Character cavalcade at EPCOT

We stumbled on to a large character meet & greet at Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center this past spring near the American Pavilion.  There in one of the alleys the characters interact with guests before they start appearing at their usual locations. You never know who you might see, and on some occasions we have been by this spot and no one was appearing. Because it is unadvertised and out of the way it rarely has the long lines of the regularly scheduled character spots.

But this time it was a real character cavalcade! There must have been 10 characters all at once, there were so many we did not even meet them all.

With a couple of swingers...real jungle VIPs!

Mickey's favorite pooch : Pluto

The Goofster!

And a fun visit with Mr. Smee! We were so lucky to be walking by at just the right time! You never know who you might encounter!

Review: Disney Junior Play 'n Dine Breakfast at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios

Toddler Son's 3rd birthday was celebrated in part at the Disney Junior Play 'n Dine Breakfast at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios.  This Character Breakfast Meal takes place at  Hollywood & Vine Restaurant in the Echo Lake area of Hollywood Studios. 

Teenage Son is pointing to the windows over Hollywood & Vine to the office of Eddie Valiant from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"!

The ambiance is classic art deco Hollywood diner style.  We had a reservation and were seated very promptly. The characters you will meet here are the stars of the Disney Junior Channel preschool shows.  This mix is often in flux, on the day we went we were visited by Doc McStuffins, Princess Sofia The First, Jake from the Neverland Pirates, and Goofy in his Roadster Racers suit.  Goofy is consistently one of the most engaging characters whenever we encounter him regardless of the venue...we always love meeting Goofy!  These are favorite shows of Toddler Son so he enjoyed meeting all four characters. 

The food was really good at this one, it was classic breakfast favorites in all you care to eat portions. There was quite a bit of turnover so it kept the food fresh. The Birthday Boy received a cupcake and a card which was autographed by all of the characters.  These character meals are among the highlights of our visits to Walt Disney World and it's sort of a tradition now for the birthdays when possible. 

The characters can be somewhat obscure at this one, especially if you do not have a toddler at home...which probably contributes to this being one of the lesser attended breakfasts.  We don't always visit Hollywood Studios on our trips to WDW so we may not be back to this one right away but we did enjoy it and it was an otherwise great experience.

Review: Safari Donald Duck and friends at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom's Tusker House Restaurant

Tusker House Restaurant at Disney's Animal Kingdom is the location of a fantastic character meal. The food is a plentiful all you care to eat buffet of exotic (especially for a theme park) African & middle eastern dishes. And you have the opportunity to be visited by Safari Donald Duck and friends. On our visit we saw Donald & Daisy Duck, Mickey Mouse, & Goofy.

We had an advance dining reservation and there was a bit of a wait for this one, but we were still seated in a relatively timely manner. The detail at Disney's Animal Kingdom is pretty remarkable and the Tusker House is no exception. We were seated in a dining room that was adjacent to a large atrium where the food was. The decor was as if we were staying in a hotel in an African village.

Our server was super friendly and the character visits were very efficient.  Each character had a nice little moment with us, they took pictures and signed our autograph book.

The food was excellent, a real standout among all of the menus we have sampled at Disney Character Meals. Typically the food at the character meals is pretty straight forward and not always memorable. But Tusker House had a lot of different dishes that were very flavorful. We were there for lunch and enjoyed dishes like basmati rice, tabouli & hummus, and curry chicken. It was the Thanksgiving holiday so the menu also included Turkey. All in all we really appreciated the variety at this buffet and had a great time, we would do this one again for sure.

Review: Minnie’s Beach Bash Breakfast at Walt Disney World's Beach Club Resort's Cape May Cafe

For Toddler Son's 2nd birthday last year we had a delightful time at the Beach Bash character breakfast with Minnie & Friends at the Cape May Cafe.  The Cape May Cafe is located in Walt Disney World's Beach Club Resort, and we were visited by Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, & Goofy in their beach clothes. 

The food here is pretty much the standard Disney Character Breakfast menu....in all you care to eat portions. For the most part we find the various Disney Character Breakfast Menus to be interchangeable but still of good quality. While each venue might have a unique dish or two you are guaranteed a similar selection of breakfast meats, potatoes, fruit and of course Mickey waffles. It is the character time that makes the breakfast meals worth it to us. Incidentally for both lunch and dinner we have found the Disney food to be much more interesting in and of itself.

The highlight at Cape May was seeing the characters in their "beach wear".  There was essentially no wait to be seated once we arrived for our advance dining reservation. We asked the servers for a birthday button for Toddler Son and they delivered a button, a card signed by all the characters, a cupcake and led the restaurant in singing to our son.  It was much more than we expected and this attentiveness really made the meal special.

Toddler Son has a big crush on Minnie so he was thrilled to meet her, he has stuffed animals of all the main characters and brought his Minnie along to meet Minnie at her breakfast bash. He also had a Cinderella Castle Magnet he enjoyed sharing with Donald & Goofy, he likes to have trinkets and mementos to show the characters.

After our meal we strolled the grounds and took a boat cruise along Crescent Lake- the lake that links EPCOT to Hollywood Studios and that is flanked by several Resorts & Hotels. Crescent Lake is a remarkable spot with picturesque architecture in various coastal/beachy styles. Once again even outside the theme parks Walt Disney World has the power to transport you to so many scenic places.

Review: Caribbean Beach Resort Pool "Party" with Characters

Have you ever wanted to hang out poolside with Minnie, Goofy, or Donald?

Two resorts at Walt Disney World are currently under a lot of construction while they build two new high rise towers. To compensate for the inconvenience of staying in a resort under heavy construction there have been a few little "extras". Among these are complimentary trading pin sets, and poolside appearances by Disney Characters. 

While enjoying our time at the Caribbean Beach Resort Main Pool we were delighted to be visited first by Goofy, then Donald, & finally Minnie. Typically when you see a Disney World commercial you see this wonderful footage of the characters interacting with the guests on a one on one basis. It is the kind of interaction we've rarely had in real life. We love meet & greets and accept the price to pay is often a wait in a long line and the payoff is several photographs and an autograph. But the Caribbean Beach poolside appearance by the characters was like being in one of those commercials. 

Goofy played bowling with our children, he handed a ball directly to our Toddler Son. It was a sunny, windy, cool day and Toddler Son was wrapped in a towel after swimming in the heated pool. Minnie was so sweet to continually check on him and rub on his shoulders to check on him while they played musical chairs.  Teenage Son was the third to the last to be eliminated from musical chairs and Minnie comforted him with a hug for his enthusiasm and gracious exit from the game. We sat out the Donald led game, a relay race but we witnessed the other children play a very long game with the #1 Duck. Each character comes out for what seems like 15-20 minutes, then they are replaced by the next character. We were just thrilled by the whole thing, you won't get autographs, or posed pictures...but the kids get to play with them for a significant amount of time. It was such a charming experience. 

Review: Chef Mickey's at Walt Disney World's Contemporary Resort

Recently we kicked off the celebration of Teenage Son's (aka "Agent P") 13th Birthday at Chef Mickey's at Walt Disney World's Contemporary Resort and had a wonderful time. It was Mom's idea to give character meals a try way back in 2006 when we lived in Southern California. Our first character meal was at Disneyland's Plaza Inn, and we've been hooked on them ever since. We've done several at both Disneyland & Walt Disney World and our time at Chef Mickey's did not disappoint.

Mom and her "Sleeping" Boys

In contrast to some folks we tend to take several smaller trips spread out through the year versus a longer annual or biennial visit to Walt Disney World. Our trips can be fairly impromptu and are sometimes little more than long weekends.We ended up kicking off "Agent P's" 13th birthday celebration with a long weekend trip to Walt Disney World that would include 3 nights on property, dinner at Chef Mickey's, attending the last Magic Kingdom After Hours Party of 2018 and a day at the EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival.  We were very surprised to snag an 8:00 PM dinner reservation for Chef Mickey's at about 60 days out. 

Dining(well..sleeping)under Monorails!

Our Chef Mickey's reservation was for our arrival day- a Wednesday. We left Charlotte Tuesday night and drove straight through to Orlando arriving early Wednesday morning (about an 8 hour trip). Many times we have been fortunate enough to receive early check in at our Disney Hotels but we were not so lucky on this trip. So we spent the morning and afternoon doing some shopping, opening a Disney Store and visiting the Character Warehouse Stores at the local Outlet Malls. After a day out and about in greater Orlando we were able to check in at our room at the Caribbean Beach Resort right between 3-4 PM. We had a pretty full morning & afternoon so we got some rest at the room and then got ready for dinner. 

We decided to drive from Caribbean Beach to the Contemporary, and were probably in the car by about 7:15 and on our way. Ideally we try to give ourselves 30 minutes to drive between destinations on property at Walt Disney World, so we figured we'd get to the Contemporary by 7:45. Toddler Son had pretty much slept the entire drive down from North Carolina, so he seemed pretty rested most of the day but as soon as we were in the car and on our way to dinner he fell asleep. He is not much of a napper...if we are lucky he will take a 2 hour nap, but the time is not consistent no matter how hard we've tried. He just seems to be too afraid to miss out on something (even if we are not at Disney World...or "Walt Dee" as he calls it.). So there would have been a very good chance that he would be up for an 8:00 dinner...but not this time.  We got to the Hotel, made our way up to the fantastic Grand Canyon Concourse, and checked in at Chef Mickey's. And Toddler Son stayed asleep in Dad's arms the entire time.

They checked us in very quickly, and we had a very short wait. We let them know it was Teenage Son's Birthday and they made him a very nice birthday button...sometimes the cast members can be really great at doing "Disney Script" with a sharpie on the button and this was one of those times. They remarked how Toddler Son was knocked out and assumed he was down for the evening. We told them he was most likely napping...he would wake up in 2 hours...they were sceptical. The photo pass photographer was great and suggested we pretend to sleep like Toddler Son in some of the pictures and we ended up really liking a photo of Mom with her "sleeping" boys.  We were seated at a very nice table against the East Windows overlooking Bay Lake...you could make out the Orlando Eye in the distance. 

Minnie insisted on taking pictures with the whole party...

including a sleeping Toddler

The characters were delightful and very efficient. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, & Pluto would visit us. This is definitely the appeal of Chef Mickey's as you get to see all of the Fab Five at one time, here they are wearing Cooking Outfits. Teenage Son is a VERY young 13, he genuinely loves meeting the Characters, getting their autographs, and filling out his collection of Autograph Photo Albums...he has a collection dating back to his first trips to Disneyland and our trips to Disney World.  He had so much fun meeting the characters, taking pictures, getting autographs and joking with them. There were several standout interactions with the characters. Goofy noticed that Teenage Son was wearing a Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade T-Shirt, he then repeatedly pointed to the shirt and pantomimed that he used to drive the parade float! Minnie made sure to greet everyone at the table and insisted on posing for pictures with all four of us even checking up on sleeping Toddler Son...who in fact slept through the ENTIRE meal. Minnie gave Teenage Son a kiss for his birthday too!

A kiss from Minnie on his 13th Birthday

Hugs from Pluto

We found the food to be delicious, Dad enjoyed the shrimp cocktail especially and the carving station, while Mom really enjoyed the soup. Teenage Son could not get enough of a mushroom gravy on one of the meat dishes. Teenage Son was brought a cupcake and a wonderful souvenir birthday card signed by all 5 characters. Our personal view on Character Meals is that the price includes a "live entertainment" component and don't generally expect the food to solely justify the price. We had read reviews that said the food was not very good, or that the meal itself was overpriced. Chef Mickey's is definitely on the expensive side if not the most expensive of the character meals...but as a special occasion we felt very satisfied with our experience. There was a variety of food and plenty of it, there were 5 characters (many character meals at WDW have only 3 or 4) and you have the remarkable ambiance of Monorails traveling by you through the spectacular atrium of the Contemporary Resort. We definitely would return to Chef Mickey's.

Poor Toddler Son was noticed to be asleep through the whole experience by the cast and like we said earlier even Minnie herself. Dad tried in vain to wake him up but to no avail. We finished our meal and proceeded to browse the shops of the Grand Canyon Concourse.  Right at 2 hours Toddler Son woke up, he knew we were here to celebrate big brother's birthday with Mickey & Friends and in his way asked about that. At first we were pretty heartbroken that he had missed the whole thing and...and by minutes. He awoke from his nap within 10 minutes of leaving the restaurant.

On a fluke Dad took Toddler to the check in desk, by this time they were to close within an half hour. He explained how Toddler Son had slept through the whole thing and would it be possible for him to go in and real quickly meet the characters? The cast member said she would check with the manager. The manager came out and said "Oh I heard about you, they were talking about the kid who slept through the whole meal, of course we can have him meet Mickey & Friends". So the manager took us to a transitional area between the different dining rooms and proceeded to bring each character by to meet Toddler Son. It was such a sweet gesture and we were thrilled he did not get to miss out on the experience entirely. We were very grateful to the staff of Chef Mickey's not only for the great service and memorable birthday meal for Big Brother but for this kindness to our little guy who otherwise would have really missed out.