Is it just me, or is there less characters in the parks than last year?

[abeyst]

Hello all,
We (DS7, DD3) just returned from our trip on Wednesday, and man was it cold!! But what I noticed more than the cold on this trip was that there were very few characters out and available in the parks compared to all our past vacations (started in 2000). It was even quite noticable from Jan 05 to Feb 06 (MGM had no characters inside the gates as they did last year, and MKs had considerably less chars than last year.) Has anyone else noticed this?

I thought (just my theory, actually) that maybe it was another money-saving idea by Disney to reduce # of characters during the winter months, but I've never been in the summer so I can't compare. Has anyone heard if this is what they're doing?

I was telling DS7 on this trip that the first time we brought him in February '00 we saw a bunch of characters @ MGM that I've never seen since (Hercules, Cinderella, Alice, Mulan, Belle).

Just wondering where they've all gone off to! We miss them!

 

[HugsForEeyore]

I agree with you a billion percent! I think the number of characters is WAY down as compared to two years ago. My recent December trip was not great in terms of characters, but my January one was excellent since they were running lots of characters at the ToonTown Train Station. My recent October trip was the absolute worst for me, which I blamed on Hurricane Wilma, but there may have just been less characters anyways.

I noticed this too about MGM - It is now my least favorite park for characters. Unless it just changed, it seems that Disney stopped having the "cool" group of characters out often, like Hercules, Meg, Mulan, Evil Queen, etc. It seems they just have common "furs" by the Big Hat (Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Chip, Dale, Stitch, Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore) with some occasional different ones like Baloo or something. There are other characters at MGM, but without that great group of characters out, MGM is not as good anymore.

The other character spot that "bit the dust" is the Castle. Disney used to have common characters meet after the Cinderella Surprise Show, but they stopped that. So now all the commons go to Town Square (after you enter Magic Kingdom). So all the cooler, rarer characters that used to meet at Town Square aren't out much anymore, as all the commons took their place.

And killing the Epcot Character Bus was another blow. The Character Connection has lots of commons (Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Chip, Dale, Goofy) and some of the others like Gideon, Prince John, and King Louie, but not as many as the Bus had.

And Camp Minnie-Mickey has mainly the commons once again, with some Kenai and Koda in there. There used to be more random characters appearing there in the past.

Only good "new" spot is the American Adventure, as large groups of characters have been meeting there recently.

I am glad I am not the only one who noticed the decline of characters. Sigh.

 

[bicker]

If anything, we encounter twice as many characters at the parks than last visit. The park was utterly littered with characters, around every turn, in every unused corner, in all four parks.

​

 

[nickelsfamily]

WHEN WE WERE AT THE MK AT THE END OF JANUARY, THERE WERE SO MANY CHARACTERS....THE MOST THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN IN ONE VISIT! WE WERE ALL AMAZED.
WE SAW MICKY, MINNIE, ALICE, TIMONE, RAFIKI, CAPTAIN HOOK, SMEE, THE CHARACTERS FROM JUNGLE BOOK (CAN'T REMEMBER THEIR NAME) DONALD, GOOFFY,CHIP & DALE, ALADEN, JASMINE, THE INCREDIBLES, BUZZ, JESSE, WOODY, STITCH AND THEN OF COURSE THE CHARACTERS IN THE PARADE. THIS WAS ALL JUST WALKING AROUND THE PARK-NO CHARACTER MEALS.
I HOPE THAT ITS LIKE THAT WHEN WE GO BACK IN A FEW WEEKS.
JULIE