This is the second part of our recap of our Four Park Character Meet Challenge. The challenge was to meet as many characters as we could in one day across all four Walt Disney World parks. You can read more about the background of the challenge here.
If you read the first part of this recap, you know that we ended up meeting 31 characters in one day. The Guinness Book of World Records doesn’t have an entry for “Most Disney Characters Met in One Day”, so I don’t know if this is record. But if it isn’t, it is very close.
Quick Recap
In our last episode, we got through our visit to our first park: Epcot. We were there from rope drop (9am) until around 1pm. During that four hour period, we were able to meet 11 characters total. That’s almost 3 characters per hour! While we probably could have gotten another 1-2 characters in Epcot, time and energy prompted us to move on to our second park: Animal Kingdom. That’s where we will pick up the story line.
Leg Two: Animal Kingdom
Out of all of the parks, Animal Kingdom has the least number of scheduled meet and greets with characters. Our plan here was to enter the park at 2pm (the earliest time at which you can park hop). As soon as we enter, we would get a DAS pass to meet Micky and Minnie at Adventurer’s Outpost. Based upon the timing of that, we would head over to Moana to meet her either before or after the mice, since Moana’s posted meet time was 2:30pm.
We ended up arriving at Animal Kingdom’s front gate at around 1:40pm. That’s approximately 35 minutes after we left Epcot. Since we had 20 minutes to kill before we could go through the turnstiles, we used this opportunity to take a bathroom break, re-apply sunscreen, and hydrate. We were entering the real heat of the day, so we wanted to be full recharged.
We clocked into the park at exactly 2pm and immediately got a DAS pass for Adventurer’s Outpost. The posted wait time was 35 minutes, so our return time was at 2:25pm. We decided to head to Moana first to see if that meet was available. Even though the posted time was 2:30pm, there’s always a chance that they might be running early.
No such luck!
When we got to Moana, we were told that it indeed started at 2:30pm, but they were happy to allow us to wait in the line for her. This prompted a decision. We could either:
- Wait for Moana, meet her, and then head to Adventurer’s Outpost, or
- Meet Micky and Minnie at Adventurer’s Outpost first, and then head back to Moana
We decided to go to Adventurer’s Outpost first, figuring that this would take longer, even with the DAS, given the relative popularity of the mice vs Moana.
Characters #12 and #13: Mickey and Minnie at Adventurer’s Outpost
This meet was pretty neat, as Mickey and Minnie are dressed in their park-exclusive safari outfits. It is always cool to see the different wardrobes that the characters have. Because we were able to use the Lightning Lane with our DAS pass, we were able to wrap up our meet at around 2:30pm. At that point, we headed back over to Moana.
Character #14: Moana at Character Landing
The Moana meet and greet is located just before you enter Dinoland USA, to the right of the pathway. We arrived here at around 2:35pm. However, by then, we were told by the Cast Member that the wait time was approximately 45 minutes! As it turns out, it would have been better to have gotten in line for Moana first after all.
There was no way that we could afford to wait in a 45 minute line, as this would put us way behind on our next leg. However, the Cast Member offered us some pixie dust and escorted us through the exit so that we could meet Moana right away. Note that we didn’t ask for any sort of preferential treatment, so this was completely unsolicited on the Cast Member’s part.
Anyway, this pixie dusting allowed us to meet Moana and add her to our count. Moana was super nice and enjoyed knowing that this meet was supporting the Phelan-McDermid Syndrome Foundation! She also showed off her picture of Hei-Hei, which was cool since Hei-Hei is a family favorite. If they had a Hei-Hei meet, we’d be all over that!
Animal Kingdom Wrap Up
Time in the park: 50 minutes
Characters met: 3
Number of face characters: 1
Number of fur characters: 2
Number of “Big Six” characters: 2 (Adventurer Micky and Adventurer Minnie)
We were in and out of Animal Kingdom in 50 minutes and onto our next park: Hollywood Studios!
Leg Three: Hollywood Studios
We entered Hollywood Studios at around 3:10pm, so total travel time was only around 20 minutes. Note that because it was past 2pm, we didn’t have to wait to enter like we did at Animal Kingdom.
The goal for Hollywood Studios was to meet as many characters as we could by around 5pm or so, which is when we wanted to head to Magic Kingdom. The plan was to first head to the Animation Courtyard / Star Wars Launch Bay / Pixar Place area, as there are several meets within close proximity here. Then if we had time, we would meet Olaf and Mickey & Minnie at Red Carpet Dreams.
Characters #15 and #16: Vampirina and Fancy Nancy
Honestly, I am not familiar with these characters, but apparently they have shows on Disney Junior. The official meet time for them was 3:30pm. However, when we arrived at 3:20pm, they were greeting guests in the Animation Courtyard. They also had a Pluto meet in the same vicinity, but he wasn’t there. Maybe he was going for a walk or something!
Character #17: Chewbacca at the Star Wars Launch Bay
Knowing that the Pixar characters would be available until 5pm, we decided to head over to the Star Was Launch Bay for the meets here. On this day, they had meets for Chewbacca, BB-8, and Darth Vader.
This was a good decision for two reasons. First, the meets are indoors and we really wanted to be in the air conditioning. Second, we are big Star Wars fans, so of course we had to meet some characters from one of our favorite franchises.
First up was Chewbacca. We got on line at around 3:30pm when there was a 25 minute posted wait time. The line moved fast and we were able to get in to meet him at around 3:45pm. Little Banshee loves Chewbacca because he is so big and furry… like a teddy bear!
We were told that Chewbacca wasn’t signing autographs since he was trying to stay incognito. However, he was still willing to pose for photos, so I am not sure how that works! Sounds a little fishy to me!
Character #18: BB-8 at the Star Wars Launch Bay
The other hero of the resistance that we got to meet was BB-8! This also went faster than the wait time indicated. There was a posted 20 minute wait time. However, we got on line at 3:55pm and were done by 4:10pm.
BB-8 is a pretty cool meet and greet. I assume someone controls his movements and sounds from “back stage”, which allows him to interact with guests. I think it reminded Little Banshee of her iPad, because she kept trying to press his “buttons”. It was definitely a fun and unique character interaction.
At this point, we decided to skip Darth Vader and head to Pixar Place to meet the characters there, as we thought we could get more “bang for our buck” so to speak (SPOILER ALERT: we did!)
Character #19: Sully at Pixar Place
I was so happy to see that Disney added a number of scheduled Pixar meet and greets to this section of park. Prior to that, it was an under-utilized dead end. There were actually two meets outside at the end of Pixar Place. The first one (on the left) was everyone’s favorite fluffy monster… Sully! Similar to Chewbacca, Little Banshee loved hugging the big furry teddy bear that is Sully. I don’t understand how he was able to make a living as a “scare monster” to be honest. Glad he has finally found his calling.
Characters #20 and #21: Mr and Mrs Incredible at Pixar Place
Right across the street was another meet and greet featuring everyone’s favorite Pixar superheroes: Mr and Mrs Incredible. The highlight of this meet was seeing Mr Incredible and Little Buster flexing, comparing the sizes of their biceps. While Little Buster has some work to do in that area, he is definitely a super hero in the making!
I should note that the lines for both of these meets were pretty short. I think because they are located in a dead end walkway, not a lot of people come here. They instead turn right at the restrooms to head towards Toy Story Land.
Character #22: FroZone at Pixar Place
FroZone didn’t have a dedicated meet and greet line like the other Pixar characters. Instead he was just walking around the area, posing for pictures as people went up to him. Fortunately, there weren’t a lot of people mobbing him, so we were able to do a relaxed meet up with him. We got some great shots of him and Little Buster doing their super hero poses together.
Character #23: Edna Mode at Pixar Place
Off to the left, there is a small inside meet and greet area where Edna Mode doles out fashion advice to interested park goers. As with the other meets in Pixar Place, the line was almost non-existent, so we were able to meet her without much of a wait.
Edna Mode was such a character. I think she approved of our matching Phelan Lucky T-Shirts, although she wanted to make some minor alterations to mine. At the end of the meet, she (in character) tried to hustle us to the exit. She’s an important and busy lady, so I can understand her need to move things along!
Honestly, this was a really great area for meeting characters. We were able to meet five Pixar characters within about 20 minutes or so. $500 more for the Phelan-McDermid Syndrome Foundation!
Decisions, Decisions!
At this point, it was around 4:40pm or so. Our goal was to leave the park by around 5pm so that we could get to Magic Kingdom to be able to get to the meets that close at 7pm. We probably could have went to the Olaf meet and greet before leaving. However, energy levels were getting low, and we really needed an A/C and food break. We decided instead to head to the ABC Commissary to grab a bite to eat. While we knew this would use of precious park time, if we didn’t do this, tempers would have flared. So that’s what we did!
It’s been a few years since we’ve been to the ABC Commissary. I remember It being somewhat disappointing the last time we were there. I remember it being super crowded and the food was just meh. Therefore, I didn’t have high hopes going in. However, I was pleasantly surprised this time around!
First, even though we were approaching the prime dinner hour, there was plenty of indoor, air conditioned seating. Second, the food was actually really good! I got the Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese, and I was really impressed. One thing I appreciated was that the buffalo sauce was included as a separate dip. Not only did this allow you to use as little or as much sauce as you wanted, it kept things a lot less messy! I would have no issues going back there again.
As an aside, how great is mobile order? Mobile ordering is so convenient. It saves so much time over standing on line and waiting to place your order. Honestly, if you aren’t using mobile order everywhere that accepts it, you are doing Disney wrong.
We wrapped up dinner at around 5:15pm or so, and proceeded to leave Hollywood Studios for our fourth and final destination: the Magic Kingdom! Part Three of this series will cover our experience there.
Hollywood Studios Wrap Up
Time in the park: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Characters met: 9
Number of face characters: 0
Number of fur characters met: 9 (counting BB-8 as a fur character)
Number of “Big Six” characters met: 0
Final Thoughts
With the addition of the Pixar Place meets, Hollywood Studios is a great park for meeting characters in terms of both quantity and quality. Plus, they are also located much closer together than either Epcot or Magic Kingdom, so we had a much easier time, logistically speaking. We might have been able to meet 1-2 more characters here if we really pushed, but we still exceeded my expectations!
Despite how good Hollywood Studios was from a character perspective, I’m still glad we decided to go to Epcot first. Even though we met only two more characters at Epcot, it took a lot longer because they were much more spread out. Therefore, we needed all that time from rope drop until park hopping time in order to achieve the number of meets that we did. If we had done Hollywood Studios first, we might have been able to meet 15 or so characters, but we probably would have been waiting around for a few hours until it was time to park hop. Too much dead time!
Anyway, that wraps up this part of our recap. Stay tuned for the third and final installment of these series!
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