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Adventureland Girls

Sharing our love of all things Disney

Archives for December 2017

Disney Dining Plan: is a dining plan right for you?

The short answer is: it depends. It truly does!

Those who love it, those who avoid it, and those who have no idea what it is. We tend to fall into the second camp – it just doesn’t work well for the way we eat. Too much structure, and therefore in NO way a value for our family.

In today’s article I want to touch on the basics, as well as shout out some good resources if you decide you’d like to look more deeply into if it works for you. There are different plans (official info here) depending on what kind of dining you want to do. So the first thing to look at is not the plans – but how you dine on vacation. [Read more…]

The best characters to meet at Disney

What characters are worth the wait? It’s a subjective topic to be sure, but we’ve got some thoughts to share with you!

You’ve got Mickey Mouse, and your own personal fave whomever that might be… but who are the best characters to meet? The girls share their opinions in this YouTube video:

Me? I have several things I look for:

  • Rare/hard to find characters
  • “Hot right now” characters that may not be around next time
  • Seasonally dressed characters
  • Mickey Mouse – because I love seeing me + Mickey through the years
  • New to me/I’ve yet to meet them characters
  • Unique to the park characters

The “hot right now” meets especially promoting movies (Merida from Brave and Big Hero Six stars shown here!) are personal favorites because they tend to have a fancier set up and make for AWESOME photo ops!

Finding time for character meets between rides can be tricky because you want to balance your time. But I’ll tell you this – only once have I regretted waiting in a character line (Frozen sisters circa 2014, the line said 40min but it was 80). My point? It is very rare that I regret the time I took standing in line. A few tips I would share in general (not specific to any one park):

Line up before the meet begins if possible – sure you might wait 20 minutes but once the meet begins the line will only grow – and you could end up with having to wait for Tinkerbell’s next set.

Try it first or last thing. For example during early morning hour at Disney World we grabbed coffee and headed to Chewbacca. 5 minutes later we had also met Kylo Ren! Sometimes you can get super lucky like that – and sometimes (princesses, Mickey, etc) during parades, fireworks, or later in the evening when folks with little ones have left you might also get lucky with a short line.

Have a set “max” wait time/line size agreed upon by the group in advance. This will eliminate time spent trying to decide if it’s worth it, but it will also keep what everyone is ok with known. Your wait times might vary as well – for example we sat for about 40 minutes waiting for Jack & Sally, but other characters we’d maybe wait 10-15 max.

Whether you pick just one character or make a day of character meets – enjoy the experience! We will be back next week with tips for fun character interactions and how to really amp up your time with your favorite Disney stars!