Sister is scared of characters, tips?

[disneychickforever]

Okay, my parents and I are talking about going to WDW for my 18th birthday in November, but we have one little problem. My sister has a phobia of characters, for as long as I can remember. We tried telling her they are just normal people in costumes to make kids happy, and they won't hurt her, and she seemed okay, but then we went to a character breakfast last time, and she hid under the table from Minnie and Chip, and Chip I guess thought she was playing, and peaked under, and she screamed so loud a deaf person could have heard her.......yea....bad experience......that was about three years ago, she is eight now, and but gets upset if we talk about seeing charaters. How can we help her get over this fear? Disney is such a great place, and I feel bad that she is missing out....

Anyway, hope you can help.....

Disneychickforever

 

[antree]

Your sister was a lot younger last time you were there. I don't know if she would go screaming under a table but she might not want anything to do with them. I don't know if this would help but try taking her to a costume rental place. Show her the costume and try putting it on, explain to her that this is exactly what Disney has, people in costumes. Or you can skip the characters and just see the real face ones. You can do Cinderella Castle for a meal, I think it is just all Princesses there. She might never get over her fear. My daughter has a fear of balloons since she was a toddler. She is 12 today and still has a the fear of balloons, she is afraid they will pop. She won't watch any fireworks because of the loud popping sounds it makes.
Don't push her let her see them from a distance, and maybe before the end of your stay she might say "HI" to one of them.

 

[nin8jc]

WOW! My DD4 did the same exact thing! Twice! She too has a phobia of characters but is okay w/ the princesses and any character that shows its face. She is well aware that they are only people in costumes but they are "strangers" and that is what she can't get past. I think when she can see the face she can at least read the person and see that they're "okay." She tells us that maybe when she's 6 she won't be afraid anymore (time will tell). We just let her hide under a napkin or the table and steer the characters away from her so as not to cause her any more stress over the situation. Good luck and enjoy your trip.

 

[PA Princess]

We have had this issue with dd. Last summer she was 4 turning 5 during the trip, and she was petrified of characters in costume. She says that it is creepy that they can see her and she can't see them...kinda hard to argue with her logic in a way.

We just avoided the costumed characters and only did face characters, but we still had a few issues. For instance, we went to see the Muppet show, and we thought for certain she would freak when the big muppet guy came out front (we were of course in the front row). But she surprised us by handling that okay. She said she knew he was confined to a certain area (sorta a roped off stage area on the floor), and that he would not be coming at her.

We also attended Cinderella's dinner at the GF, but we did not realize Suzy and Perla would be there. DD decided we needed a sign to tell the mice to keep their distance, so we made one on the back of the place mat...Please, no mice visits. Dh also spoke to the hostess. Those gals were just awesome! They literally swooped by our table quick as could be and dd was fine. In fact she even commented at the end of the night that they were nice mice characters - high praise from her

In the year since that trip dd has really started to get better about characters. In fact she was at a baseball game last night and had characters around and she was fine (and she has always been very afraid of these characters in the past). I think it is part of growing older?

So prehaps the increased age of your sister will help? Also, showing her the boundaries of the characters and that they must stick to those (and avoiding free roaming characters) will help her feel more at ease from our experience. As well, I would seek out opportunities at home to encounter characters to give her practice and you and idea of how she will be in WDW.

 

[disneychickforever]

see thats another problem, she doesn't even do Santa, which can see her, etc. She said she may go up to Mary Poppins and Cinderella, but wants the other charaters to stay away, but she also said that she might do Lilo, which isn't a face charater, since she is from her favorite movie. So, we'll have to see, we do have two charater meals booked, one breakfast and one dinner, so we'll just have to see.

Thanks again for helping guys!!!!