It’s been several days since we completed our WDW Four Park Character Meet Challenge to benefit the Phelan-McDermid Syndrome Foundation (click here if you still want to donate).
SPOILER ALERT: We ended up meeting 31 characters in one day!
Since we have recovered from the experience, we finally have time to put together a recap of our experience for the community. If you want to see more pictures, please visit our Instagram page where you can get a visual retrospective.
Overall Thoughts
Before we get into the more detailed play-by-play, I wanted to summarize our general feelings about the challenge:
- Meeting 31 characters definitely exceeded our expectations. I was expecting that we would get into the low 20’s.
- We generally stayed on plan. We improvised in only a handful of situations. At the risk of sounding like I am bragging, I thought we came up with a really great plan and I challenge anyone else to come up with a better one!
- If we had really pushed, we probably could have met another 5 to 7 characters. However, if we had done so, Buster and the Banshee would now be divorced, and our children would have disowned us.
- We were aided by the DAS, some pixie dust, and good luck. I suppose you could replicate what we did with Genie+, but it would have been harder since Genie+ restricts you to a time window, whereas DAS does not.
- While it was a fun experience, I don’t think we will be doing it again anytime soon. The consensus was that visiting four parks in one day is not for the faint of heart!
Leg One: Epcot
The first park on our agenda was Epcot.
Character #1: Minnie at the Epcot Entrance
The plan called for us to rope drop Epcot and immediately go to the character meet just passed the entrance. The meet is in front of the Epcot mural that you see at the right of the entrance plaza. As soon as they allowed us to enter at 9am, we went directly to the meet area, where cast members were setting up the barriers for the meet. We were first in line since I don’t think most people knew that a meet was about to happen.
The specific character that you meet here isn’t listed. I think they rotate it, as we remember Pluto being here on previous trips. Today it was Minnie Mouse. As soon as she came out, everyone made a beeline to her, but since we were first in line, we got first crack! We were out of there by around 9:05am and on to our next meet.
Character #2: Mariachi Donald in Mexico
This next meet was scheduled for 9:30am, so we had plenty of time to walk to the World Showcase. The meet itself is to the right of the pavilion itself, in a little alcove area. When we got there, there were barriers set up, but no people, so we again were able to snag the first spot in line. Soon after, another woman dressed in a Donald shirt joined us, so we weren’t alone for long.
At around 9:30am, a cast member came by to tell us that Donald was running a little late, but would be with us shortly. By then, the line had grown to about a dozen people. Finally, by 9:40am, the Duck showed up, and we were able to visit with him.
Character #3: Mulan in China
This is the first audible that we had to call. The plan called for us to meet Anna and Elsa and then meet with Mulan when she arrived in China at 10am. However, at this point, the line to meet Anna and Elsa was 35 minutes long and we were already running late from Donald, so we decided to meet Mulan first. Then we would backtrack to Anna and Elsa in Norway. The next meet after that was Snow White in Germany at 10:45am, so we figured we’d be okay.
The Mulan meet is located just inside the theater waiting area, so we were glad to have some air conditioning. Unlike Donald, Mulan was running on time. Since we were first in line, we were able to meet with her right at 10am.
I must say that Mulan was one of the best meets we had. She really engaged with Little Banshee, took the time to talk to her, hold her hand, and was overall a gracious host. Kudos to her for her generous spirit
Characters #4 and #5: Anna and Elsa in Norway
As mentioned above, we decided to backtrack to meet the Frozen queen and princess after Mulan. When we arrived at around 10:05am, the posted wait time was still 35 minutes. However, we were through the line by 10:30am. I have to say that the queue for this meet is really cute. The story is that this is their summer house, and you are walking through their home. Some people were even using the dining room chairs to rest their butts while waiting in line, which I guess is what a gracious host does: provides seating!
Character #6: Snow White in Germany
This is where I thought it would get a bit dicey. Snow White, Jasmine, and Belle all had meets starting at 10:45am. Not knowing how long they would last, I didn’t expect to be able to meet all three. I would be happy if we had least got to two of them.
When we arrived in Germany for Snow White at around 10:40am, there was already a line that had formed, so that worried me a bit. Knowing that these meet and greet lines generally don’t move that fast, I wasn’t sure if we’d even make it to Jasmine in time. Fortunately, it went by fairly fast, and we were able to wrap up this meet by 10:50am. On to Morocco!
Character #7: Jasmine in Morocco
This meet and greet is tucked away near the back of the Morocco pavilion, in the souk area. There aren’t any signs on the main World Showcase walkway to let you know it’s there. Fortunately, when we arrived there at 11am, she was still there meeting with people. There were about 10 people in front of us. Jasmine was really taking her time, having long and elaborate conversations with everyone. She was another superstar!
When it was our turn, Jasmine was super gracious with her time, giving Little Banshee quite a bit of attention, making eye contact with her, talking to her. Even though this was a challenge where time is of the essence, we didn’t rush these moments. If it meant missing out on another character, so be it. This is about the journey, not the destination.
We left Morocco by around 11:20am. Honestly, I assumed that we wouldn’t be able to get to Belle in time, since her meet had started on 10:45am. I was planning on just skipping her and going to the Aurora meet at 11:25am.
However….
Character #8: Belle in France
When we enter the France pavilion area, we were shocked to see that Belle was still meeting with people. We found her right along the fence that borders the lagoon. There were maybe one or two people ahead of us, which was also shocking. So we were able to meet all three characters who had meets in the 10:45am time frame! BONUS!
Character #9: Aurora in France
At this point there were two meet and greets starting at 11:25am: Aurora in France and Alice in the United Kingdom. We expected to be able to get to both of them, since the two are in relatively close proximity. However, when we arrived at around 11:30am to Aurora, the line for her was about 25 people deep. We knew it would take awhile to work our way to the front of the line. Therefore, we weren’t sure if we would able to get to Alice in time.
Our turn to meet Aurora came at around 11:50am and we were done a few minutes later.
BREAK!!!
Given our luck at meeting all of the 10:45am characters, we probably would have had a good chance of meeting Alice if we wanted to. However, three things conspired against us:
- It was almost midday and the heat was really starting to beat down on us.
- France has arguably the best quick service ice cream location: L’Artisan des Glaces.
- It opens at noon so there was barely a line!
We made the executive decision to wait on Alice and reward ourselves with a little treat! I got a cup of raspberry sorbet, and everyone else got one of their decadent ice cream sandwiches to share!!
Character #10: Daisy Duck Near the International Gateway Entrance
When we crossed the bridge between France and the UK, we noticed that there was an unscheduled Daisy meet and greet going on right inside the International Gateway entrance. Knowing that Alice might not be available anymore, we made a beeline for everyone’s favorite duck! That reinforced to us that our decision to grab some ice cream was the right one. After all Daisy > Alice.
Character #11: Pluto Near the World Showcase Entrance
As we expected, the Alice meet and greet was done by the time we got to the UK. At this point, it was around 12:20pm. We had a decision to make. Either we could head over to the Pixar Film Festival and the ImageWorks for the meets there, or we could meet Pluto at the entrance to the World Showcase. It would be hard to do both since we really wanted to leave the park by 1pm. Given that Pluto is Banshee’s absolute favorite, it was an easy choice. On to Pluto!
The meet itself is to the left as you enter the World Showcase from Future World (or whatever they are calling it these days!). We got to the Pluto meet at around 12:30pm and were second in line. Since we were able to complete that meet and greet with time to spare we decided to head to one of the festival booths to grab a snack before we hit the road. We were in the car and on our way at around 1:05pm, en route to park #2… Animal Kingdom
Epcot Wrap Up
Time in the park: 4 hours
Characters met: 11
Number of face characters: 7
Number of fur characters: 4
Number of “Big Six” characters: 4 (Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Pluto)
That concludes Part One. Stay tuned for Part Two, as we receive some pixie dust in Animal Kingdom, and start to hit the wall in Hollywood Studios.
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