Character Meet and Greets

In relation to Disney Parks but not specific to a single resort

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yodiwan1
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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by yodiwan1 » Jun Wed 12, 2013 8:00 am

amy, yup they cool off, if you want to PM me I can give you details. Don't want to ruin the magic on accident for anyone. lol
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Cardinals314
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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by Cardinals314 » Jun Thu 13, 2013 9:59 am

Peter Pan is an awesome character at the parks. Here is just one example

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princessinwaiting
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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by princessinwaiting » Jun Wed 26, 2013 4:39 pm

yodiwan1 wrote:amy, yup they cool off, if you want to PM me I can give you details. Don't want to ruin the magic on accident for anyone. lol
I might have to take you up on that offer myself, I hope to be a cast member someday and have a few little technical questions that the internet won't tell me and I don't know any park employees that I can ask! :)

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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by Chells » Jun Thu 27, 2013 4:45 pm

Probably showing my age but......Does anyone remember the character show at the Odyssey, at Epcot, and the meet and greet that followed. It was a counter service restaurant, and the characters would come down after the show for a meet and greet. It was pretty awesome and my kids loved it!
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Cardinals314
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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by Cardinals314 » Jun Thu 27, 2013 6:12 pm

Chells wrote:Probably showing my age but......Does anyone remember the character show at the Odyssey, at Epcot, and the meet and greet that followed. It was a counter service restaurant, and the characters would come down after the show for a meet and greet. It was pretty awesome and my kids loved it!
Never heard of it until now. There are videos on youtube that still have the show and stuff. It looked pretty neat
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acp
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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by acp » Jun Fri 28, 2013 4:36 am

princessinwaiting wrote:I can start with the time we met Aladdin in Epcot and told him where we were from and somehow ended up talking about Southport and how the theme park there has a magic carpet ride, so he had visited and knew where it was. We were in Disney World Florida and Southport is a town in North West England..... it was truly bizarre/magical!
Not entirely on-topic, but can you really call Pleasureland a theme park any more? Last time I was in Southport (which was, admittedly, a few years ago now) it was basically a dumping ground of mobile fairground rides that'd settled there :|

Moving slightly back on-topic, while I don't do the whole meet-and-greet thing myself, I do occasionally just have a look at what the characters are up to.

When I was in Tokyo DisneySea in May, I randomly happened across a huge part of the cast of Aladdin in the Arabian Coast section of the park (Aladdin, Jasmine, Abu, Genie and Jafar) all walking together. I'm not sure where they were going from/to, but when I found them, Jafar was having the Genie attempt to bully Aladdin. Long story short, they did a little improvised thing which sort-of matched the "Jafar's been controlling you with *this*" thing from the film. It was pretty cool to see. It was also interesting that they did it in English, not Japanese. I had my phone out at the time, so I took a few photos, which are here: http://campl.us/oWoI

Also in DisneySea, I was trying to sneak a photo of Gepetto to tweet while he was doing meet and greet in Mediterranean Harbour. I was spotted :P http://campl.us/oUBe

The Fairy Godmother in Tokyo's parks is creepy. http://campl.us/oT0X http://campl.us/o0WG

Oh, and the other thing I thought was cool that I couldn't remember seeing at other resorts (although I could just be forgetful!) is that the characters in Tokyo wore weather-appropriate clothing. Mickey's raincoat amused me :) http://campl.us/oVb1
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Amy
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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by Amy » Jun Fri 28, 2013 6:57 am

So they don't have CMs shooing you away from trying to take photos of the characters in TDL if you aren't standing in line to greet them? I understand why they discourage photos in the US parks, they don't want you snapping photos of other people's children, but I don't want to stand in line for a half hour to take a photo of a character so I try to snap a quick picture between kiddos getting their autographs. And it's not like you won't likely be in any one's pictures in the background of any other picture taken in WDW :roll:
Love your photos of Gepetto and Mickey in his raincoat! :D I wonder if the Fairy Godmother looks a bit creepy simply because she is wearing a mask and not a face character like she is in the US parks?

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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by acp » Jun Fri 28, 2013 8:02 am

Amy wrote:So they don't have CMs shooing you away from trying to take photos of the characters in TDL if you aren't standing in line to greet them? I understand why they discourage photos in the US parks, they don't want you snapping photos of other people's children, but I don't want to stand in line for a half hour to take a photo of a character so I try to snap a quick picture between kiddos getting their autographs. And it's not like you won't likely be in any one's pictures in the background of any other picture taken in WDW :roll:
They weren't shooing people away, no. I've never seen that happen before in any of the parks at any of the three resorts I've been to (WDW, DLP, TDR).

Usually, I'll try and see if I can catch the character between guests if I can (like this: http://campl.us/oT5d ), but more often than not, that'd involve standing around for a long time, which I generally can't be bothered to do.

Sometimes, the characters will take note of people who aren't queueing up for them, and pose for them between guests http://campl.us/oT02 :)

At the end of the day, expecting to not have your photo taken by complete strangers in somewhere as busy as the Disney parks is just silly. If you go to somewhere like that, you're going to end up in lots of photos whether you like it or not.

Now, having said that, I know that in Japan they do tend to not like having their photos taken anyway. I noted on the attractions that take photos, and indeed at the entrance to Star Tours (now they've got the new version), there were signs outside (see this photo ) explicitly stating that "Your photo will be taken and may be used". I think I'm right in saying they don't have those signs in the other resorts. It's one of those cultural differences. Still, there were plenty of other people taking photos of the characters with other people in front of them, so I gave up trying to understand how that particular cultural thing worked. :lol: (Which is a good tip in general for cultural things you're not sure of. Just casually observe what other people do, and do that!)
Love your photos of Gepetto and Mickey in his raincoat! :D I wonder if the Fairy Godmother looks a bit creepy simply because she is wearing a mask and not a face character like she is in the US parks?
Yeah, it's just the mask, really. The eyes in particular (which you can't see in my photos, but can in, for instance, this one I googled up) are just hellishly creepy. They use the same thing in the parades, too.

I just wanted to run away from it. Fast. :lol:
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Amy
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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by Amy » Jun Fri 28, 2013 7:13 pm

I've been told by a character helper at WDW more than once not to take a photo of a character if I wasn't in line. I mentioned being told not to take pictures outside of the queue in one of my trip reports and I believe it was Mousekedude who had mentioned the same thing had happened to him. Someone who was standing beside me in the park was trying to take a photo of the character too and shared my "what the heck just happened here" disbelief when we were told not to take pictures by the CM in a pretty rude manner. When I asked why we weren't allowed to take pictures outside of the queue line the CM mentioned it was for the privacy of the children and those who waited in the queue :roll: I was always careful to wait until there was no one standing by the character ~ because I wanted just the character in my photo and not random strangers :lol: but the CM was insistent that you had to stand in the queue to take a picture. And he stepped in front of us to block our view. I'm pretty sure the other guy and I were stunned for a second, shuffled over a step, snapped a quick picture between the next guests greeting the character and went along our merry way. It was very strange!
I like the fact that TDL characters take the time to pose for people that aren't patient enough to stand in a long line :lol:

Oh my, those eyes on the Fairy Godmother are super creepy :shock:

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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by I am Sulley » Jun Sat 29, 2013 11:35 am

acp wrote:
princessinwaiting wrote:I can start with the time we met Aladdin in Epcot and told him where we were from and somehow ended up talking about Southport and how the theme park there has a magic carpet ride, so he had visited and knew where it was. We were in Disney World Florida and Southport is a town in North West England..... it was truly bizarre/magical!
Not entirely on-topic, but can you really call Pleasureland a theme park any more? Last time I was in Southport (which was, admittedly, a few years ago now) it was basically a dumping ground of mobile fairground rides that'd settled there :|

The Fairy Godmother in Tokyo's parks is creepy. http://campl.us/oT0X http://campl.us/o0WG
Southport Pleasureland has indeed been through hard times :(
I think Aladdin was thinking back to happier times prior to 2006 when its parent company Blackpool Pleasure Beach suddenly closed it and demolished some historic rides.
Amy wrote:Oh my, those eyes on the Fairy Godmother are super creepy :shock:
I am really worried by that Fairy Godmother she reminds me of a Doctor Who alien :evil:

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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by princessinwaiting » Jun Sat 29, 2013 1:43 pm

acp wrote: Not entirely on-topic, but can you really call Pleasureland a theme park any more? Last time I was in Southport (which was, admittedly, a few years ago now) it was basically a dumping ground of mobile fairground rides that'd settled there :|
Yeh, its a bit sad now :( Ever since Blackpool stole the TraumaTizer its not really the same, but they still do the fireworks competition which is good!
Amy wrote: Oh my, those eyes on the Fairy Godmother are super creepy :shock:
Those eyes are creepy! I hope they don't change her to being a mask in all the parks, when I'm done being a princess, I'm counting on retiring to be her! My mum really looks like the Fairy Godmother, so if I grow up to look like her, I'll have that job for sure!! :D

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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by Amy » Jun Sat 29, 2013 2:20 pm

princessinwaiting wrote:
Amy wrote: Oh my, those eyes on the Fairy Godmother are super creepy :shock:
Those eyes are creepy! I hope they don't change her to being a mask in all the parks, when I'm done being a princess, I'm counting on retiring to be her! My mum really looks like the Fairy Godmother, so if I grow up to look like her, I'll have that job for sure!! :D
I would guess the Fairy Godmother only has a mask in TDL because they don't have someone able to play the part. :idea: Maybe I should get a few more wrinkles and head on over there!

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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by acp » Jun Sat 29, 2013 3:56 pm

Amy wrote:
princessinwaiting wrote:
Amy wrote: Oh my, those eyes on the Fairy Godmother are super creepy :shock:
Those eyes are creepy! I hope they don't change her to being a mask in all the parks, when I'm done being a princess, I'm counting on retiring to be her! My mum really looks like the Fairy Godmother, so if I grow up to look like her, I'll have that job for sure!! :D
I would guess the Fairy Godmother only has a mask in TDL because they don't have someone able to play the part. :idea: Maybe I should get a few more wrinkles and head on over there!
I think this is the most likely reason.

From what I can tell, they used to use a mask similar to this in the other resorts, but at some point decided to make it a face character instead. I wouldn't worry about them using something like this in the other resorts any time soon.
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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by elissa65 » Jul Wed 10, 2013 1:30 pm

Our last trip, instead of autograph books, my daughters each had a pillowcase for the characters to sign. Folded it up about the size of an autograph book with a piece of cardboard inside to keep ink from bleeding through and to give it support. After each autograph, we would refold it for the next character. They turned out really cute!
I took a tote bag for characters to sign for me :)

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Re: Character Meet and Greets

Post by princessinwaiting » Jul Wed 10, 2013 2:30 pm

elissa65 wrote:Our last trip, instead of autograph books, my daughters each had a pillowcase for the characters to sign. Folded it up about the size of an autograph book with a piece of cardboard inside to keep ink from bleeding through and to give it support. After each autograph, we would refold it for the next character. They turned out really cute!
I took a tote bag for characters to sign for me :)
This is a super cool idea!!! I love it! I may have to steal your creativity and try something similar when I am next at Disney! I really like the bag idea, something to wear that's more original than a t-shirt :)

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