Mickey's breakfast

I also like lunches because, if we get to the parks when they open, by lunchtime, we're ready for a nice break & then it doesn't seem to cut into our mornings & evenings as much.

So for our 7 night/8 day stay, we currently have 7 character meals scheduled (w/ the possibility of adding another).

Last year, we did way too many buffets - getting up & down at each meal got very tiresome. So, this year, I tried to not plan as many buffets.

 

[daisyduck123]

We had the Dining Plan for 7 days on our last trip.
We always plan mostly character meals because, hey, we are there for the kids, & that is what they enjoy.

Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary Resort is always a must.
We always have 2 dinners there.
1900 Park Fare we went to last month for the 1 st time....fantastic.

You can never have too many character meals if that is what your kids enjoy.

BTW....the one place we never miss is Whispering Canyon (not a character meal) because it is just such a FUN PLACE for kids & adults!!

 

[MinnieGi]

We usually do two or three character meals for a 7 day trip. We hit a different set of characters for each meal. This past trip we did Pooh & Friends at Crystal Palace, the princesses at Norway and Mickey & Minnie etc. at Chef Mickey's. Our DD and DS love the characters and these meals and DH and love taking their pictures and seeing their reactions. But they are hectic meals and three is our limit for a week stay.