Waiting Hours for Anna and Elsa...Worth It?

[redsbe]

The bolded is the key!! There is no way these little kids would know they are there and that they can meet them unless the parents tell them! So they won't be disappointed in not meeting someone that they don't know is there.

Frankly when our kids were young enough to what to meet the characters (under age of 10) we took the same approach because we know they would not be able to wait in line for 2 hours for anything and with limited days and hours in the parks we simply could not lose that much time for one activity. We did plan for typical meet and greet with the classic Disney characters using RD and other means, but you know for the kids then and even years later they focus more on the trip and rides then any of the meet and greet they ever did.

A remember a survey from several years ago based on asking young kids what was the best part of their trip to WDW - and the most popular answer was "the hotel pool". Kind of puts it all in perspective.

 

[AmyB2006]

No, no it isn't. I have two boys who both LOVE Frozen. One of them carried around a picture of Elsa for a couple of days and can belt out the whole soundtrack.

I still wouldn't wait for hours to meet "them". And I use those quotes purposefully.

These CMs are NOT Anna & Elsa. They don't have the same voices, they don't have the same mannerisms. I've seen pictures and they don't even much LOOK like them, beyond the obvious (REAL obvious) wigs and costumes.

We do lots of character meals, including CP so that we can meet lots of characters, but I would never stand in a long line to meet an actor who isn't even the REAL actor.

LOL, Agreed. Mine are 7 and 5, (girl and boy) and they can belt out the soundtrack as well and love the movie and characters. But I will not wait in a 1 hour line, much less a 4 hour line to meet them. They don't want to wait either

 

[Hannathy]

It's different if you have kids... trust me.

Nope it isn't! Still didn't, still won't! Mine would have gotten an are you kidding? No way, if they had even suggested it. They never wanted to. My DD would wait a few minutes for a character the trip when she was 4 after that never wanted to bother and loose park time. My DS NEVER wanted to ever.

Mine always knew they were just actors anyway.

 

[MichelleVW]

Frankly when our kids were young enough to what to meet the characters (under age of 10) we took the same approach because we know they would not be able to wait in line for 2 hours for anything and with limited days and hours in the parks we simply could not lose that much time for one activity. We did plan for typical meet and greet with the classic Disney characters using RD and other means, but you know for the kids then and even years later they focus more on the trip and rides then any of the meet and greet they ever did.

A remember a survey from several years ago based on asking young kids what was the best part of their trip to WDW - and the most popular answer was "the hotel pool". Kind of puts it all in perspective.

How true is that! Our first trip the girls were 8 and 10 and they kept asking if we could go back to the pool. I thought it was a once in a lifetime trip and was kind of annoyed that they wanted to go to the pool. "we paid all this money to go to the park blah blah blah" Then I stepped back and remembered how much fun we had in hotel pools growing up and I built in some more pool time!

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

For those that has done the 'shift system' may I ask how you did it? Can you all return back in line if you leave one person there? Are other folks ok with this and I wonder will this work ok at MK? I can't get a FP+ for when we go. But really want to do the meet.

 

[ThisIsMyName]

Well. . .we waited the 4 hours back in Feb for a couple reasons. I thought it was going to be 2 - 2.5 hours which I thought was crazy and gave my 6 year old the option and she was 100% sure she wanted to wait. I thought "Okay we will hop in line and after a little while she'll drop out". . .wrong again. 2 hours go by and we weren't moving at all and were again told 2 more hours! The funny thing that happened was we started to have fun waiting in line, making friends with all the other "crazy" people waiting too and time went by fast. We swapped out once with my husband for about an hour. It think the wait really made it more special for my daughter. She was collecting autographs/photos so it was important to her. It is something we will always remember and joke about. . ."Remember when you made us wait 4 hours to meet those princesses!"

 

[georgina]

We wouldn't, but none of my kids - 2 girls and a boy - were ever into princesses. (probably my influence) We did eat at CP to met the Pooh characters, and Garden Grill to meet Mickey, Chip and Dale, and Pluto, who was my DS's favorite.

 

[Golden Rose]

We were never particularly into either long lines or the characters when we traveled before kids or with DS. I'd book character meals, and that was all the interaction we did. We've always taken good advantage of FP-, and I always said we would never wait more than 30 or 45 minutes for anything.

Now we have a princess obsessed little girl. We waited in the longest line we've ever waited in last fall, and it was for princesses. (It happened to be on a Disney cruise to do one of the big princess meet and greets.)

We still won't do anything we know to be more than two hours. We were just in DL, and didn't admit to DD that there was a possibility of meeting Anna and Elsa. We did go by their building to wave at Olaf. We'll be at WDW next month, and we hadn't planned on admitting they'd be at Epcot, but I managed to get FP+ for the MK meet and greet. I haven't told DD about it, in case anything goes wrong, but it is now on our list.

Anyway, we're willing to do longer lines to see the excitement on DDs face. The princesses are absolutely her favorite thing, and she would rather be meeting them than doing anything else in the whole world, so yes, we're catering to it a bit.

 

[goofy4tink]

We have FP+ for a couple of Anna/Elsa meets in June. Dd is 20, and this is the one thing she really wants to do...of course, we've been to WDW more times than we can remember, so we're not really giving up anything. Besides, dd just found out that a good friend of hers is going to be Anna's friend! She has been friends with both Merida and Ariel! Got to chat with her at those times, so here's hoping!!

 

[JillyBean1899]

I can't think of *ANYBODY* I'd stand in line 4+ hours to meet. Well, maybe the Pope or the Dali Lama or the President or something. But only if it involved being able to actually hold a conversation, not "sign this, smile for the birdie, NEXT!!"

 

[ferd]

The bolded is the key!! There is no way these little kids would know they are there and that they can meet them unless the parents tell them! So they won't be disappointed in not meeting someone that they don't know is there.

Of course this depends on how observant your children are, but outside of Fairytale Hall there are pictures hanging up of the Princesses that are meeting that day. So if you are strolling through Fantasyland and go by the carrousel and past PFTH, you may want to avert your children's eyes from what they might see. Especially if you have a Frozen obsessed-eagle-eyed child and no plans on waiting hours to see Anna & Elsa.

I can't think of *ANYBODY* I'd stand in line 4+ hours to meet. Well, maybe the Pope or the Dali Lama or the President or something. But only if it involved being able to actually hold a conversation, not "sign this, smile for the birdie, NEXT!!"

I'm sure every encounter is different, but on average when I take my 2 year old DD to see the princesses, they spend at least 3 minutes with her and last week Tiana literally spent 10 mins with her. (We record them so I have exact times on the vids). We go A LOT since we live close and are APs and I dress her up in costumes and such so we see the Princesses multiple times a month. But instead of the whole 'kiss and shove' interaction so many people feel meet and greets are, I feel like the Princesses play with my daughter and truly interact with her. They play peek-a-boo and tickle her with their feather pen and even play tag with the other princesses in PFTH. Tink plays with her giant crayons and helps my DD 'color' the flowers. Tiana takes her out back of the gazebo to look for frogs in the 'bayou' and has picked flowers and put them in DD's hair. Belle has sat on the sidewalk with my DD and blew bubbles.

While some people feel these people are just CM's or actors (or not even actors as some people put it), to a lot of children they really are THEE Character and the opportunity to hug them and talk to them is HUGE. I can respect those people who do not want to wait for hours and hours with kids to see a paid employee wearing a costume dress, but for those of us who do, it's magical to witness if your children takes from it all the wonderment and fantasy that Walt Disney intended to create when opening his parks. And from all of my experiene, I can tell you that the girls who are placed in these roles do all they can to make life long memories for these small children who look up at them like their dream has come true.

 

[KelleyK75]

While some people feel these people are just CM's or actors (or not even actors as some people put it), to a lot of children they really are THEE Character and the opportunity to hug them and talk to them is HUGE. I can respect those people who do not want to wait for hours and hours with kids to see a paid employee wearing a costume dress, but for those of us who do, it's magical to witness if your children takes from it all the wonderment and fantasy that Walt Disney intended to create when opening his parks. And from all of my experiene, I can tell you that the girls who are placed in these roles do all they can to make life long memories for these small children who look up at them like their dream has come true.

I totally agree!

 

[Juliet25]

NO WAY would I spend 4+ hours in line. My girls--6 and 11--love Frozen, but they would have very little interest in meeting the characters. It's just not our thing. If the lines are that long on our trip, we'll not even consider it. I would have a hard time even waiting one hour.

 

[Juliet25]

It's different if you have kids... trust me.

No, it's not. It's mom's vacation too, and spending 4 hours in a line is not going to happen. "Sorry, Elsa's sick this week."

 

[donnajherren]

I have a 4 year old dd and a 2 year old ds who both are in love with Frozen. Tried to get fp for it but couldn't so they will not be meeting A&E. With kids that small sometimes 4 hours is the majority of your time and I would rather them experience more of the parks.

I got FPs for the meet & greet today for the first Friday in June--which means, basically, that our 60-day window just opened up. When I went to schedule the FPs, the A&E event was totally greyed out as an option.

That was for 4 people. What I ended up having to do was make each individual person's FP selection separately, and then it worked fine. The times are staggered--our windows begin once every five minutes or so, so the first return time is 12:25, while the last person's window opens at 12:45.

If you want FPs, give that a try!

 

[mexican-mouseketeers]

I truly hope to be able to get fast passes to see them in september, I know that is the ONLY thing my 5 year old really wants to do.

When she learned that my father will be treating all of us to DW, and she didn´t know the date, she only said "no, thank you grandpa, but I would rather go when Frozen is an old movie so my mom will stand in line to meet Elsa..."

So she was even willing to forego this trip for a much further one in order to see them, no way we are missing them.

 

[sarkell]

I truly hope to be able to get fast passes to see them in september, I know that is the ONLY thing my 5 year old really wants to do.

When she learned that my father will be treating all of us to DW, and she didn´t know the date, she only said "no, thank you grandpa, but I would rather go when Frozen is an old movie so my mom will stand in line to meet Elsa..."

So she was even willing to forego this trip for a much further one in order to see them, no way we are missing them.

My dd 6 felt that way too I explained we would have to wait can't get out of line just me & her. We could meet other princesses merida, tiana, rapunzel. She said well let's try & ifs it too long it's ok. We're trying rope drop on two days one day have an early adr at crystal palace. Willing to wait 2 hours around.

 

[Tony74]

I will say that this was the best meet and greet from our recent trip. It never felt rushed and they were totally into meeting our kids as much as they were into meeting them.

We had a breakfast reservation so we got through with a minimal wait. I'm sure my recollection would have been impacted with a two hour wait.

 

[ferd]

I park hopped over to Epcot today from MK, and while in the World Showcase I walked by Norway and curiously had to ask what time the wait was and was told by the CM at the end of the line 1-1/2 hours (and this was about 2pm on a Saturday.) Maybe the crowds will start to die down in Epcot since word about the move and FP+ has gotten out?

 

[lillygator]

FOUR HOURS? That is NUTS!! No way, why was the line NOT moving?