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olegc
01-30-2011, 09:45 PM
any reports on the happenings on Character Fan Days? how was it taking pictures with all 7 dwarfs? Did they canel a lot of the appearances with the rain? Inquiring minds.

rivermary
01-30-2011, 10:07 PM
we got to the park late - 12:30 - they had just closed the Festival Area. We went back at about 2:15 - the rain had stopped, but the cast member behind the rope told us that an executive decision had been made not to reopen the meet and greet and festival area today :crying:. If anyone else went back later they may have different information, but the cast member told us that it would not reopen today - Sunday. we should have gotten there earlier or gone Friday instead, we were really looking forward to getting the pictures with the dwarfs. I did sent an email asking if they may have another character meet with the unusual characters.

oregontraveler
01-30-2011, 10:12 PM
Lucky for me, I went yesterday. WOW, so much fun! Actually the whole day was fun, but I'll save that for my trip report when I get back. But yeah,
the 7 dwarves alternated with Snow & the Evil Queen. I also got pics with
Frollo, Esmerelda & Clopin, Country Bears, Baloo (missed out on King Louie)
I was there 2 hours in the morning and came back at 3 for another hour.

The Festival arena is the perfect location of these weekends, and there is more signage in the parks now.

olegc
01-30-2011, 10:15 PM
the 7 dwarves alternated, EDIT Country Bears, Baloo (missed out on King Louie)


Man - wanted to be there for some of this. Oh well :crying:

charpaul
01-30-2011, 11:06 PM
I also went Sunday - arrived back at Thunder Ranch area just before 2:00.

Was told they closed the area at about 1:30 by Big Thunder BBQ CM’s that were also there at the rope/gate.
There were still people/guests in the back that were finishing up their visit while a crowd was growing at the closed gate. These people were in full view of the closed gate.

CM from Family Fun Weekend finally walked up to the rope and told us that a decision had been made to close the event.

It was 2:00 - no rain - sun starting to shine.
We were being told to complain to City Hall and MAYBE something could be done to add this event back on another day... (Doubtful I think)

To add insult to injury, as I was walking back out of the park down Main Street I see: Mad Hatter, Alice, the Dapper Dans, Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Geppetto, Red Queen, White Rabbit, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are ALL out now that the rains have cleared. Still no rain at 4:00 when I left Disneyland.

What I want to know is - WHO decided to close the whole event?? Why didn’t they do a rain delay or something like that and see what happens with the weather? This was THE weekend for those Fans who voted for the characters they most wanted to see. I know Disney cannot control the weather, but I was VERY disappointed in this Fan Favorite Weekend.

Mansion101
01-30-2011, 11:42 PM
trust me... dopey already stunk bad enough... wet, soggy, characters are very hard to clean..... they will not risk having these costumes get damaged

popinjay
01-31-2011, 03:03 AM
I had a similar experience of disappointment.

Hubby and I arrived around 1:30pm. There was a large crowd around the BBQ area roped off and a CM telling us its closed and to complain to Guest Relations. I also noticed people still inside - but the CM said they were just letting them finish up. The sun was even shining at this point. I don't understand why with 3.5 hours left of the event they could not continue. At the least they could have kept the entertainment going and we could sit there hoping for the characters. What was their big loss to keep it open that they had to just cancel everything?

I am a huge Snow White fan and really wanted to take a pic with all 7 of my li'l men. I am so incredibly bummed to miss out.

I did go to the Guest Relations and relayed the info to them. They said they will put it down on their "tally sheet". I suggested redoing the day and they said "we don't take suggestions". So that was that.

bassett1976
01-31-2011, 05:30 AM
We stopped by for a few minutes Sunday morning before it started to drizzle hard. They had a stage entrance where characters where introduced before heading to their photo locations. Gipetto was out in the middle where people could color. They had a place where CMs were drawing pictures for people but that line was really long.

Just as we got there we watched the Seven Dwarfs head backstage along with the Country Bears. We watched as the characters from Hunchback, Donald, Daisy, Clairable and Horse Collar were all introduced.

I think the event is really nice. It did kind of remind me of the Judges Tent at WDW where you could go to one place and have multiple lines where you could get pictures with the characters. The lines for the Seven Dwarfs were CRAZY! Most of the people stayed in a 20 minute (or more) line when they went in for their break.

AnotherJenny
01-31-2011, 07:32 AM
I'll give a report, but here's the characters, since that's what people probably want to know. They switched every 30 minutes.

1st area: alternating Clarabelle and Horace with Captain Hook, Smee & Wendy
2nd area: alternating Donald and 2 Country Bears
3rd area: alternating Daisy and Baloo & King Louie
4th area: alternating Snow White & Evil Queen and 7 Dwarfs (this one had a wishing well and the cottage backdrop)
5th area: alternating Frollo, Clopin & Esmerelda and Mad Hatter, Alice, White Rabbit, Queen of Hearts & Tweedles

I went on Friday. We went to DCA first, then DL around 2. We saw a bunch of characters our on Main St, including Donald, Pinocchio & Gepetto. (This started a funny discussion about character hands, and flesh colored gloves vs. plastic molded hands.)

We went straight to the festival arena and saw that it was closing at 4pm instead of 5pm...

The first thing I noticed was that the place was swarming with Disney "suits." It wasn't that busy at first, there was one very long line (turned out to be for the 7 Dwarfs) and one semi-long line for the Hunchback characters, but everywhere else (there were 5 areas for meet & greet and 3 character artists with easels) had 10 guests tops.

We got in line for Clarabelle & Horace. It did take awhile, because they were interacting with everyone and signing autographs, but that's ok. Thankfully I brought my camera because this pic did not show up on my photopass.

Next we got Daisy. That line moved quickly, people were telling us to cut in front of them because they were waiting for Baloo and King Louie. Donald was in the meet and greet next to Daisy. I thought it would be kind of cool to get them together but eh.

That was when we talked to some people and found out they were switching every 30 minutes. So we got in line for the 7 Dwarfs. They were about half way through the line when they came out and announced they were leaving in 10 minutes. People asked them to restrict it to 1 pic per family and no autographs, which they said they were already doing. (My camera ended up with 2 pics, but yea... I think the had part is getting 7 characters plus 4-5 people in 1 pic.) We ended up being the second to last group to get a pic before the switch.

At this point the area was filling up, and the line for character artists was insane. They brought in Pinocchio to walk around and he just got mobbed. Even though they had an ice cream cart in there, it was 74 degrees, we went to Fantasyland and got a frozen banana. We went back to the festival arena and sat at a table. They did a little thing on the stage every hour where the 7 Dwarfs would come out and do a dance in front of the stage. It was cute. No one really saw it, because almost everyone was in line waiting for them...

We saw the stage show twice. They also had intermittent performances. We saw the Dapper Dans.

Then they brought Captain Hook, Smee & Wendy on stage and then Baloo & Louie. Weird they they didn't do this for other characters. I also seemed to eat into their 30 minutes.

At this point everyone abandoned the Hunchback line (seriously, why are those characters so popular?) We're HUGE Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum fans, so we hopped in. The Alice characters were doing their normal schtick, lots of running around and posing. The CM who had my camera took a ton of pics of us being surrounded by them. My sister told Tweedle Dee that I identify with him and he got really excited and wouldn't stop holding my hand. Haha.

By now the crowd was really big and they stopped allowing the really long line for the Dwarfs, so the character artist line was really, really long. Also, those drawing took awhile and people were going back for more because I saw them carrying drawings already. I kind of wanted a pic with the Country Bears, but we'd been there almost 2 hours and it was enough. As we were leaving we saw about 30 more Disney "suits" in actual suits coming in. We also heard a woman saying they could have skipped that if they had budgeted a character breakfast and her hubby said no way, not paying for characters.

All in all it was a good event and I'd like to see it again. I think if they rearranged things and put the carts between the photo areas they'd sell more. Also, the souvenir cart was an afterthought. I think if they had autograph books and pens and pins of the characters instead of random plushies they'd sell more stuff in the arena, and keep people from leaving to go buy stuff. And, of course I think if they lowered the price of photopass I'd actually buy the pics...

So then later that night I heard a family say that they were there for 2 days and only got pics with the princesses and I asked them if they'd be there the next day and they said no. And I thought, "Too bad you didn't see the sign between Village Haus & Big Thunder! There were so many characters!" Maybe it should have been advertised elsewhere in the park (if it was, I didn't see it.) But then again, less competition for me.

corona
01-31-2011, 01:54 PM
Esmeralda and Clopin danced on the stage several times Friday.

Andrew
01-31-2011, 02:02 PM
Esmeralda and Clopin danced on the stage several times Friday.
Aw, just like old times.

BlkPearlCptn
01-31-2011, 08:14 PM
I would so have loved to see the characters from Hunchback again.

nelsonfamily
02-01-2011, 06:39 PM
We ended up going on Friday and Saturday.
Friday was very good and we met great people in line waiting for the characters. Unfortunately it was difficult to get to see the characters you wanted due to the switch out of characters every 45 minutes. We were in the very first line to see the 7 dwarfs, and just as we got our picture taken (they stopped the autographs after a few people cycled through) they switched out the dwarfs for snow white and the queen. The gal behind us was begging the cast members to get one real quick picture. I felt sorry for her as we all had waited for some time. We got our picture with almost everyone, and the lines moved quickly…. Except for the character portrait line…
We chose to go back on Saturday to get our character portraits, as there were four of us (2 adults and 2 children 11 and 8). We all had plans on what to get. So we ended up getting there at around 10:15, and the line was already very long (they opened at 10). Just as we got in line, people who were finishing their character portraits got in line behind us to get a second portrait. There were a 5 of them, and they all had very wonderfully done portraits, but wanted more. 10 minutes in line later, one of the cast members announced they were going to allow only a single portrait per household. Amazingly, everyone in line who was talking to each other suddenly had no idea who the person next to them was. I sent my wife to the back of the line so that we could each get one, as the cast member told us that we could go through as many times as we wanted, we felt this was ok (perhaps not). Our family compromised quickly on the portraits we were getting as we knew we were not going to stand in the line again. We watched families who obviously were related, pretend to not know each other (or lie) to get 4 or 5 portraits while everyone else waited. In the end we waited over two and a half hours for our portrait(s). It was very difficult to stand there so long without really moving anywhere. In the end we did get a great Jack Sparrow sketch and an absolutely wonderful sorcerer Mickey sketch that will be framed and put on our wall. All in all I would say it was great in concept, but I am hoping that if in the future they ever decide to do something like this again, they hand out tickets or a fast pass for your drawing so people are not stuck standing there for hours.

The Nelsons from Oregon
Next Trip June 2011

corona
02-01-2011, 07:25 PM
some photos here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/perlster/)

soccerlady16
02-01-2011, 11:28 PM
I was hoping to see more rare charecters. Hunchback was a nice surprise. what about Pochahontas/John smith. all the princes, the beast (human form), jimeny cricket/Blue Fairy, Hercules/Meg, Jane/Tarzan...? maybe next time..

cstephens
02-02-2011, 10:30 AM
the beast (human form)

Has the Beast ever appeared in human form? I've never seen him, and I've never heard of it.

Andrew
02-02-2011, 10:49 AM
Has the Beast ever appeared in human form? I've never seen him, and I've never heard of it.
That was just a guy with long hair in frilly clothes.