Some character meet & greet questions

[Brudette]

During our upcoming trip, my children will be 4 and 6, and so I think we will be spending a lot of time trying to find and meet characters. I'm trying to get a sense for how this works so I can make the best use of our time. We are going the second week in September, with 4 day park hoppers on Mon, Tues, Thurs and Fri.

-Will most of our character interactions be at organized "Meet and Greet" spots as shown on the park map, or are there a significant number of characters roaming the parks?

-How long should I expect (roughly) to wait in a meet and greet line? I'm hoping our dates will afford us some better wait times for things like this. (Excluding Anna & Elsa, we will probably just skip them).

-Are there good times to meet certain characters to get shorter waits?

-Where are some good places that characters hang out aside from formal meet and greet locations? Do lines form at these?

-How long is an appropriate amount of time to spend with characters? I want to get the most we can out of it, but don't want to be rude to others waiting their turn.

-Any other tips for making character meets a great experience for my kids? I'm planning on making our own autograph books and taking our own pictures (no photopass). Any suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[djmeredith]

As a WDW vet, I had lots of questions about character meet and greets while planning for my trip (that begins in 2 days, yay). I'm going to try to post a link to the Super Thread I made. Sorry in advance if the link doesn't work.

http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3271308

 

[NiceOneSimba]

The superthread posted above definitely has great information about where most characters hang out. There are some who roam (like Peter Pan), but most are in those general areas.

If you see a character out and about, there will most likely be a line. Most of the face characters manage their own lines. They'll tell you where to stand if it's not obvious, and will call you up when it's your turn. They're also pretty good about saying something like "Oh my! It's almost time for tea with the Fairy Godmother. I have to be on my way soon" when they aren't taking any more people in the line. The other characters often--but not always--have a handler who will get the line set up and keep things moving, and let you know if the line is closing.

I think the right amount of time to spend is the time it takes to give hugs, get your autograph books signed, pose for a few pictures and have a brief conversation. Honestly, it doesn't take long--a minute or two, maybe? If you're not quite sure, I'd say follow the character's lead. They are really great about giving everyone enough time to feel special while keeping the line moving.

As strange as it sounds, you might want to prepare your kids that many of the characters don't talk, or prepare yourself an answer for why they don't in advance. My DD had lots of questions about that on our last trip, and took me by surprise. While I paused to come up with a response, she just said, "I think it must be a guy in a costume, since Mickey is a cartoon, right?" Didn't seem to bother her any, but it felt like an epic Mom Fail at the time. She still thinks the princesses are real, though!

Have a great trip!

 

[nikkislaght]

When doing our DL day we start off in Toon town.. I find that we can withn an hour get up to 4 M & G's done, MIckey. MInnie , Goofy and Pluto, plus the two rides and explore the jail etc.. Then we head over to the princesses if the kids want.. if they dont want to visit with the ladies we hit the rides...
as we make our way back towards the gates if we run into a character that the kids want we will stop.. and then at main square you will always find some one out and about..

 

[perlster]

To avoid redundancy, I will add some information in the "superthread" linked above.