Too many Character Meals?

[cwasil]

In your experience, is there a "how many character meals is too many", answer. My guess is that we'll be going to WDW for 7-10 days and on a dining plan. In looking at all the restaurants, you could almost hit a character meal everday if you chose to. When we go my kids will be 4DD, 5DS & 14DD...obviously I don't think the 14 year old will much care but I assume the my other two will enjoy it. I can't really see them getting bored if we decide to hit 4 or 5 of these but thought I'd bring it up and see if you had any input into all of this. Thank you.

 

[jog58]

I don't actually have any children but in my personal opinion I think that if you choose meals that have different characters each time I don't see how they could get boring. But that's just my two cents, good luck!

 

[Miss Mo]

Well we did two last year and my son, then 15 months loved both. So did I!! This year because we are on the Dining Plan we have booked LOADS!!! Well we have booked Crystal Palace, Chef Mickey's (one breakfast and one dinner), Donald's Breakfastosauras and the Playhouse Disney one at Hollywood and Vine for lunch. I think that's probably enough though - lol! My thoughts are that buffets suit us better foodwise anyway and we're at Disney and on the Dining Plan. We only have the one and he's just turned two and loves all the characters. Every one we are doing has different characters.

If we do find it's all getting a bit much then I guess we can cancel and let someone else have a shot.

mo x

 

[Stephaniecmc]

We are firm believers that character meals saves time from having to see those characters in the parks. We still will visit them in the parks if the lines aren't too long, but the meals are fun and convenient. And you've got to eat, so make the most of it!

 

[DISNEYFOS]

I don't there is a "too many" if you like them and the kids like them. We have done a bunch on a few trips... and it does save you from having to wait in line...

There have been times though when you might feel you just want to sit for a relaxing meal, hang out with your family...Character meals are not relaxing... Jump up for this picture.. make sure you go to the buffet in between characters coming around.. Kids not eating because they are excited to see the next character..etc.

Just a thought

 

[ncmomof2]

I don't think there are too many. The character meals are often buffets which works well with kids and like a previous post said, it saves time seeing the characters. We are going for the 6 h time in the fall and 6 out of 7 of our ADRs are character meals. It would have been 7 if there were more dinner character meals!

 

[MyDizneyBoyz]

I will go against the flow and say that I think it is possible to have too many character meals. We usually do 1 or 2 for a week long trip and that's enough for us (boys are 2, 3, and 5). But then we don't like to be committed to a schedule and would rather hop around the parks without worrying about having to be in a certain place at a certain time.

The boys also don't eat that much at character meals, even the buffets, as they're too busy watching everyone take pictures and waiting for the next character to appear so an hour later they're complaining that they're hungry...

 

[Random65]

10 day trip last June with our 2 and 3 year old princesses.

8 character meals

Tusker House
Ackershus
Hollywood and Dine
Crystal Palace
Cinderellas Lunch
1900 Park Faire
Garden Grille
Chef Mickey

Unplanned and no character meal was Liberty Tavern.

Cutting out Hollywood and Dine and Chef Mickey on our coming up July trip.

 

[jimsanfilippo]

I would say it depends on how into it your kids are and how much you want to have to be somewhere at a certain time. Any scheduled meal can be a real hassle when you have to stop everything to make a reservation time. Your kids may not like cutting short a good time at Disney World to go eat. Our son really didn't care much about the characters and it became too cumbersome to keep making scheduled meal times, so we pretty much stopped doing them.

 

[deannanb]

I asked the same question when I started planning our ADRs - I figured this will be an easy way for us to see characters - and not have to chase after them in the parks.

I've planned our park visits based on our breakfasts - early breakfasts so we have some food in our tummys (DH especially!) and then we are already at the park ready to go.

Crystal Palace - MK -
Tusker House (Donald) - AK
Ohana's - Epcot (not in the park but on the way)
Hollywood and Vine - DHS
quick breakfast using extra snack credits
Chef Mickey on the day we leave

 

[Amirah95]

I currently have three on my list and just the other day I was thinking I had too many character meals lined up. I think that over a week...one per day is a bit a much. We go for 7 nights and would only do one in the past, but since we have a LO now I have added two more. I guess it would also depend on the ages of the children as well. I also find that the little ones eat less or not at all when there is a lot of character commotion going on as well so I have to watch that with my LO, but that's another story.

 

[brymolmom]

Add me to the list of believing there can be TOO MANY character meals.

Now, they are fun and yes you get to see a lot of characters - it's the actual eating that lacks. Picture this:
Get to your table - get out autograph book, camera, etc
Go to buffet and check out selections
grab a couple of items
See minnie near your table -rush back to table
grab camera - take pics
get autographs
Take a few bites of food
One kid wants something else - adult runs to buffet to get it
See Goofy near your table - rush back
grab camera - take pics
get autographs
and so on....and so forth - you get the picture.

SO by the end - very little actual eating and when you do - it is hurried.

THIS is why I think there can be too many of this type of meal. On vacation, I enjoy at least a couple of more 'relaxed' meals.

For a week we do about 3 or so.

Good luck with your decision.

 

[DisneyFamily123]

I look at it this way. I can eat at plain old restaurants at home. When at Disney World, I want to dine at the fun, unique places like the character meals. We especially like Donald's Safari Breakfast at Tusker House, Ohana with Lilo and Stitch, and Crystal Palace. There's some fun places without characters too -- like Restaurant Marrakesh (belly dancing), Sci Fi Diner (movies), and Biergarten (German music and dancing). That being said.... we did dine at several signature restaurants for dinners... and did the fun places for breakfast and lunch. There's also the shows... like HoopDeDoo, Mickeys Backyard BBQ and Spirit of Aloha, all of which we enjoyed.

 

[littlbugmom]

My kids do NOT want to stand in long lines to see the characters, so character meals let us spend time with our favorites without standing and standing and standing.

However, there is a "too many" number for our family. We do 2 or 3 for a 9 or 10 day trip. During our first trip, we were on the dining plan and just didn't like having so many sit down meals. We only tour the parks for a few hours in the morning and then go back to the room for the afternoon. We have dinner and then return to the parks for an couple hours. The sit down restaurants and character meals take up too much time for us.

This year, we're doing:

Chef Mickey breakfast on a non-park day
Donald's Safari Breakfast (we need to meet Daisy!)
and one more we haven't decided on yet

 

[arcticdisneylovers]

We really go to character meals so we don't have to "waste" time in the parks standing in line to see the characters. The food is generally NOT good. On our 7 night trip in January we did:

Chef Mickey's Supper
Chef Mickey's Breakfast
Cinderella's Castle Breakfast
Norway Princess Storybook Breakfast
Donald's Safari Breakfast
1900 Park Fare
LTT character lunch
Garden Grill - we cancelled the last day, I couldn't face another one

We will be going again next January and we will do at least one character meal a day What we will do for our kids

 

[southtexasmom]

Our first few trips we ate one character meal every single day.

Now we might do one or two for an entire 10 day trip. My family would rather grab counter service and quickly get back to the rides.

 

[luvdumbo]

As long as you have a variance in characters it doesn't get to be too much. Besides saves time waiting in character lines at the parks. For our upcoming vacation we have chef mickeys, crystal palace, 1900 park fare supercalifragilistic breakfast, ohana best friends breakfast, garden grill with chip and dale, and 1900 park fare dinner with cinderella and her stepsisters.
That may seem like alot but we are going for two weeks and they are spread out so its not like we are hopping from character meal to character meal.

 

[LWatson]

I think its good to limit them because we really got worn out w/ them. We did 1 our first time (Crystal Palace), and we thought that was nice not to have to wait to see Pooh...etc. So, this past trip we scheduled 5. I was so tired of not being able to eat, or having to sit at the table longer because "eeyore" or "donald" had not come yet even though we were done. We did

Tony's (not a character)
Hollywood & Vine Play & Dine (the characters were really good w/ the kids...this was enjoyable.)
Garden Grill (Another really enjoyable one...very relaxed)
Tusker House (very cramped where we were and a long walk to the buffet)
Chef Mickeys (horribly slow characters...we waited forever to get all characters to come and the food was not that good)
Crystal Palace (didnt like it the 2nd time...characters were really slow)
50's Prime Time Cafe (not a character and horrible service)

We were constantly up and down, moving kids to take the picture, finding the autograph page, getting more food, etc. It was stressful to keep getting up and down.

This time we are just doing Garden Grill so we dont have to wait in line to see Mickey, Pluto, Chip, & Dale. We really enjoyed that meal last time, esp since there isnt any up & down for food because they bring it to you.

 

[SmallWorld71]

As you can see, there is a wide range of opinions on this. My opinion is YES, you can definitely have too many character meals. Although they are lots of fun, I also find them to be much more stressful than other meals. You have to worry about the camera, the autograph books, the napkin waving, the parade marching, going to the buffet while making sure you don't miss any characters, not to mention the actual character interaction and getting your kids to eat! Never mind enjoying your own food!
I limit our character meals to 3 per trip: One with Mickey and friends, one with Pooh and friends and one princess meal. That way we save ourselves from some character lines (we spend enough time waiting for those fairies!) but we also get to enjoy some of Disney's other great restaurants which the kids love just as much.

 

[Amirah95]

As you can see, there is a wide range of opinions on this. My opinion is YES, you can definitely have too many character meals. Although they are lots of fun, I also find them to be much more stressful than other meals. You have to worry about the camera, the autograph books, the napkin waving, the parade marching, going to the buffet while making sure you don't miss any characters, not to mention the actual character interaction and getting your kids to eat! Never mind enjoying your own food!
I limit our character meals to 3 per trip: One with Mickey and friends, one with Pooh and friends and one princess meal. That way we save ourselves from some character lines (we spend enough time waiting for those fairies!) but we also get to enjoy some of Disney's other great restaurants which the kids love just as much.

My thoughts exactly! Great post!