Too Much Character Dining?

[Scootersbabygirl]

We're staying in Disney for seven nights, and here's the schedule for dining so far:

Tues lunch - CRT
Wed lunch - Akershus
Thurs dinner - Crystal Palace
Fri dinner - 1900 Park Fare
Sat dinner - Chef Mickey
Sun breakfast - Ohana

I had a post up earlier today asking about whether CRT was worth it, and in that post a few people said that I should take off some character dining experiences. I'm trying to pack the most in with our dining plan, and to let the kids experience the characters without having to do lots of line waiting - do I have too much character dining??

 

[Abibaby]

I'll be interested in seeing folks response to this...we are planning our dining and our proposed itenerary is VERY clsoe to this. We have 9,7 and 4 yo girls

 

[mickey&minniealways]

I think that if you have children then no it is not to much. When doing a sit down dinner with kids I have found the don't like to wait for their food. They can get very ansy. They don't always want to wait for others to finish eating which can be very frustrating for the adults in the party. Most character meals are buffets. Many children are picky eaters. A buffet usually means you don't have to wait for food and their is usually something to satisfy every appatiite. My DSs are in their early 20's and usually bring a friend when we go. We are planning to visit again in May after DS's college graduation. Teenage/young adult males tend eat ALOT. So we will probably do alot of buffets even if they are character meals. So no I do not think it is to much.

 

[kdfogliano]

i think they are an easy way to see a lot of characters without waiting in line,
esp if you have young kids!

also if any of your kids are under 3 they eat for free!
we were just there and did 4 character meals in 5 days

i didnt see Tusker house on your list! its my favorite breakfast for characters!
throw in another one!!

 

[Pooh&OurHunny]

For me, there is no such thing as too much character dinning. My son and I love them so if I could I would make ever dinning with characters while at Disney....that's just me of course.
We will be staying at Disney 8 nights and we have the following ADR with my 5yrs old son help:
Crystal Palace breakfast and dinner
Tusker House Breakfast buffet
Hollywood and vine breakfast and lunch (my son requested to eat breakfast and lunch here b/c he loves the song/dance and the characters)
Garden Grill (new for my family)
Cape may breakfast buffet
Chef Mickey
CRT
Akershus Royal (new for my family)

I did make a few Signature ADR for my husband and I so my son gets his character meals and we have some good places to eat at night.

 

[hellokittiemama]

Do you have any other sit down meals that are not char dining booked? The reason I ask is that sometimes its nice to sit down and enjoy a meal without stopping repeatedly to pick up your camera, etc and hopping up for buffet lines, taking kids to the buffet, carrying plates. At least CRT, Akershus (sort of) and Ohana breakfast (LOVE this one!!!) are not buffets.

Since you have 3 princess meals, I'm guessing you have girls - how old?

We love char meals but sometimes I'd like to enjoy a meal non-interrupted!
Oh, I guess that comes after the kids have all grown up...

I'm thinking I might switch one of the dinner ones to breakfast since the only other breakfast I saw on the list was ohana - that might space them out a bit.

 

[MyTwoPrincesses]

I think it's too much, as I posted in the other thread. When we went last November, we had two character meals scheduled and canceled one (1900 Park Fare Breakfast). My kids were almost 5 and 3 and insisted on waiting to see characters anyway. The ONLY characters we avoided waiting in line for were the Princesses because they their greeting spot was hidden from their view in toontown. We ended up seeing the characters in the character spot at Epcot, the World Showcase is chock full of characters, we saw Mickie and Minnie in toontown, tons of characters at DHS, Pocohontas in DAK. They REALLY loved meeting the characters and their faces would light up when they saw them wandering around the park. There was no way we couldn't stop, KWIM. So at least in our experience, character meals were not a replacement for meeting characters and we found that we prefer to spend our credits on non-character meals that offer different experiences.

Personally, I'd do a mix of things - maybe 2 or 3 character meals and the rest regular meals. PP does have a point about antsiness at regular meals. My kids are trained to eat out - we eat out regularly. At least once a week at home. So my kids DON'T get antsy. But if your kids aren't used to eating out, then I guess it wouldn't make sense to have many non-character meals. This trip, I'm debating about how many character meals. We're definitely doing CRT and we MAY do either Garden Grill or breakfast at Crystal Palace. Otherwise, all other meals will be character free.

We found the restaurants below to be great for kids:

Biergarten (fun dance floor for the kids with an oompa band)
Coral Reef (big aquarium)
Sanaa (animals!)

This trip, we're doing Biergaten and Sanaa again and also Ohana dinner and either Chefs de France or Le Cellier.

 

[BigTikiDaddy]

We're staying in Disney for seven nights, and here's the schedule for dining so far:

Tues lunch - CRT
Wed lunch - Akershus
Thurs dinner - Crystal Palace
Fri dinner - 1900 Park Fare
Sat dinner - Chef Mickey
Sun breakfast - Ohana

I had a post up earlier today asking about whether CRT was worth it, and in that post a few people said that I should take off some character dining experiences. I'm trying to pack the most in with our dining plan, and to let the kids experience the characters without having to do lots of line waiting - do I have too much character dining??

Not at all, here is what we have for a 9 night stay...

Sat dinner -1900 Park Fare
Sun breakfast - Crystal Palace
Tuesday Breakfast - Akerhaus
Wednesday Breakfast -Tusker House
Wednesday Dinner - Garden Grille
Thursday Breakfast - CRT
Not to mention we have Sci Fi, Chefs de France and Coral Reef in there as well. We have two DDs who are excited, and so is their mom!

 

[POTCfan]

It all depends on what you want. You are going to find that people have positive and negative reviews of just about every restaurant. And ones that may have lots of positive reviews, but you may not have a good experience (ie, the chef is not having a good day, the waiter is not having a good day, the people and the next table are causing a problem, etc).

That being said, I think if you have a wide variety of character dining, your chances of having several good experiences will be better. Again, I can't tell you which ones will be the good ones, because it could very well change if you did the exact same trip one week later.

The downside to so many character dining experiences is that you don't get to take advantage of other types of dining (and at Disney there are so many other types - but again, everyone is going to have different opinions as to what the "better" place to go to is).

The reason I would recommend CRT is that is a unique dining experience that I don't feel any of the other character dining has. You are actually in the castle, and that is an experience in itself. I did not think the food was bad at all, but I am fairly easy to please. It is 2 credits though, so you have to take that into consideration.

Whatever you do, you will have fun overall. It's Disneyworld. And hopefully your memories are going to be of what you did do - not everything you didn't.

 

[ReneeA]

Oddly enough, my kids don't seem that into character dining. They enjoy getting their pics taken in the park (especially if we find a character in "costume") and like getting their picture taken at the meals...but don't really talk or interact with the characters.

My kids have been to WDW 5 times (they are 7 & 8 now) since they were 2 & 3 and we've done the dining plan every trip, so we've been to a wide variety of dining places in those trips. Their favorite have been: Coral Reef, Teppan Edo, Sci-Fi Diner, and Chef Mickey for dinner.

DD loved the Crystal Palace at 2 for the Pooh characters, but has never expressed an interest in going back since then. She also does not eat one bite while at these meals - even with lots of encouragement. It's just way too big of a distraction for her (even now). We always end up buying her snacks very soon after the meals since she's starving. I always tell the story of leaving Crystal Palace breakfast the year she was 2, her standing on the porch after our meal yelling, "I'm soooo hungry...I want popcorn." This after being at a restaurant with all kinds of breakfast foods that she LOVES and having us pushing food at her for over an hour.

We normally pick one character meal per trip and call it good. Kids are happy, we get good food elsewhere the rest of the trip (DH and I aren't buffet fans).

 

[DW2010]

I do think it's too much. I also would probably pick between CRT and Akershus. 1900 Park Fare is a little different since the step-sisters, etc are there. We are going for 4 nights and have only one character meal scheduled...CRT. We're also taking her to 'Ohana for dinner and Sci-Fi for lunch.

 

[SciGirl]

I don't think it's too many, but you could easily take out the Akershus, since you have CRT (similar characters, lots of overlap) and do somehting else fun at Epcot that day...like Coral reef, or Chefs de France (with Remy). Just an idea...

 

[ancestry]

Well whether it is too much or not is your decision. But with the character dining I have noticed two things:

1) The food is okay but usually isn't the greatest food that Disney has to offer. Many of the character dining events are buffets and the food is just average.

2) Young kids are often so distracted by or excited by the characters that they don't eat much at the meal. I have repeatedly heard and read about parents being frustrated because of the money they spent at the character meal only for their child to be crying that they are hungry less than an hour later.

 

[luvmy2babies]

We are going for 6 nights in November (21st through 27th) and I have 6 scheduled:

Sunday: none
Monday: dinner at Crystal Palace
Tuesday: Breakfast at Chef Mickey's
Wednesday: Dinner at Akershus
Thursday: Breakfast at Hollywood and Vine, Dinner at 1900 Park Fare
Friday: Breakfast at Tusker House
Saturday: none

We're going the week of Thanksgiving so I figure lines for characters will be longer so I'd like to get in the greetings during meals. Plus I've heard it's calmer if you are introducing a child to characters for the first time, which I will be with my son who will be just under a year old. I guess I'll feel like we're still getting something accomplished during this down time.

I haven't taken my children to Disney World, but we have had other character experiences and with the exception of one visit with Dora at Kings Dominion where she was the only child in sight, we always felt very rushed. I'm hoping these meals will offer a different experience. Plus I prefer buffets for us.

At least this time.

 

[one2admire]

I don't think you have too many.
We presently have:
Chef Mickey's
Crystal Palace
'Ohana
Tusker House
Cape May
And, I'm currently on the lookout for a Garden Grill. Its a vacation for the kids and I think they would enjoy all trhe character meals. Also, it beats having to stand in lines for the autographs.

 

[mickey2minnie1]

I do not think you can ever have too many in a given Disney vacation. It beats having to stand in line for everything.

We are doing a short 4 day stay and we have two character meals planned. 1900 Park Fare dinner and Ohana breakfast.

I wish I could have more, but my DS wanted Kona and we are doing LTT for dinner which is not longer character. That was soooo much fun!

Enjoy and have fun!

 

[Alabama Minnie]

I would drop the 1900 dinner since you were lucky enough to get both of the other princess ones. To me it is a good one if you cannot get CRT for your MK day. It is a buffet also and Tusker House might be something different if you can get it.

 

[brivers222]

we have 14 sit down meals (not a fan of counter service) in 10 days there...

your places you have are perfect... we are going to all (plus more) minus Chef Mickey's

oh and we don't have any kids... just love people watching

now if only disney would offer dinning plan for offsiters

 

[whitney6494]

Too many...never!!!!!! But I wouldn't do Akershus for lunch. Yucky food!!!! Do it for breakfast or cancel it all together. I agree with someone else. Do Garden Grille or Coral Reef that day.Your kids won't want to do character meals forever so do them all now.

 

[mom2rtk]

Character dining is one of the fun and unique things you can do at Disney. And you do have to eat, right????

We're doing almost every character meal at Disney on our trip in December and I can't wait!

And to those of you who think she has too many princess meals...... Perish the thought!!!

They're only this age once. Go for it! You're going to have a ball!