DLR Character Dining 3 year old

[Ciyra]

I have started planning my daughter's very first Disney vacation. We'll be going Monday-Friday, the last week of February. She'll be almost three at the time and I will be 28 weeks pregnant. I definitely want to book at least one character meal. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[ellamama]

My girls loved the Minnie and Friends breakfast at the Plaza Inn - we did it at ages 3 & 6, and again at 4 & 7. We usually book a 10:30am slot so we have a few hours of park time first, and then use the meal as a "brunch". There are tons of characters, and they will come to your table so you don't have to stand around to meet them. I would suggest you see how your daughter does with the characters first prior to the meal - my youngest was terrified of the costumed characters with faces (eg, Minnie) at age 2 (but loooooved the princesses), but fine was fine with them at age 3.

 

[Version 6]

My kids preferred Goofy's Kitchen and the one at the PPH over the Plaza Inn.

 

[dieumeye]

I suggest Goofy’s. Totally a kid friendly environment. You meet the classic characters, (which may be more familiar, and less scary, to a 3yo than the characters at Plaza Inn. I remember one of my kids was scared of Hook at Plaza Inn).

Character dining at Goofy’s, Storytellers, and the breakfast at PPH are pretty similar. So it’s not like you’d go wrong if you choose one over the other.

Plaza Inn is inside the park, which is fun, and the characters are a little more diverse than the classic gang.

The princess breakfast at Napa Rose is great, but expensive. So unless you are princess obsessed it’s probably best saved for a slightly older kid. (And if you do like princesses, you can pretty easily meet lots in the parks.)

 

[figment_jii]

I second the recommendation to plan the character meal towards the latter part of your trip (or at least not the first two days) - basically far back enough that you can cancel it if needed. Take her to see a few characters and see how she does. Some kids love the characters, others are terrified. It'd be quite a waste of money and time if you plan a character meal only to find out she's scared of them. Our group didn't have quite that extreme a reaction, but the youngest one (about 3) refused to look at the characters or take photos with them. If he'd been the only little one at the meal, it would have been a waste (luckily, his older sister was happy to meet all of the characters).

 

[tink89]

We took DD when she was 3 and Goofys Kitchen was and is her favorite. She is 11 now and we have done all the character dining and Goofys Kitchen is by far still her favorite and Minnies comes in second. We prefer an early dinner than take time out of the park for breakfast unless we have plenty of days.

 

[VandVsmama]

My girls loved the Minnie and Friends breakfast at the Plaza Inn - we did it at ages 3 & 6, and again at 4 & 7. We usually book a 10:30am slot so we have a few hours of park time first, and then use the meal as a "brunch". There are tons of characters, and they will come to your table so you don't have to stand around to meet them. I would suggest you see how your daughter does with the characters first prior to the meal - my youngest was terrified of the costumed characters with faces (eg, Minnie) at age 2 (but loooooved the princesses), but fine was fine with them at age 3.

I second this suggestion re: Plaza Inn.

 

[Aurora0427]

We’ve done dinner at Goofy’s Kitchen twice and breakfast at the Plaza Inn once, this past trip. The food selections are much better at Goofy’s Kitchen and the characters are classic.... Minnie, Goofy, Chip, Dale and Pluto.

However, the character interactions are much better at plaza inn. The characters are more unique and if you book around 10:20, you’ll close out the restaurant and for us they came by multiple times and danced with our kids, it was really special and unique. We had Fairy Godmother, Rafiki, Minnie, Chip, Dale, Captain Hook, Max, Pooh, Tigger and Eyore.

I don’t think we’ll do Plaza Inn again because we weren't impressed with the buffet, but it was worth the character interactions. We eat pretty healthy and there just wasn’t much for us to choose from. I definitely wouldn’t give up valuable light park crowds for breakfast, so definitely try and book after 10am if you choose Plaza Inn!

 

[Ciyra]

Thank you all for your input!

We have tickets to Disney on Ice before our DLR trip, so I'm hoping to gauge her character reactions during the meet and greet there.

Sounds like Goofy's Kitchen and Plaza Inn are the two to choose between for this trip.

 

[Malcon10t]

My grandkids love Storytellers the best, they are 4 and 8. Their 2nd favorite is Donald's Surfs up at Paradise Pier hotel. While you only see 5 characters, we get a LOT of interaction time. In 5 experiences at Plaza, 2 have been extremely disappointing (only 2 and 3 characters), 2 were just ok, and one was actually good. But the 5 don't average out to a good experience, so we have stopped trying. We always have a great time and enjoy the food at Storytellers and Donalds.

 

[Plip]

I agree with @ellamama and @figment_jii about scheduling it a little later in your trip.

On our daughter's first trip to Disneyland (when she was five), we did a character breakfast on our second day. We really hadn't met much for characters on our first day (perhaps because we were holding off for the breakfast), and our daughter hadn't really warmed up to the idea of a person in a big mouse costume, and the breakfast wasn't a huge success. I'm not sure she ever really bought into the idea that that was really Mickey Mouse, but by the end of the trip she was playing along with it (humoring Dad and Mom, at least). I think our experience would have been better if it was later in the week.

 

[Aurora0427]

My grandkids love Storytellers the best, they are 4 and 8. Their 2nd favorite is Donald's Surfs up at Paradise Pier hotel. While you only see 5 characters, we get a LOT of interaction time. In 5 experiences at Plaza, 2 have been extremely disappointing (only 2 and 3 characters), 2 were just ok, and one was actually good. But the 5 don't average out to a good experience, so we have stopped trying. We always have a great time and enjoy the food at Storytellers and Donalds.

Have you ever done the brunch at Storytellers? It seems like they have a character brunch that runs a tad later than breakfast. Is this correct or am I crazy? Ha! I was thinking about booking this on Christmas Day. Mickey is here, correct???? We haven’t done Storytellers yet but it gets great reviews and it doesn’t get more magical than Mickey and the GCH on Christmas Day!