Too much Character Dining?

[mickiecake]

Should I schedule Character Dining every day during my stay, or limit them to just a few? We are staying 7 days. Thanks!

 

[DisneyJimbo]

My family and I can't get enough character dining!!!

I wouldn't be afraid to have a character meal every day, but most people would probably think that's a little much. Guess my family and I are just nuts!

 

[MickeyNicki]

DH is a fan of buffets (which the majority are all character meals) so we tend to do a lot of character dining....I say go wherever you want to go and have a great time!

 

[pixiemel]

We do several character dinners because we love the whole experience-character/food/ambiance. Our "must do's" are Chef Mickey's,
Crystal Palace, Liberty Tree, and Garden Grill. Then we also love Sci-Fi and
Tony's Town Square that are non-character. I don't think that you could have
too many character dinners! Enjoy!

 

[grimley1968]

Well, I'll be the voice of dissent:

A character meal every day would drive me bonkers. We have one ADR for the H&V character lunch, one ADR for Liberty Treem and we may try to go to Garden Grille for the character meal there, since GG usually doesn't need an ADR. But we would go to GG for the food, not the characters. We enjoy seeing the characters once, but after that we find it to be tedious. Who needs multiple pics of the characters hugging your kids? Agreed, it's cute, but being cute multiple times doesn't really make it any more memorable for us when we look at videos or pictures we made 5 years in the future.

The only reason we booked H&V is that it offers characters not available at the other meals, and we booked LTT mostly for the food and having characters doesn't hurt. GG would also be for the food and for the rotating scenery. Fortunately, at GG the character interaction is done in a quicker way, which is made possible by the rotation of the restaurant.

We find that we tend to feel compelled to stick around the table far after our meal is consumed, just so we can see every single character hug our girls, and we take way too many pictures, knowing we have dozens of character pictures at home already. In the end, it's usually time that could have been better spent enjoying the parks.

It's sort of the same phenomenon of filming It's a Small World. We must have the entire ride on 5 separate home videos because DW or I feel compelled to tape the WHOLE THING every time we ride it, regardless of how boring that may be when we look at it with a few more gray heads in our heads.

 

[Christine]

This is really a "personal" choice kind of thing. I had one trip where I did a LOT of character meals. While fun, I will tell you that by the third or fourth meal, I was tired of stopping mid-bite to "interact" with Chip and make jokes with him, or do another high-five with Dale. At some point, I just wanted to eat my dinner, not have to stop and take yet another picture, etc. But that's me. You might love this meal after meal. It just got to me after awhile.

 

[jenb1023]

We booked four character meals for our January 08 trip (one is CRT which counts for 2 TS). We did three during our April trip. I figure the more character meals we do the less standing in line we will have to do to get certain characters photos/autographs. We really enjoy the character meals!

 

[nikjd68]

I say GO FOR IT!

We are going in a week for 7 days and we are doing Chef Mickey's, Ohana's (DS4's favorite Disney characters are Lilo and Stitch), Liberty Tree and CRT. We are also doing 50's Prime Time, Biergarten, and Boma as non-character.

This is my DS's first trip to Disney. He will only see WDW for the first time once and we wanted to make that first time a little special. We also think he is at the perfect age to appreciate the character meals.

 

[belle&beast]

Our last visit our kids were 2 and 4. We did Akershus, CP (2 times!), 1900 PF, CM, and CRT (dinner- met Cindy in the lobby). We did not feel it was too much0 the kids loved each interaction!

During our upcoming December trip, we are doing a lot again because the kids will be 3 and 6 and they still are really into the characters. We are going to 1900 PF (dinner this time), LTT, CRT (lunch), HV, and GG. We think this may be the last trip that our DD is so excited by the characters, so we want to go all out. Maybe we'll be wrong (we hope so!!!) but we want to get as many in as we can while the magic is still there!

 

[Kanga1]

Enjoy them while you have little ones. We're a big fan of character meals and book as many as we can. It's so much nicer to meet the characters at a meal rather than stand in those long lines.

Our last trip we were there for 13 days and went to 9 character meals! We went to CRT, Akershus, 1900 Park Fare, Donald's Breakfastaurus, Chef Mickey's, Liberty Tree Tavern, Hollywood & Vine, 'Ohana and Crystal Palace. Wow, now that I look at this I just realized that the only ones we DIDN'T go to was Garden Grill and Cape May Cafe. No wonder we came home with 3 full autograph books!

 

[mickiecake]

Thanks! I think I may do 4 or so.. now to just choose which ones LOL

 

[Quinn222]

I'm one of those who thinks every day is too much. Your kids will hardly eat at character meals and they may burn out on characters before very long doing them every day.

 

[EpcotLove]

Too many character meals could drive you crazy. You want to enjoy your food...

 

[slo]

We do tons of character dining every trip.

Our must do's are.........
Crystal Palace for breakfast
Cinderellas Royal Table for breakfast
Chef Mickey's for either dinner or breakfast (depends on the trip)
Liberty Tree for dinner
Garden Grill for dinner


We have also done, but are not must haves.........
Playhouse Disney breakfast (wouldn't do again)
'Ohanas for breakfast
Askerus (sp?) for breakfast (wouldn't do again)
1900 Park Fare for dinner

 

[KevGuy]

I don't think you can ever have too much character dining, just ask my kids lol!

 

[DisneyArk]

On our last trip our sons were 6 and 8 and they enjoyed just doing a few character meals. Surprisingly, they really enjoyed the interesting restaurants and cool desserts more than the character meals. So their favorites were Prime Time Diner, Le Cellier (chocolate moose dessert) and Coral Reef.

Their favorite character meals are Chef Mickey's and 'Ohana breakfast with Stitch.

Have fun making your choices!