Why my family might take a break from character dining at Disney

[WebmasterLeah]

After our most recent trip, we’re really debating taking a break and considering skipping them the next time we’re on vacation.

Read more here:

http://www.wdwinfo.com/walt-disney-world/why-my-family-might-take-a-break-from-character-dining/

 

[wdwscout]

Great article Leah! I completely understand your frustration.
The good news is that there is a time coming (not too far away) when you can return to the buffet meals.

Once the kids (or at least the boys) can get their own food, you will all enjoy those buffets again!
At least for my boys, when they got into their pre-teens and teens, the buffet character meals were their favorites! They enjoyed meeting the characters and getting their photo ops- but even more- they LOVED getting as much as they wanted of all their favorite foods, and trying a few new ones. And believe me, when you have teen boys- this means a LOT of food! All of a sudden, the character meals become a "bargain" (almost)! We got character pictures, they ATE, and we got to relax for a meal!

I love that there is something for everyone at WDW! You just have to be flexible and tailor your choices to meet the needs of who your family is on each trip you make.

 

[Tom P.]

We just returned from a Walt Disney World trip with our five young children. Meeting the characters is an absolute must for us, and the character meals have always been a great way for us to do that. So I'm not sure that we could ever feel right about taking a break from them.

That being said, I have to say that I agree that the buffets are rather chaotic with small children, and I dislike the fact that character meals seem to skew toward the buffets. However, we did get to meet characters without the buffet at about half of our table service destinations this time: Akershus, Be Our Guest, Cinderella's Royal Table, and Garden Grill. While all of our experiences, even with the buffet chaos, were awesome, I'd say the true table service restaurants that offer character greetings were just a tad more awesome.

Definitely when we plan our next WDW trip, we'll be leaning toward true table service as much as possible and only going with buffets when absolutely necessary to get a character experience we feel we can't miss. I'd say we consider Chef Mickey's to be iconic enough that we'd probably do it regardless, but I'd be fine with avoiding the other character buffets we did -- Crystal Palace, Hollywood and Vine, and 1900 Park Fare -- if those same character experiences could be had elsewhere. But all of those characters at those places -- the Winnie the Pooh gang, the Disney Junior gang, and the stepsisters -- are pretty much "must meet" characters for us.

 

[disneydad78]

IMHO , the character dinning is over priced for the food that is prepared. I enjoyed reading your blog and understand your "frustrations" . We have been blessed and have brought our kids to Disney starting at the age of 1 , yes 1. Scary , I know. We are so lucky now that our youngest is 10 and the other two are 14 and 18. They are starting to enjoy more " fine" dinning and skip all character interactions . They are starting to look for more thrill rides and always ask, " where are we eating?" . Chef mickeys was a must, but the food is ok to say the least. I enjoyed you post and blog.

 

[DSNY4ever]

We just got back from Disneyland and you read my mind, I was seriously thinking of writing the same article!

We still had a good time, but it was everything you mentioned...plus when you have really little ones the probability of them having a gross bib on in the photos, food in their mouth or on their face is pretty high! Plus it was hard to get our daughter out of the high chair so she is still in it for most of the pics.

My son missed Pluto because he had was in the bathroom, we didn't even tell him because we knew he'd cry.

When we saw our bill at the end we Laughed because we ended up adding a day onto our trip while we were there (another hotel night, plus a 5th day on the ticket) and that total was cheaper than our character meal!

 

[SamIAm21]

I have had similar experiences, especially the characters at the Crystal Palace. The restaurant is so large that it if you miss a character, you aren't going to see them again. It is stressful and I am happy that my daughter no longer gets overly disappointed when a character is missed.