No Autographs or Characters

[nnyl_irret]

A friend of mine just got back from Florida where she spent a day at MK with her two daughters 4 & 6. They did not collect any autographs or visit any Characters... none at all. I have never heard of this before... we went last year for just one day too and DD5 collected several autographs and had so much fun with the Characters. Has anyone else gone to the park and not done autographs or character visits?

 

[newdrama12]

Sure did. Yesterday with my 4 year old nephew. He had no desire at all to see or meet any of them.

 

[TotallyTink]

Yep. When my kids were younger, we didn't do characters. They weren't interested so we didn't bother. As they have gotten older they enjoy it but we still don't make a big effort to hunt for characters. If we see a character with a short line we stop and if the line is too long we skip it. If our family only had one day at MK, I doubt we would bother with characters even now. It is time consuming and there is so much else to do and see.

 

[DonaldTDuck]

We all are shocked when others tour differently from ourselves. I was shocked that people would rather hang out at the pool in the afternoon. But as Gary Coleman taught us, Different Strokes.

 

[Bradsdadg]

We've never asked for autographs before. I just figured them a waste since they aren't real and aren't worth anything. I do have sports autographs that have value though. So I am looking at it from a different prospective. This year we are going to meet more characters then just from a character meal. I'm hoping to see Buzz and Woody myself, then whoever my Wife and 5 yr old son wants to meet as well.

 

[maddiesmom0116]

A friend of mine just got back from Florida where she spent a day at MK with her two daughters 4 & 6. They did not collect any autographs or visit any Characters... none at all. I have never heard of this before... we went last year for just one day too and DD5 collected several autographs and had so much fun with the Characters. Has anyone else gone to the park and not done autographs or character visits?

We have skipped autographs before for a whole trip, twice actually. My DD6 had no interest in doing this her first and third trips. The last 2 and the one coming up I am not so lucky. We have always meet the characters though.

 

[nnyl_irret]

We all are shocked when others tour differently from ourselves. I was shocked that people would rather hang out at the pool in the afternoon. But as Gary Coleman taught us, Different Strokes.

Haha, well it's not exactly shock of difference since we have only been for the one day. I just more curious to see if others skipped characters and autographs too. Who knows, DD might have no interest when we go this year... I certainly won't force her to stand in line for autograph if it doesn't interest her.

 

[harpinjean]

Never waited in line for characters or autographs. My kids were never in to it. We have had interaction with characters at dinners and occasionally come upon a character with no line and then we would stop for a quick picture, but never an autograph.

 

[ToddyLu]

If Mickey had ever walked up to me before the age of 12, I would have completely freaked out. My brother used to take great delight in making characters approach me. Didn't like Santa or the Easter Bunny, either. I spent a lot of time my first trip to WDW in 2002 at age 34 getting autographs...then lost the book before we left.

 

[Hannathy]

Never waited in line for characters or autographs. My kids were never in to it. We have had interaction with characters at dinners and occasionally come upon a character with no line and then we would stop for a quick picture, but never an autograph.

Yep us to. One trip when my DD was about 4 she had a book and IF we came across one without a long line we would get it signed but not if the line was over 2 or 3 people,had the ice cream social and got sigs there. Other trips only a picture if there was no line. My DS has no interest in the photos or signatures.
So yes we can go a whole day without a pic or photo. I never got the waiting in line for an hour to get a kid in colleges signature! Give me the rides and shows.

 

[bumbershoot]

As a kid I was frightened by the characters, so we never visited them.

If we were doing a one-day trip (and we've done one-days at DLR) there's absolutely NO chance we would take the time to meet a character unless we were literally walking by just as they came out to greet people and there was absolutely NO line.

DS and DH like the characters. If they didn't, we wouldn't meet them.

 

[fairestoneofall]

on our trip last year, we didn't collect autographs. we did greet certain favorite characters though, for pictures. it was freeing to not have to worry about the autograph book.

we did collect autographs this past june though. my kids share one book though.

on a one day trip though, we'd definitely skip it.

 

[Art 1]

Have never stood in line to meet any or get an autograph. Never saw the point of it and the kids never asked.

 

[amberjack]

My kids (6 & 3) don't really care about meeting the characters. They've met a few when lines weren't long and they were kind of like, "Ok, that was nice. What's the next ride????"

 

[walkdmc]

I play it by ear. Usually we're so interested in getting to the attractions, we bypass the character lines. Plus, we don't take a lot of time to interact with the characters, so everyone gets a turn.

That said, we book a lot of character meals and get autographs there.

 

[MomofKatie]

We managed to avoid character autographs and meet & greet lines until DD was 7. We did a few character meals when she was younger, but no autographs. We just tried to avoid the whole thing, since DH is very impatient with waiting in line for characters, but DD "caught on" on our fall '05 trip when she saw other kids getting signatures.

She enjoyed collecting autographs the last several trips- I am kind of hoping, though, that she grows out of it for our November trip. It really does save lots of time whan we don't have to stop for every meet & greet we see, and she will be 12 for our next trip. She hasn't wanted to do any more character meals in the past year or so, so she might be ready to give up on the autograph book.

 

[brytorlyn]

Til last year we had never collected an autograph and we have been to Disney about 8 times with combinations of our 3 kids. The only characters we had ever visited were at character meals but we didn't collect autographs and our kids won't (thankfully) stand in a line up to see characters. We had to beg DD 8, who decided for the first time to bring an autograph book last year, to stand in line behind about 4 kids to see her favourite characters, Jasmine and Aladdin. My kids think that the parks are all about the rides and activities.

 

[Withacy]

Personally, I always find it strange that people DO stand in line for autographs. Seems like a waste of time to me. On the occassions when I've taken children, I've done a couple character meals - and that was fine for them. But none of them was ever interested in getting autographs. Even the 7 year old thought it was lame.

I think parent attitude has a lot to do with it. It seems to me the kids with parents who think it's important tend to be the ones who "want" to do it the most. Though I've seen a lot of crying kids in those lines (and with the characters) who didn't seem like they wanted it all that badly.

 

[Stitchnut]

Yes, years ago we took our son(5) for a day trip to MK and it was his choice not to do the autographs/signatures. We had a wonderful day and got to do a lot more because we weren't waiting for the characters. Years later, that's pretty much all my daughter wants to do. I say ask the kids what is important to them and go with it.

 

[MM27]

I don't expect to visit many characters when I go in April because my niece is coming and she freaks out when she gets too close to any costumed character.