Character Dining at DisneyLand

I'm preparing for a family trip to Disneyland toward the end of the month and am getting dizzy with the ticketing options, 3-day vs 4-day vs 5-day vs. annual passport, and Southern California annual passport with restrictions vs. unrestricted annual passport, Costco vs. Disney online vs. arestravel vs other sites, yaddayadda. But let me focus on another thing right now:

Can anyone tell me how character dining works? I was on arestravel and they have options to purchase character dining tickets, but I'm not quite sure what that means. It says valid through December, but is it a one time use thing? Can I use it all year long? What does my purchase entitle me to, just the right to eat there?

And why don't I see any character dining purchase options on the disneyparks.com site?

I've never seen the option of paying for a ticket to go to a character meal for Disneyland. The prices shown seem a little high. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable buying that. You should call Disneyland and ask how much character dining costs.

Breakfast will be a lot cheaper than dinner. Neither has good food, but it can be fun to have the characters visit the table.

Do not prepay for dining at DL. The character meal vouchers are more than the price of the meal, but they include tax and gratuity. You maybe will come out a few dollars ahead if you use them at dinner but the savings is pretty minimal. Dining reservations are made through Disney Dining (telephone): 714-781-DINE (3463).

Since you are going in Jan, strongly consider the SoCal Annual Pass. The only days blocked out in Jan are Saturdays and you can add any individual block-out day to your pass for $70. If you start your trip on a Sat, you can buy regular one-day passes for that first Sat, and then just pay the difference to upgrade them to an annual pass that same day. This gets around the extra $70 charge.

You get a 10% discount at most restaurants with a SoCal annual pass. Ariel's Grotto is awful. Goofys Kitchen is decent to good, Storytellers is actually quite good. All three are character meals. There are others but I don't have the skinny on them.

Sometimes House of Blues in Downtown Disney is available on restaurant.com. Uva Bar (also in DTD) has a great lamb burger. Other good DTD bets are Jamba Juice, La Brea Bakery and the kettle corn at the Planet Popcorn cart. I have a thing for tiki bars and therefore love the wildly overpriced drinks at Trader Sams at DL Hotel.

Best guilty pleasure is the corn dogs at Corn Dog Castle in California Adventure.

We mostly do not like the food in DL park very much.

If you want to ride anything in the new Cars Land section of CA, take advantage of early entry if possible. This may still be available to annual pass holders, definately available to DL resort (ie staying at one of the 3 DL hotels) guests.

H

Character dining for breakfast is the least expensive and buffet style. Each trip we have done the breakfast (2X WDW and once DL) and really enjoyed ourselves. We plan on doing it again this year...That reminds me I should start looking at dates soon since they fill up fairly fast!

Thanks for the tips. I think I will buy some costco park hoppers and then see if I can get full face value toward an upgrade to annual passes after admittance into the park.

As for character dining, we will stay away from Ariel's grotto. Do we need to make reservations or can we just walk in? Zeesh, planning for Disney is almost as difficult as navigating Wyndham points ownership.

Just giving a second opinion--Ariel's Grotto has improved greatly recently; we went this pass summer and the the food was exceptional, especially the desserts. Also, a key factor to remember is which characters you wish to see--Ariel's Grotto is all the Princesses, while Goofy's Kitchen is a mix of the traditional characters. Our experience is yes, you definitely need reservations, and easiest way is to call the reservation line mentioned. Side note: If looking for good meals, definitely go to the Carthay Circle Restaurant--top notch dinner, and if you reserve the World of Color package, you get preferred location for viewing area.

Aviator621 said:

Just giving a second opinion--Ariel's Grotto has improved greatly recently; we went this pass summer and the the food was exceptional, especially the desserts. Also, a key factor to remember is which characters you wish to see--Ariel's Grotto is all the Princesses, while Goofy's Kitchen is a mix of the traditional characters. Our experience is yes, you definitely need reservations, and easiest way is to call the reservation line mentioned. Side note: If looking for good meals, definitely go to the Carthay Circle Restaurant--top notch dinner, and if you reserve the World of Color package, you get preferred location for viewing area.

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Great to know, thanks.

Calling in to Disney dining is recommended, even in slower periods just so you can make sure there are seats for you and not have to.wait as long. Do you have boys or girls? My daughter loves aerials grotto, they have kiddie meals including Mac and cheese or pasta.

Goofys kitchen is fun and the food is pretty good. Minnies kitchen was good for characters but the food was just ok.

PearlCity said:

Calling in to Disney dining is recommended, even in slower periods just so you can make sure there are seats for you and not have to.wait as long. Do you have boys or girls? My daughter loves aerials grotto, they have kiddie meals including Mac and cheese or pasta.

Goofys kitchen is fun and the food is pretty good. Minnies kitchen was good for characters but the food was just ok.

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I've got three daughters. How far in advance do I need to make reservations? Is a few days before ok? We haven't planned our schedule yet.

I suggest you call as soon as you can. You can always change it later as your plans change. The last time I was in DL, I call for Arel's a month out and all they had were late lunches. We took the 130pm lunch and it was worth it. My DD5 had a blast. We thought the food was good, but still very expensive. If they want to see the princesses, its either buy an expensive lunch or wait in the meet n greet line.

Beefnot said:

I've got three daughters. How far in advance do I need to make reservations? Is a few days before ok? We haven't planned our schedule yet.

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I agree with slum808. I sometimes call and make a couple of reservations. If its only the five of you you're probably ok calling later but its probably safer to not take a chance.

Beefnot said:

Thanks for the tips. I think I will buy some costco park hoppers and then see if I can get full face value toward an upgrade to annual passes after admittance into the park.

As for character dining, we will stay away from Ariel's grotto. Do we need to make reservations or can we just walk in? Zeesh, planning for Disney is almost as difficult as navigating Wyndham points ownership.

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Unless the local costco has Disney park hopper, the $259 4 day hopper with $50 costco cash card ($209 total out of pocket) are sold out. Also with the costco ticket you get $275 credit towards a deluxe annual pass or higher. Just make sure you use the pass at least once before you use it to upgrade.

PearlCity said:

I agree with slum808. I sometimes call and make a couple of reservations. If its only the five of you you're probably ok calling later but its probably safer to not take a chance.

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It is so strange that they don't have an online booking option. I don't quite get why I had to wait on the phone on hold for 10 minutes to speak to a physical agent. That is very old school. I booked Ariel's Grotto for dinner, and whew, $36.99 for adults and $19.99 for children. Zeesh, that's pricy.

frank808 said:

Unless the local costco has Disney park hopper, the $259 4 day hopper with $50 costco cash card ($209 total out of pocket) are sold out. Also with the costco ticket you get $275 credit towards a deluxe annual pass or higher. Just make sure you use the pass at least once before you use it to upgrade.

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I called around to 4 Costcos in my area and they were all sold out except for one that had only a few tickets left over, and they first thought they were sold out before checking the system and poking around to find them. Had it not been for your alert, I would have waited another couple weeks to try and buy them, which would have likely meant no dice. Thanks much!

Beefnot said:

It is so strange that they don't have an online booking option. I don't quite get why I had to wait on the phone on hold for 10 minutes to speak to a physical agent. That is very old school. I booked Ariel's Grotto for dinner, and whew, $36.99 for adults and $19.99 for children. Zeesh, that's pricy.

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Everything with Disney is pricey-but if your daughter's have a good time then it'll be worth it. yeah its weird about no online booking. I think you cab email them but even that's a bit primitive.

Now. If you don't want to spend $50-75 on a princess dress for your girls is suggest seeing if the Disney store still has some on clearance or head over to target. The difference between the Disney store dresses and the target ones is you can wash the Disney store ones.