When to schedule character meals

[boilermakermom]

This will be our first time in WDW. I am trying to decide when to schedule character meals. I am guessing breakfast and dinner will be the best, as lunch will semi-dictate where we need to be during the day. Make sense? Or am I completely wrong in thinking this?

We will arrive on property around 9 o'clock at night, tickets will start the next day. For the first day in the park, am I better off scheduling a character breakfast, or dinner? I am thinking dinner, so we can wake up, hit the park. Truthfully, I don't think any of us know what to expect, so I am thinking DD will be excited and want to get into the park. I am wondering if she will be rushed at breakfast, and just want to get into the park.

Any advice?

[barkley1]

we had both....the good thing about breakfast is that if you are early enough, you are already "in" the park and don't have to wait in the huge line at rope drop. I wouldn't schedule on that will go too much over the time the park opens, though, b/c you will miss all the shorter lines at park opening while you're eating.

[belovedgandp]

We tend to only eat two meals a day while on vacation. Especially Disney where the buffets/meals take a while and we eat too much, we have plenty of snacks along the way. Even with a breakfast character meal, the kids are going to be up for over an hour before we eat, so I have stuff in the room.

Breakfast tends to be slightly more laid back than dinners. Great if you can get a super early reservation and not lose that park time. We are going in February and have two breakfasts at 8 am when the parks open at 9.

We know AK day is a short one for us, so I do a dinner at one of the resorts on that day. The other dinners I tend to follow the park we are at that day.

[keh602]

We tend to eat a small breakfast in the room, and then lunch and dinner in the parks. If we can get an early breakfast in the park, it's fun to get in before the park opens to get pictures without the crowds. But we only do that maybe once. For our trip last week, I tried to book an early breakfast, but the park opened an hour earlier than we were expecting. So not only did we not get the pictures we were hoping for, we also missed out on that first hour+ of time when we could've walked onto some rides.

As far as lunch and dinner go, I actually like sit-down meals for those because it gives a nice break from the craziness of the parks. If it's hot, it's nice to sit in the A/C for a while. We normally do one sit down meal a day, but I don't much care whether it's lunch or dinner. We can still park hop either way if we want to, and both provide nice periods of rest.

[KrisM]

We did a late breakfast (10:45) a couple lunches, and 2 dinner shows. The lunches were both at 1 or 1:30 or so. It was good timing for a sit-down break. We did not go back to the hotel during the day, so sitting for an hour at lunch was nice to do. The late breakfast worked well as we had some park time first and then ate. We ate something in the room each morning. On lunch days, we got a small snack in the park about 11:00, and then maybe another snack at 5 or so, then we often ate dinner back at the resort about 8pm.

We did both the Spirit of Aloha and Hoop De Doo Revue and enjoyed both for dinner.

[DualvansMommy]

I'm thinking since you're arriving late night before, character breakfast next morning may not be best. I'd do dinner if you had to do a character meal that next day, otherwise a breakfast character is a great way to start the morning.

We did one character meal and it was at breakfast time. It also happened to be right at our resort which worked out better to our favor! For rest of week, we preferred light breakfast and brought snacks with us till we returned to our resort at 1 for lunch and naps.


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[icunurse]

We boy do one sit-down meal per day (we tend to be more snickers when traveling and the sit-down meals at Disney can take a good amount of time tags we would rather spend in the parks). We only have done breakfast or lunch for character meals. Some places we didn't like the dinner options or the bigger prices that go with them. My kids love breakfast, so that is always a winner. For lunch, we make sure to that it is an early lunch, maybe around noon, and give the kids a small breakfast (usually a granola bar, muffin, or so something else we brought along). It is also a nice break from the parks, as we tend to get an early start every days. Then, after lunch, we would head back to the hotel for a break/nap when needed.

[klwa]

We always scheduled them for the meal the kids eat best. So, for us, it is usually a fairly early lunch/late breakfast. Check out easywdw to determine which parks make the most sense each day & schedule a meal there or nearby for whichever meal you think the kids will actually eat. (We're usually worn out by evening, too, so something lighter is more appealing.)

[jayali]

i think it depends on the age of the child. When we first went DS was almost three and kicking off the vacation with a Character meal was great. Now he will be almost 11 and the only character meal we do is on day of departure, Crystal Palace (it is our tradition).

Assuming your child is somewhere in between I think it also depends on if they are a morning person. If so then I would ABSOLUTELY do a breakfast the first day. If you can get an early seating you can still be at the park for opening. We have done Crystal Palace (MK) and AK breakfast and have been done in time to help open the parks. Whether or not your are breakfast people is secondary to the reaction of seeing the characters up close. Also which breakfast would depend on which characters she would like to see.

For what it is worth, we do not do the dining plan. We find that we eat one nice meal a day and snack throughout (we also TRY to stay on a concierge floor to help supplement). The only reason I am pointing that out is because I think character dining would be your table service for the day. If you do it early you may be limited to dinner options. Some of the character dining may require two table service, so again I would check and see if it pays to do the dining plan.