A Brave New Frontier(land...and all others!) by Todd Pickering
Anticipating a return to the Disneyland Resort
Read it here!
A Brave New Frontier(land...and all others!) by Todd Pickering
Anticipating a return to the Disneyland Resort
Read it here!
I'm Orlando based, so most of my experience is here at the World, but I was nodding along with the character meetings. We discovered of all places that Epcot might be the best for character meetings- there's usually a character just inside the gates, another in the gazebo when you walk towards the Mexico pavilion and then a lot of characters in countries- Anna/Elsa in Norway, Alice/Mary Poppins/Pooh in England, Donald at Mexico, Belle in France. The greatest treat though was discovering that there is a path to a backstage gate just to the left of the American pavilion. Apparently Epcot is where they train the characters, so you frequently can find a "pop-up" character meeting with 5 or 6 characters. Throw in my favorite character breakfast at the Garden grill and Epcot may be the hidden gem of character meetings.
In fact, that was part of the reason we let our annual passes lapse during COVID. After a couple of awkward visits to the park, we realized we missed the character interactions a lot. The impromptu nature led to some really magical moments for my kids- Pooh showed things off in Christopher Robin's bedroom, Stich had a staring contest with my younger son, and on our one Disney cruise trip, my boys got to dig for dinosaur bones with Mickey for 10 minutes (and I'm sure the performer inside was dripping sweat the entire time). I love the rides, the high quality of the parks, but it was just lacking magic. I'm hoping by fall that AP's come back and things are normal enough that we can go back.
Lots of characters in World Showcase including my favorites:
Snow White in Germany
Belle, Aurora and Marie in France
Alice, Mary Poppins and Wendy in United Kingdom
Anastasia, Drizella and Lady Tremaine and Cinderella in International Gateway,
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