I was recently asked about the characters that are listed, and for tips on finding them. This is basically the e-mail I sent in response!

The character photos on the Characters page were collected over the course of 4 trips, but some characters we got repeatedly. You can easily get 30 or more over the course of a week! We don't go actively looking for characters until late in the week when we've done most of the attractions already. I'm considering putting up a page with info about meeting the characters. The characters are really wonderful, they know their movies inside and out! The ones who can't talk do a great job of communicating and interacting with gestures. We make our own autograph books, and the "face" characters (ones that can talk, like princesses) often remember us throughout the week. Pretty much all of the stores and most of the souvenir carts sell autograph books and tall chubby ballpoint pens. You want fatter pens, if you take your own, so that they are easier for the characters to grasp - some of them have big hands, big gloves and/or only 4 fingers. Captain Hook only has one hand! We took regular Sharpies and they all were OK with them, as long as we had them open before handing them to the character. You want to have the autograph book open to the page you want signed, too. Be warned, some of them write really big and will take up the whole page! You can also do just photos, have the camera ready! Sometimes a Cast Member will offer to take the photo for you so the whole family can get in the picture.

About meeting characters: There are tons of characters everywhere. Look on the guidemaps for character greeting areas, but those are not the only places to find them. Here are some of my tips and experiences:

Arrive at the park 10 minutes or so before it opens! Whether you want characters or not, this is a good idea because the lines will be shorter, but early morning is a great time to find characters. Magic Kingdom has an "opening ceremony" with the characters arriving on the train (one of the coolest things you'll see - the train full of characters pulling into the station waving to you...). Epcot has characters on a double-decker bus come out and help open the park. Animal Kingdom has an opening ceremony with characters on a safari truck, but they don't get off and sign autographs, everyone follows them to Kilimanjaro Safaris. (You definitely want to be at the Safari FIRST THING. We've found that even 15 minutes makes a big difference in how many animals you'll see. Take a camera!)

Check the designated greeting areas on the maps. You'll find Mickey pretty much all day in Animal Kingdom's Camp Minnie-Mickey (in safari clothes), in Magic Kingdom's Toontown Fair (regular suit), and in the back part of MGM Studios (sorcerer Mickey). We've found MGM to be less crowded for Mickey.

If there's a character you just HAVE to find, ask a cast member who has access to a phone or one of the character "handler" cast members. They can usually tell you or find out for you where to find who you are looking for, or if they're not going to be out that day. Princesses are fairly easy to find, Chip and Dale are practically inescapable, but characters from the lesser-known movies are less easy to find. I've never seen anyone from Treasure Planet or Atlantis, for example. Toontown also has a princess area (we've seen Cinderella and her mice friends Suzy and Perla). Camp Minnie-Mickey sometimes has Donald, Daisy, Minnie or Goofy.

Consider character meals. We've enjoyed the ones we've done: Princess Storybook Breakfast, Liberty Tree Tavern in Magic Kingdom (Minnie, Goofy, Chip & Dale -- GREAT food!), and the Garden Grill. Not all of them guarantee the same characters every time, but many do, and it's more relaxed than waiting in line for characters in the parks.

At Magic Kingdom, after the opening, the characters gather in the square around the flagpole and in front of city hall and the exposition hall. There are usually at least 10 characters out, but they have to go in after a certain length of time so you might not get them all. They are sometimes there other times of day, too. We have seen Pinnocchio, Gepetto, Gideon, Brer Bear, Brer Rabbit, Country Bears, Cruella DeVil, Jafar, Governor Ratcliffe, Captain Hook & Mr. Smee, and many others. Probably not Mickey, though. I'd look for him at a character meal or specified greeting area.

At the Epcot opening we saw Genie, Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket (who we didn't get, and were very disappointed. He's RARE!!!), Chip & Dale, Coda (from Brother Bear, who we also didn't get) and others. The bus comes around other times of day, too, which should be listed in the entertainment guide.

At Animal Kingdom opening, there are usually characters along the way to Kilimanjaro Safaris, carefully placed in hopes of stopping a few people and slowing the traffic, I think. I've seen Lilo & Stitch on the left side near the entrance to Camp Minnie-Mickey, and we saw Flik on the right side - we just had to stop, he's rare to find too!

We have done the Princess Storybook Breakfast in Epcot's Norway twice, where we saw Mulan, Mary Poppins, Princess Aurora, Jasmine and Belle both times. Sometimes they change them around a little, but you WON'T find Cinderella there. She's at Cinderella's Royal Table in the Castle, or at the Grand Floridian's character meal at 1900 Park Fair. We're planning to try to get Cinderella's Royal Table this year. Those seatings are pretty hard to get, you definitely need to call 90 days out, right when the phones open at 7. They've recently extended the hours though, so you could do it as breakfast or an early lunch.

At the Garden Grill in The Land in Epcot, we saw Farmer Mickey, Pluto, Chip & Dale. Much of the food is grown in the Land Pavilion, too, so it is very fresh. They have a Mickey-shaped cucumber slice in each salad, and the best catfish I've ever tried (and I usually don't like catfish). We've gotten same-day priority seatings for this one with no problem.

Aladdin, Jasmine and Genie can be found in Morocco in Epcot, in the back near the entrance to Restaurant Marrakesh. They're only out one or two at a time, and they rotate frequently. I've never seen Jafar there, but I wouldn't be surprised if he showed up from time to time.

Belle and the Beast can frequently be found in France in Epcot, or Belle can be seen after her storytelling at the Magic Kingdom (very enjoyable, even for adults). Beast probably won't often be found without Belle, because he can't write with those big hands. She signs his autographs for him. She also has always worn her blue dress, not the yellow one - I've seen one picture of one person EVER who met her in her yellow dress! They used to have Hunchback of Notre Dame characters like Esmerelda, Quasimodo, Phoebus and (my favorite) Clopin in France, but we were told in October 2004 that they're not doing greetings there anymore. We saw them at the Halloween Party in 2000, too, in the Magic Kingdom.

We've seen both Snow White and Princess Aurora lingering around the International Gateway into Epcot (between France and the UK) during the afternoon. Neither had anyone near them, no line!

I've heard of people finding Alice in Wonderland and Mary Poppins in the UK in Epcot, but we've never seen them there.

Ariel has her own greeting area (Grotto) in Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom, since she can't walk around with fins!

At Animal Kingdom, on the right just before the entrance to Dinoland there is a path down to a secluded character greeting area that used to be a boat landing. That area is used by Pooh and friends, and usually has a pretty short line. We've seen Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, and Pooh.

At Rafiki's Planet Watch in Animal Kingdom, there are character greetings every so often, usually animal characters. We've seen Rafiki, Meeko and Terk there.

There are character greetings pretty often (times will be listed on the entertainment guide) around the "big sorcerer's hat" at MGM Studios. We've seen Minnie, Pluto, Donald, Pocahontas, Meeko, Mulan, Hercules, Megara (she's rare, too), Lilo & Stitch, Alice, Timon and Pooh characters there.

At MGM, Toy Story characters can be seen at Al's Toy Barn. There's usually a pretty sizeable line there, but we've seen Jessie, Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Sarge, who is hilarious and was entertaining and hanging out with people in the line. Buzz and Woody have stamps instead of signing autographs. Sometimes the green army men will be out and about in MGM, and will sign. They don't talk, except for Sarge.

If the Not So Scary Halloween Party is going on while you are there in October, DEFINITELY GO!!! It's REALLY fun, great shows and an awesome parade (with the Headless Horseman riding through the park before the parade starts - incredible!!!), and characters are out in DROVES. We even saw Prince Phillip with Aurora, and she remembered us from breakfast earlier in the week! The path between Toontown and Tomorrowland was turned into an Alice in Wonderland greeting area, with Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Walrus, the Queen of Hearts, Tweedledum and Tweedledee. There were plenty of playing cards handing out treats, also. Some of the characters (like Pooh) are in costume, and there are villians and rare characters there that are hard to find elsewhere, especially after the Castle show. I was so mad that I JUST missed Maleficent! We danced with Stitch in Tomorrowland, to disco being played by a DJ! The special fireworks are great at the party too. They are (as of October 2004) the old Fantasy in the Sky show, with perimeter fireworks circling the whole park. It really is awesome. (The Wishes fireworks show at Magic Kingdom on regular days is also absolutely not to be missed. It's truly beautiful. It's best seen from the center of Main Street facing the castle.) The party has a limited amount of tickets, so the park is (in my experience) much less crowded than other times. And I LOVE Magic Kingdom at night.

Other than these, just look around as you walk. If a character has an attraction themed after them, or that somehow relates to them, they may hang around there sometimes. Mulan and Mushu can be found in Epcot's China. Peter Pan, Wendy, Hook and Smee can sometimes be found by Pirates of the Caribbean (since Hook is a pirate)! I've seen Jungle Book characters hanging around Adventureland in Magic Kingdom. We saw Mickey and Goofy in spacesuits by the entrance to Mission Space in Epcot. We saw Coda in Canada in Epcot. I've seen the Queen from Snow White outside of Tower of Terror at MGM. If you watch the show in front of the castle, linger a bit afterwards. Sometimes they sign autographs! Even if you don't go to Cinderella's Royal Table restaurant, you may want to take a peek in the lobby. I've heard that the Fairy Godmother hangs around there sometimes, and you might even find Cinderella! Merlin does a "sword in the stone" show by the Carousel each day. Alice in Wonderland characters may be found around the Mad Tea Party ride sometimes. As you're leaving Animal Kingdom, look around after you exit the turnstiles. We've seen Jane Porter standing all by herself, as well as Suzy and Perla! We saw Kermit and Miss Piggy outside Muppetvision 4d at MGM. Sometimes characters just randomly appear for no apparent reason, like one morning when we saw Bert and the two penguins from Mary Poppins just hanging around in Fantasyland.

Among the characters we've NOT seen are Tarzan and Tinker Bell. We're still hoping for Tarzan, and we discovered Tink apparently is at the info sessions at Beach Club for the Disney Vacation Club. I'm tempted to go sit through the spiel just to get her autograph! Hades is never out, according to Cruella, who enjoyed looking through our books to see who we had already met. King Louie from Jungle book is out with Baloo sometimes but doesn't sign because he "has arthritis" (non kung-fu grip, as we say!). Sometimes there are other characters who, for whatever reason, won't or can't sign autographs (Perla for example, signed one time but not the next time). We just get pictures in those cases. Also, when the characters have to go in, they HAVE TO GO. The handlers are usually very good about warning you of where and when the lines will cut off so you don't stand in line for nothing, but you need to know that they may have to suddenly leave just before you get to them. It's happened to us several times. The handlers can usually tell you where and when to find them again, though.

Back to Character List