whew!!!
I missed three pages of talking over here!!!
Anyone have any adivce on what is the best and simplest character dining to see Micky & Minnie. We would perfer to stay in the parks without going to one of the resorts.
I would suggest hoping on the monorail and going to Chef Mickey's. It is a quick ride over to the Contemporary and it is cool to ride around and look at the resorts as you ride.
Great summary of the restaurants!
A few notes...
Liberty Tree Tavern is no longer a character meal. (This was a recent change)
Per Allearsnet:
IMPORTANT: As of January 5, 2009, the Magic Kingdom's Liberty Tree Tavern is no longer a character dining location. The last character dinner at the Tavern was January 4, 2009.
SammieGirl...did you all do lunch or dinner there? If you all did lunch, maybe it is just dinner that is not character meals...who knows maybe they changed their minds again!
We normally eat breakfast at Chef Mickey's and like it a lot...but have never had any other meal there.
Donald's Breakfast is at Tusker House now. My son's favorite character was Donald, so we always went there when it was at the other place and called Donald's Breakfastsusaurus. We went to the one at Tusker House in October, and loved it! We liked the atmosphere, the character interaction (we have never felt rushed here, but we usually do the latest breakfast possible), and loved the food! The Mealie Pap (porridge) is WONDERFUL! (looks kinda gross but tastes great). Even my VERY picky eater 15 year old son found lots of things to eat here (very unusual for him)
Lynn
Lynn...another great list!!
But I heard on one of the podcasts that they were adding the characters back because they had so many complaints that they were gone.
Thank you for the correction! It wasn't Crystal Palace but it was the Liberty Tree. We had been debating about the 2 at that time and I had confused the names. I would hate for someone to get confused by my post!
It was the LIBERTY TREE that had Mickey, Minnie, Chipmunks and Goofy. The food was really good and the kids even at it. The staff was very friendly and the characters didn't rush past your table. It was a great experience and my son liked it alot. I think this is why he started to like Goofy.
Thanks again for correcting this.
This is in the Magic Kingdom, right?
I believe Chef Mickeys still does breakfast. You could do breakfast there and then go to the parks. If you get first seating you may even be able to make it to MK before the park opens!
Very good point! And their breakfast is pretty good!
Staging in the back bedroom. Has anyone taken a VEST machine? If so, did it count as part of your luggage or was it waved because it was a medical device. We are flying American.
Someone gave me a neat idea. If traveling with multiple booster seats, break them down and pack them together in a duffle bag or sea bag. Only counts as one piece this way and other things like pillows etc. be put in the bag too.
I would take the vest as a carry on. It won't count against your carry on items. That way you know you get there with it. I would just hate for the "luggage" to get lost and you lose the vest?
I wanted to chime in on character dining since there have been a lot of posts about that recently. . .
Liberty Tree is no longer a character meal as mentioned in another post.
Chef Mickeys is the only place to see Mickey and Minnie together at a meal. Donald, Pluto and Goofy are also there. This is an easy out of park meal because you can just take the monorail - an easy trip on an MK or Epcot day. They serve breakfast and dinner (also lunch during busier times of year I believe).
Garden Grill has a character meal for dinner only (lunch character meals stopped last year) - characters are Mickey, Pluto, Chip and Dale.
Tusker House (at AK) is a character meal for breakfast and characters are Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Daisy.
Crystal Palace is a character meal for all three meals and features Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet.
No one has mentioned the "princess" meals but here are a few notes just in case.
CRT features Cinderella downstairs at all three meals. Breakfast and lunch there are usually four characters upstairs - princesses and friends. Dinner is only the Fairy Godmother and Suzy and Perla. There are no other princesses at dinner.
PS Dining at Askershus serves three meals with princesses. Princesses vary on any day and at any meal. Belle is typically the greeter and then four other princesses or friends circulate in the dining room. You will not typically see Cinderella here though she is known to show up once in awhile. Lunch and dinner are your best chances to see Ariel in her human form.
There are a few other character meals that haven't been mentioned yet or just briefly - 1900 Park Fare (which is great), Playhouse Disney at Hollywood and Vine (little kids love it), Ohanas and Cape May Cafe (I have not been to either of those personally).
Hope this helps! We have been to most of these (and a lot of them more than once) so if you want any details just ask and I will do my best.
another great list!!!
If anyone has any more questions about character meals ask away! We've been to most of them and have had some funny experiences too!!!!!!!
Our best character interaction was at 1900 Park Fair breakfast. Well... should I say our best character fight!
No joke on this! Hands down one of the FUNNIEST things I have ever seen at a character meet!
What have some of you done for your send off parties? I'm not sure where to have Mikaela's because our apartment is so small.
So, just looking for ideas and examples of where some of you Wish Trip graduates had yours and what they were like. Small with just family? Or bigger with friends and such.
** small update on Mikaela's trip
I got an email saying Mikaela's trip was approved and the wish director is working with GKTW now for dates -- probably sometime in late September.
(I just love that dancin' banana!)
We did a small "party" - family only - at Lauren's house. The MS chapter does not do send off parties OR limo rides to the airport. Instead, they put that money on your expense check and let you use it on your trip.
So each chapter is different. I would suggest a church, restaurant or party play place...
You will go to the greeter at the line and show them your GAC or button. They will direct you to the appropriate place. If the ride does not have a greeter, like Snow White, use the marked handicapped entrance. Your best bet is to get a Guidebook for Guests With Disablities that will tell you where all the alternate/wheelchair entrances are.
Technically, you cannot do child swap with Mya's GAC. The GAC is only to be used if the person it was issued for is riding. I have personally seen CMs deny families front of line because the wish child was not riding the ride. While I would not do it, it does happen. Your best bet is to talk to hte CMs and ask.
ETA: Your best bet for baby swap is to get a Fast Pass for those rides since you will not need them for rides that Mya will be on. Then after the one adult goes you will swap out and go through the fastpass/alternate entrance. (Let them know in advance you are baby swapping.) That will save you a lot of headaches.
ETA2: It never huts to ask because this is one of the things that while against policy you will find some CMs (myself included) who will look the other way. However, our ability to be lenient directly corresponds to the size of the crowd. The less crowded it is, the more lenient I can be. When it's really crowded however, I have to really stick to the policy because the lines are so long. Unfortunately, at the time you will be going the crowds will be pretty sizable (plus it will be hot) so CMs are less likely to be lenient. Your best bet is to have your companion FastPass those adult rides and then do baby swap like normal. (Although again, it never hurts to ask.) The other thing to be aware of is that rides without height requirements do not have baby swap since anybody can ride. I have received this question before in Fantasyland, but we are not set up for that because there really is no need for it.
Our experience on our wish trip was that we had no trouble doing "child swap" or letting Lauren's brother use her GAC/button while Lauren was resting or riding something else.
I would not worry about getting Fastpasses. Your trip is going to be crazy enough without having to worry about fastpasses and times to come back, etc. Most MAW families really need both adults around to help with the special needs child and siblings.
I would just rely on that GAC and button and IF you have a problem (which is highly unlikely) then you could always move on and get a fastpass for later. Or find another CM.
I have not heard of any families in the last year having any trouble getting their needs met and have not heard of any of them getting fastpasses.
But this info only applies to wish families currently on wish trips with the special button...if it is a later trip or not a wish trip - then we would use the fastpass machines.
Sam's trip was just 2 weeks ago...At Disney, you will always see a CM somewhere around the end of the line. Just go up to them and tell them you have a MAW child and they will tell you where to go. If there was a fastpass lane, we just went directly to that lane and they always let us right through. Also, the button/GAC works for characters, too. We always went right to the front of the line. Our family is very quiet and we don't like to bring attention to ourselves and even for us it was easy.
When we went to Universal, we had a harder time with character greets because I had a hard time finding another employee, but when I did, they always took us to the front. Getting to the front of rides there was easy.
Also, there were several of the bigger rides that Sam (wish kid) and I did not ride. We gave the GAC to my husband or my teenage daughter and NEVER had a problem. I don't ride the big rides, but if I did, I would have just done child swap like if we didn't have GAC. We would all go to the front and tell them we wanted to child swap. We didn't do that, but as easy as everything was, I am sure it would have worked.
This is just from our experience, I am sure Disney has their "rules" and you might run into something different, but for us it was super easy to use.
Have fun! I am ready to go back!
I wish I could go with you!!
Mary Anne
This was our experience, too! No problem at all.
My only piece of advice is to make sure the button is EASILY seen - as easy as possible - by putting it on a solid shirt of a different color or something like that.
We just came back from our trip a little over a week ago. I also don't think anyone noticed that we got in front of the line on the rides. Some of the rides they take you through a back way or an employee entrance. The fast pass rides we were able to go right to the front of those. Again I don't think anyone noticed. We also used the handicap entrance and weren't even seen alot of the times. The staff was always so friendly and really want to make your trip special.
We did use the child swap with our button/card. The rides that had child swap we were able to go straight to the front of the line and then one of would ride with DD and when we got off the other one of us would ride with DD again.
If there was no baby swap then they would let us up to the front and just keep DD on while we switched out.
It was very crowded while we were there and also very hot. The more popular rides had 1/12 to 2 hour wait, it was also hot but no problems getting on the rides. (one exception was buzz lightyear but we weren't upset because everyone had been so friendly we were just going to go back when it wasn't so crowded and the CM stopped us and went ahead and took us around).
I am sure they have "rules" to follow but really bend over backwards and probably break the rules alot to make this a special trip. We never took advantage by riding more than one time unless they told us we could stay on if we wanted to. We only did this on a few rides. Mostly if we wanted to ride we went back later.
This was our experience - except without the issue on Buzz.
Thanks again for everyone on this DisBoard. I wrote to photopass and told them about the missing Jedi Training pics. They found them for me and there pics turned out way better than mine did (I never doubted this).
Thanks Jesicca for pointing me in the direction of finding my missing pics. My son is really happy to have some up close photos.
Aw! I am so glad this has helped you! I hope you will hang around and help future wish families....as you have time.
Now...finally caught up!!
I am so glad they found them! My pictures of Sam doing the Jedi Training were not very good either. There is a lady's head in almost all of my pics 
Even though we were only 4 days from our trip, she sprinkled us with fairy dust and wanted to make stuff for my kids! 
My stinky boys told! DD9 didn't know we were staying 10 days! They told! Now she knows that we will be there for her birthday! 
