We love character meals. They offer a great stress-free way of getting autographs and pictures in your children's autograph books while you are in out of the weather and sitting down.
In the parks, when you are lining up for autographs, you are missing out on precious attraction time. MANY times we have been close to the front and the character has had to go in for a quick pit stop that means you are waiting a long time for them to come back out. You get to that point in time where your children know they are meeting the character and are SO excited to meet them, but you have wasted over an hour and are still not next up to meet them, and you want to just say "forget it!" but are stuck there. There will still be some characters that you have to line up for in the park, but when at all possible, be smart and do a character meal to see them. This is especially true for Princesses. I totally put a price on my time and have gladly paid for the Ariel's Grotto experience, just to at least tick a few princesses off the list. As we travel from Australia to see them, I budget this in. If you can't have the added cost, try to lock out large blocks of time to allow for meeting them in the parks. Be smart and go early or very late.
Before you even get to the Character meal
1.Buy your autograph books. We usually buy the Disney photo autograph book. This has meant that each of my children has their own evidence of being with the characters over the years, from toddlers to grown-ups every trip no matter their age, we buy them for them. (Ok, so my son hasn't wanted one for a NUMBER of years but I think the girls will always want them. )These can be purchased in the Word Of Disney stores at Downtown Disney or in either park.
2. Make sure you have a working 'non- gluggy' pen and plenty of spares.
3. Organise what you will wear. I have always dressed my children up to meet the characters. You might not want to, but I always pre-organise clothing choices so you don't look back and wonder why your child had mismatched socks or their choice clothes when they had a great top or outfit that would have looked perfect for meeting the characters. You don't want to fight with your children on the morning as you are headed there on what they are wearing and then have photos with them pouting or with tear-stained faces. Sometimes we have bought a costume for our children to wear. Think about what they will wear on their feet. I think I will be old and grey and my husband will still tease me about shoes my daughter wore with a costume one trip and how daggy they look in the photos.
4. Practice the character time- OK so sounds weird, but when you only have a limited time with a character, you want to make it run smoothly and get everything done. Nothing worse than getting home and realising you forget to get one of their autographs in one book or missed a photo of them. Our family is in the routine of ...
*Greet character- hugs/chat etc
*Autograph signing
*All in for a photo THEN
*One stays in the other go out and then they take turns with individual shots
*All say bye- hugs and chat
I usually let the character know what we are doing before hand...something like "Minnie, are you ok if we have a photo with all the children in and then they have a photo with you one at a time?" They will acknowledge and then you go ahead.
My nephews, Connor and Cooper, are headed to Disneyland for the first time soon ( I am SUPER excited for them!!!!), and on a recent visit, we did a quick practice where we had them standing by a "character" (ok so it was only their Nana...but she is totally a character) and they ran in and out for pretend photos. It was funny and silly, but if you do that before you even leave home it honestly makes it run smoother.
When you are at the meal
You have paid a lot of money, so make sure that you and your children are adequately fed. Don't just sit around waiting for the characters. We go in 'shifts' so that there is always someone at the table to mind our cameras etc.
Each character rotates around the restaurant. They will come to you. Make sure as soon as you sit down you have your camera/video camera etc. ready to go, based on practicing as above, if you have a camera and video, try to make sure the children know which one to look at by telling them..."ok look at the camera now" etc. Set up the autograph books open at the page you want the autograph on. I have little tabs that go in the book to show free pages. Make sure the pen/s are handy too.
As the character comes to your table we used to do the following. We told the kids out loud who is coming so that (when they were younger) if in the excitement they forget who the character was, we reminded them.Something along the lines of an excited "Here comes____!" We check faces to make sure no big food splodge is on their face...although one time Aladin had to do this for us! I go camera, my husband goes video. As the characters interact with our children, I sometimes assist where I can. Obviously, if the characters spoke to every child all day they would lose their voices, so the animal characters don't speak at all. So I chat with them and will tell my children what they are indicating with gestures.
The Travel Concierge tip
Take posed and candid photos with the characters. Some of my favourites have been candid hugs etc. Likewise, especially when your children are too young to remember, seeing themselves interacting in positive or negative ways can be hilarious to show them when they are older. We have video footage of our youngest refusing to be anywhere near Belle as a 13 month-year-old, but by the next trip, she was totally captivated by her.
Common issues at Character Meals to be Aware of
A Character skipping your table when they come back from a break and miss your table. This happens often. It is usually the last character you are waiting on! We usually just advise the wait staff or a wandering manager and they usually escort the character over as soon as possible. I hear about people just sitting and waiting for ages. I have attractions to get to!
Children from other tables photo bombing and taking your time with the character. This has happened a number of times. Often the parents are having a great meal and totally ignoring what their child is doing. I don't want a random child in all my pics. Usually, the character or their minder will sort the issue out, but again a chat to the wait staff or a manager should sort this out. Make sure you also chat to your children beforehand to explain that they need to wait for the character to come to their table as the automatic instinct is to rush to them in excitement.
Wait staff trying to rush you out. As most character meals are a buffet, the tip will be lower for the wait staff, so they want to rush people through to get more people through thus more tips. We pretty much stay till we are ready to go...read when we have eaten what we want and met all the characters. We had on one occasion the waitress asking why we hadn't gone and what we were waiting on. We explained that we still hadn't met one of the characters, and of course, she organised this and we were gladly on our way.
You seem to have been seated in an area that the characters skip by. We had this on our first ever time at Goofy's Kitchen. I gave feedback at City Hall and got compensated with a whole heap of Fastpasses, but if it happened now, after it happened one or two times I would totally ask to be moved.
Birthdays and "Un-Birthdays"
We are usually overseas around my eldest daughter's birthday, so she has had many parties and characters helping her celebrate her birthday. When booking, we tell Disney it is a birthday celebration and for no extra cost they will bring out a cupcake, a badge "pin" that says Happy Birthday and your child's name and age is drawn on it. They have a character celebrate by singing Happy Birthday and helping them blow out the candle. You can also pay an additional cost for different birthday goodies which come with an actual mini cake.
To make it up to our other children, we followed the Alice In Wonderland "Un-Birthdays" that say you have one actual birthday a year and every other day is your "Un-birthday", so we tell Disney it is their birthday and celebrate it then.
What to tip at a buffet
Usually, at a buffet, you rely a lot less on the wait staff. You will notice because of this there are usually less per table. You can do one of two things. You can tip them on 15-20% of your bill BEFORE the tax is added or you can just tip them on the drink service and clearing of plates. On a family table, this might be anywhere from $5-$20+. Think about what fits into your budget.
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