How many princess meals are too many?

[sydneysmom]

In my humble opinion, you can NEVER have too many Princess meals!! The fact is, you're at Disney for the little amount of time you're there. (compared to being home the WHOLE rest of the year). You might as well take FULL advantage of the characters, because once your trip is over, it's over till the next time.

We're going to be there for 8 days w/ our DD4. She's never been to Disney, so we're going for the WOW factor. Each morning we're doing a character breakfast.... for breakfasts we're doing :

Tusker House
1900 Park Fare
Crystal Palace
Akershus
Chef Mickey's
Cinderella's Castle
Ohana : Lelo and Stitch

We're also doing a Crystal Palace lunch our last day, CRT on MNSSHP night and 1900 PF our first night.

I know, it seems like alot for sure.....but here's my reasoning. We start each day w/ characters, pictures, autographs...we won't have to wait on meet and greet lines. Score one for mom and dad. Plus, I can't think of a more happy way to start each day.

That being said, we're peppering in Flying Fish, Narcoosees, Le Cellier and others so mom and dad don't lose their minds....

 

[walkdmc]

There's no such thing, LOL!

But really, we spent 12 nights in WDW and did:
Chef Mickeys
1900 Park Fare
Crystal Palace
CRT
Akershus
Tusker House

The truth is, by the 4th character meals, it was getting old. Even the kids were like "been there, done that". The excitement was gone. I never would've booked that many if we hadn't had the DxDP and 2 character meal-first timers in our party.

I think 2 character meals in a week is good, with different characters, BTW. Our favorites were Crystal Palace for dinner (good and healthy food selections) and Akershus and CRT. CRT really was magical. The service was spotty and food was mediocre, but the room, "wishing ceremony" and princesses were wonderful!

 

[Tricia1972]

My DS4 loves princesses, Snow White in particular.

My DS8 has always hated princesses. Any attention from them would have annoyed him. He loves characters, just not the princesses.

There is such a thing as too many princesses if you have a DS like my 8 year old. There's a certain amount of 'suck it up' for your sibling, that he will need to do for his brothers. (As I mentioned before, he's a trooper about it too)

I don't think it would be fair to my 8 year old if I tailored the trip around my DS4's Snow White Obsession, no more fair than it'd be to DS4 if I tailored our trip to avoid Snow White because DS8 doesn't like her.

Our family is living proof that you can have an awesome time in Disney while catering to the needs of boys, even when just one of them likes princesses.

 

[walkdmc]

We actually did 1900 Park Fare on a Nov. '09 trip and had such a great time we did it again in 2010. However, it was a completely different experience. Let me just say the Mad Hatter in '09 was fantastic, the guy in '10 eh, not so much. The '09 guy actually got really into the role, yelling "Happy Unbirthday" to an older gentleman walking back from the buffet. He did all sorts of funny things like flicking Cheerios off a spoon, toward Mary Poppins. His handler approached him and chastised him for throwing food, to which he replied, "I didn't do it, the spoon did, right?" as he looked at my DS for confirmation. It was great. The new guy was so boring in comparison. He just walked up, said hello asked if we were having fun, reminded us to keep our autograph books open as Mary Poppins was coming next, then left. Boring.

Based on that, I wouldn't do 1900 Park Fare again. And I was such a cheerleader for it after our first trip. I've grown to appreciate the very good characters for their acting.

A little off topic, but wanted to share.

 

[maddiesmom0116]

We will be at WDW Nov. '11 for the first time as a family (DS will be 8, DD will be 4). We will be on the dining plan and will definitely do CRT on DD's 4th birthday. Will that be enough? Should I also do Akershus at Epcot...1900 Park Fare, too? Or is that too much princess? (or can there never be too many princesses - haha!) I'd like to think my son will be a good sport about all the princesses, but I don't know!

FWIW, we'll also do Tusker House, Chef Mickey's and Crystal Palace for character meals!

I do all 3 each trip, I love the Stepmother and Stepsisters at 1900 PF, they are a trip, so that is why that stays in. CRT stays because my DD6 loves to eat in the castle and Akerhaus because her fav. princess is Belle. I do tons of character meals because it beats waiting in line to meet and greet. as far as you DS goes, I would give him the option to do the pics and autographs at each one, he may just want to be there for the food and not need to meet the princesses again and again.

 

[amym2]

My DS4 loves princesses, Snow White in particular.

My DS8 has always hated princesses. Any attention from them would have annoyed him. He loves characters, just not the princesses.

There is such a thing as too many princesses if you have a DS like my 8 year old. There's a certain amount of 'suck it up' for your sibling, that he will need to do for his brothers. (As I mentioned before, he's a trooper about it too)

I don't think it would be fair to my 8 year old if I tailored the trip around my DS4's Snow White Obsession, no more fair than it'd be to DS4 if I tailored our trip to avoid Snow White because DS8 doesn't like her.

Our family is living proof that you can have an awesome time in Disney while catering to the needs of boys, even when just one of them likes princesses.

I completely agree! We did CRT when DS was 7 and DD was 5 and DS honestly hated it. In our photos with Cinderella he has a glum expression and when Belle came around she commented on our "Gaston" under the table. Yes, DS actually crawled under the table to avoid the princesses (we normally don't allow such behavior but it was pretty funny). He survived the meal and DD and the rest of us LOVED it. But there's no way I could have done that to DS again. I think it's wonderful to do a special meal for your DD's birthday, and I would completely expect your DS to respect that, but personally I wouldn't do any more princess meals.

 

[amym2]

I'm going to add also that you might want to consider doing some non-character meals. There are some really fun restaurants that don't have characters that might be a nice break from all the character interactions. EPCOT has wonderful options in the various countries and DHS has places like 50's Primetime and Sci Fi that are fun for kids. We love Whispering Canyon in the Wilderness Lodge, and I've heard that O'hana at the Polynesian is great as well. I assume that with your dining plan you get one TS meal per day, so you might want to consider some of those. All are kid-friendly and unique to Disney.

 

[brooklynnbaby]

I can let you know in December.

We have three girls (6,5,3), and have 4 character meals on a 7 day visit. First time for all of us. I anticipate we'll cancel one, just because I'm trying to be flexible like that... and it may be overkill. But we won't know until we get there.

 

[mfd25wife]

I've never done princess or character meals. How old is too old??

 

[aprincess02]

Well last trip with 2 boys (my oldest LOVED the princesses he was turning 4 at the time) we went to:

CRT-Dinner (DS1 birthday dinner)
Akershus- Lunch
1900 PArk Fare- Breakfast
1900 Park Fare- Dinner

Not too much for us!!! And we have two boys!!!!

 

[Steelersfan]

We were a one princess meal family... akershus, but the last trip we added 1900 park fare and it worked out great!

We did akershus for breakfast and 1900 park fare for dinner.

Any more than that may have been overkill however!

 

[sydneysmom]

I've never done princess or character meals. How old is too old??

Really ??? You TOTALLY need to experience the character meal at least once in your lifetime. It's alot of fun (and loud!!) And you're never too old if you're at Disney!!!!

 

[jenseib]

Aside from CRT (which I can't decide if that should be lunch or dinner) - all these meals will be for breakfast (looking at the menus, breakfast is pretty much the only food my DH would like ) Plus, my family would sleep in until the afternoon if they could. I figure if we have breakfast reservations for character meals - this will get everyone going for the day!

I would suggest if you are paying for the dining plan to do more dinners. If it's free it won't matter so much. But breakfasts are much cheaper and sometimes don't pay for themselves on the plan.

I think it totally depends on the family. So ask you son what he would like or what he won't like.
We love character meals, and we love buffets. There is a variety, so we all find food we like, including picky eaters.
Last trip DD was 4 and we did CRT dinner (with Cindy downstairs for pictures and the fairy godmother show in the restuarant..now it's characters there), 1900 PF for dinner (we did this one the trip before and loved it thentoo), Hoop Dee Doo, which is character, but a show, and lots of fun for all of us. DH insisted we do it again (did it the previous trip as well) because DD loved it so much. We did Cape May breakfast, and really enjoyed this one. Akershus dinner and Crystal palace dinner. DD also did the wonderland tea party one afternoon and really enjoyed herself there as well.
In year past we did whispering Canyon and that was alot of fun. They didn;t pick on us too much, I think because DD was timid at first, but she loved the horse riding around the restuarant. We have also done Chef Mickeys breakfast. I would say that was my least favorite. The food was pretty blah, and I have heard it's gotten worse. The characters seemed to have a hard time making it over to us too. We had Pluto about 3 times, but the rest took forever to come to us.
We love the experence...well DH really doesn't care too much where we eat, as long as we do.... But DD and I love the characters and we get to see alot with out waiting in long lines. And gives us more time to find other characters and do some more rides.
Now they just need to get a Tink dinner going. We refuse to wait in line ofr her in the past, and I don't know if we will in the future either.
Again, that being said, it depends on your family. So ask your DD and DS what looks appealing. Shoew pictures, tell them the characters, and what choices of food they have.