Someone with boys has to agree with me!

[Reddy]

how about a Star Wars meal??

 

[jennabcassell]

I agree, as a mom to a 5 year old boy!! There are so many gender neutral options that Disney could have taken! I am glad to see KP gone and have the Agent P game at Epcot. My son loves it! Yet New Fantasyland is really girly! I mean you have another Ariel ride/attraction, the Belle thing, and a Snow White/dwarfs mine train ride coming. I only hope that its less girly than the others. Did you see between Peter Pan and IASW a Rapunzel tower is going in? Another meet and greet area?...yet girly. Same goes for the merchandise. Please, please change it up and get something else for boys!!!! I think I have 2 of every bus/ride vehicle pack out there. My son sees the Mickey Mouse clubhouse sets that are pink and have minnie and daisy in them and goes looking for the red ones with mickey and donald yet there are none. Why can't they make them in red too? Girls will still want to play with it. The clubhouse is red on the show, not pink. I know the pirates league was the boy answer to the bibbity boppity boutique but there needs to be something else. Princess dresses are everywhere and my son wants to dress up besides a pirate and a t-shirt. They could do boys capes or something, toy story, incredibles, monsters, star wars, cars, pluto......And don't get me started on the character meals.... Disney has this huge untapped potential that they need to corner!

 

[tiffjoy]

I only have girls, but I guess I'm uncomfortable with the gender labeling. I see no reason why boys are unable to enjoy anything "girly." My DD3 loves pirates (our only paid dress up experience so far was the pirates themed one and she loved it), Mickey Mouse, Captain Hook, the Star Wars ride, Handy Manny.... I am sure I could come up with more "boyish" stuff she likes. She also likes the princesses, the color pink (and blue) and dresses.

I understand every child has their likes and dislikes. But I wonder why my DD is capable of enjoying both boy and girl themed activities, characters, and rides, but boys are not? I'm just a bit confused, I suppose.

 

[Mom2six]

But I wonder why my DD is capable of enjoying both boy and girl themed activities, characters, and rides, but boys are not? I'm just a bit confused, I suppose.

Girls are more flexible with that sort of thing, in my experience. I think it has a lot to do with our changing culture that has opened up the world for girls, and more work by parents to make sure that girls know they can do whatever they want. Little boys are a bit more inflexible - and again, I don't know if it is because our culture hasn't caught up or if it is a biological need to identify as boys/men.

I have never tried to sway my DS4 away from anything "girly." We are so very accepting of whatever he wants to play with or try. He has autism and has been mostly non-verbal. He didn't start to play for the first 2 and a half years of his life. So if he wants to play with his sister's barbies or Princesses - great. I'd buy him one of his own if he wanted. (He doesn't have much of an interest). When he was jealous of his sister's toes because they were painted pink (his favorite color for over a year - now it's orange), we painted them.

He however if very particular. For some reason that I don't understand, he will not eat cheerios out of a bowl with pictures of princesses or "girly" things. I don't even know how he knows what is considered "girly." We've never told him. My DD6 (who is very girly and thinks she's a teenager) plays with any type of toy that strikes her fancy. She adores princesses, but loves Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean too. She plays with cars when the mood strikes her.

So, while ideally, these labels could go away, little boys like what they like. There's nothing we can do about it!

I have two sons - 4 and 14. I'd love more "boy" themed activities...and it would provide more variety for everyone!

 

[housetomouse]

Yes, they were/are all boys.

Then again, most of the princes don't even have names. They are mostly interchangeable. Peter Pan? A Peter Pan meal would be awesome. Pinnochio is a boy, but to be fair he started out as wood. The Seven Dwarfs are companions to yet another princess. The others? Well, my 6 1/2 year old considers himself a bit old for them. I think putting Mickey and co in a show for preschoolers has had a big role in that. The characters are seen as preschool characters and he's beyond that. He still likes Chip and Dale, based in part on the old Rescue Rangers show.

I never thought of Mickey and co as being primarily for little kids when I was growing up, but then the Mouseketeers were aimed older than little kids. Aim the characters at a higher age and the boys (and girls) are likely to like them for longer.

I do think the boy market is smaller, but I think a big part of that is the marketing over the last oh, 20 years. It's not a shock that boys like action heroes and superheroes, but what is Disney offering them? Stitch is cool, but he hangs out with a little girl. Flynn Rider is good, but you can't pretend that movie isn't really about Rapunzel. Old princess movies are still marketed heavily. Snow White is how old now? Boy movies were largely ignored.

Disney tried drawing boys in with the Epic Mickey video games, but mine never had any interest.

I agree that Disney doesn't do much with boys as main characters, they usually have only a supporting role. I'm not sure I consider Mickey, Chip & Dale in the same conversation as princesses, since they are animals not humans.

 

[housetomouse]

I only have girls, but I guess I'm uncomfortable with the gender labeling. I see no reason why boys are unable to enjoy anything "girly." My DD3 loves pirates (our only paid dress up experience so far was the pirates themed one and she loved it), Mickey Mouse, Captain Hook, the Star Wars ride, Handy Manny.... I am sure I could come up with more "boyish" stuff she likes. She also likes the princesses, the color pink (and blue) and dresses.

I understand every child has their likes and dislikes. But I wonder why my DD is capable of enjoying both boy and girl themed activities, characters, and rides, but boys are not? I'm just a bit confused, I suppose.

At some point most boys will start to identify with characters of their own gender. They won't find those characters very often at Disney. I'm not a child development person so I don't know why this is so, it is just my observation.

As for Pirates, those movies had pretty awesome female leads

 

[3pletprincesses]

I'm the mother of 4 girls and I am seriously sick and tired of princess everything LOL I too would like to see variation. we go every year and after so many times of doing the same meals, it would be nice to have soemthing different. Even my girls asked me the other day if we had any new meals for our upcoming trip. I said that I might have one,BOG, but wasn't sure. They were dissapointed. They mention even skipping most of the character meals and we are talking about 6yo little girls. Now that says alot.

 

[stink]

A Star Wars character meal at DHS would be great. I do not have Kiddos and I'd go. Now that Disney bought StarWars from Lucas maybe it will happen.

 

[AntFarm]

My boys have never felt Disney catered more to them than girls. Lots of stuff at Disney World for everyone. Just because the princess characters and stuff are highly marketed doesn't mean there is more for girls than boys. There are only three "princess" meals total. As for character/themed meals, my boys love T Rex, Tusker House, Chef Mickey's, Hollywood & Vine, etc. For experiences you have Pirates League at MK, Jedi Training Academy at HS, pirate cruises from the resorts, and Disney Quest in Downtown Disney which my boys can't wait to try out. As for resorts, there is All Star Sports and the Cars buildings at Art of Animation. The Fantasyland expansion and the princesses only make up a fraction of the Magic Kingdom. You can't really label anything just for "boys" anywhere because a lot of stuff that boys like girls like too, that is really the issue.

 

[bennifer]

Look at it this way Op, I tend to save way more money because every thing is so "girl" specific. the only souvenirs my kids wanted was Indiana Jones stuff and some star wars things.

They are some great "animal" characters (Pooh, tigger, chip etc) and we have a few pics with Jack sparrow and captain hook.

I've always thought that disney really missed the boat with their villians. with all the awesome bad guys, I think the opportunities are endless.

True! I used to get mad at the small amount for boys, but then I talked to a friend with girls and found out how much they were spending! LOL

 

[chrystie4141]

I totally agree. We are taking our 3rd trip in May with our 6 year old. I think more Star Wars, IJ and Pirates would be great. We would pay big bucks for it. Just in comparison we do Disney for 7 days spend maybe $200 on extras (those are at Hollywood Studios on Star Wars and IJ stuff) and we do Unversial Studios for only 2 days and spend roughly $500 on extas with Spiderman, Harry Potter, Hulk, etc. US does a much better job at gearly things towards boys. I thing Disney would be surprised at how much moms would spend on boys if they gave them a chance. My DS's favorite park is HS (and now they have the pirate thing he will freak out). Simple put because it is the most boy friendly park in Disney we think.

 

[pamkat1820]

every time I start planning for our trip I feel bad for my son. I feel like all of our meals are centered around his sister. I love winnie the pooh but my kids really do not care for them at all so we don't eat at crystal palace. I would love a meal with toy story or pirates. even the playing field a little.

It would have been nice to see regular rooms at AOA split with a boys/ girls rooms.

 

[Crystal Brewer]

O if WDW could jump in the MineCraft epidemicrofl

 

[dryomama]

AGREED! More neutral stuff! I love the princesses, but come on! There is soooo much more stuff out there that Disney could market at the parks!

 

[jennybdis]

I would LOVE to see Disney go in a more gender-neutral direction. That's the way we've tried to raise our kids, and the "Princess Pedestal" that Disney has always been on, while nostalgic, really turned us off from visiting the parks when my daughter was young. Her version of Disney has always been Pixar-centered, rather than Princess-centered.

 

[Reese D]

I have one of each, but as they get older, there are fewer character meals that interest them. My 7 yo daughter has little interest in Princesses at this point. We are doing Akershus on our next trip, but I don't think she's all that excited about it.

I agree with some other posters - characters aimed toward older kids of both genders would be great - Phineas and Ferb, Pirates, Toy Story etc. would be great.

On the other hand - Princesses are a cash cow. I can see why there is such a focus on them.

 

[piratemamaof3]

I second some of these thought. Heck I am more interested in Pirates than princesses however I really want to see Merida. I am not a girly girl and a some of the princesses annoy me. LOL I think other options outside of princess or classic Mickey would be nice. Star Wars dinner, P&F, Pirates, even Peter Pan offers a lot of different people. I hope they continues with the Haunted Mansion room, I think that's a neutral theme room.

 

[dminnie]

I'm sure Disney will eventually come around. Lego did. They used to have nothing for girls except a few craft type kits that weren't even Legos. Now they have several sets that are geared towards girls. Of course, any of them can be for anyone...but for some reason this seems to make a difference to many kids.

 

[dalayney]

Preaching to the choir!

My 14yr old was just talking about this. Don't get me wrong, he's excited to go? But he was saying how cool it would be if they had a Star Wars character meal. Villians, pirates and star wars. They really need to expand on that. Otherwise,once their kids hit a certain age.... people always end up over at Universal/IOA.....

I adore disney world and so does my husband, but we see us spending more time at the other place as our boys get older. (they're 7 & 14 right now)

 

[mamabear0222]

My dd is not into princesses at all. She is just like my son and loves all boy things. She would pick Buzz over princesses any day. Thankfully when we go for the first time they both like Mickey but that won't be the case ongoing. ...

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