Character Breakfast-many questions!

[Albertan mom]

We are trying to decide which day to book our character brunch for.
Should we do it right away,or wait until the last day?

Any day of the week better?
(I am assuming fri, sat, sun, mon are busiest?)

What is the best time to go? It opens at 7, closes at 12 right? (on weekdays). If I booked for like 11:00, would that be good? Do they kick you out right at 12?

When I called the CM, I asked him if it was busier, if that meant more characters. He said no. All they guarantee (at Goofys Kitchen) is that there is 5 characters there, and he doesnt know who it will be.

Also-how long do you need for this, start to finish?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I want to book it today! Thanks

 

[Pokemom]

We went to Goofy's Kitchen in July and made our reservation for 12:30 (I believe brunch goes until 2:00, but I could be wrong). We went and did lots of rides at DL before it got too busy and then went for lunch when the crowds were getting big. I found this worked very well, as we missed some of the biggest crowds at DL and the brunch was not too crowded. By the time we were ready to leave, there were only about 4 or 5 groups of people left. We had lots of time with the characters. The characters that were there were Goofy, Max, Mary Poppins, Capt. Hook, Chip (or was it Dale?), Pluto, and the Mad Hatter. If you want to hurry through your meal, you could eat in half an hour, but nobody wants to do that. We took our time, took lots of pictures, and were there for just over an hour. Another benefit of going for brunch at a later time is that we were able to have a light breakfast in our rooms before and just had a small supper in the Parks - we were still stuffed from lunch. Also, if you belong to CAA, you get a 10% discount.

 

[Albertan mom]

Thanks for your good advice.
What day of the week did you go?

 

[got2travel]

I agree, go for the latest seating you can get. Treat it more like a lunch rather than a breakfast. I think we've usually done weekends, just because I wanted a break from the park crowds. The restaurant 'rules' say you can only stay 90 minutes, but I've never had anyone force us out. Then again, I've not paid attention to how long we were there either. We just stay long enough to eat and see each of the characters. The only 2 that will always be there are Goofy and Pluto. Pluto does not come around to the tables, he has a spot out front where you can take pictures with him. They sell them but you can also snap some with your own camera.

On various visits, we've seen Alice, Mad Hatter, Peter Pan, Capt Hook, Balou, Max, Mulan, Donald, Aladdin, Jasmine, Mary Poppins, Chip and Dale. Not that all were there at the same time, but we've been to Goofy's about 4 times now and these are who we have seen there.

 

[Pokemom]

We went on a Tuesday Albertan Mom

 

[richfei]

Hi,

We were in DL last week (Sun through to Friday)
We booked brunch for Thursday at 11:00 at Goofy's kitchen

I too wanted to find out in advance what was the best day to book and in the end we went for something later in the week for two reasons.

Firstly if we did it earlier in the week we thought that our son might have an expectation that he'll be seeing characters close up everyday, so it was a special treat for him.

And secondly we stayed at Hojo and didn't have any inclination to walk all the way to the DL hotel. So we decided to do the walk at the end of the week and hit the ESPN zone as well to use up our $10 coupon

We thought about times and I think breakfast tends to be extra busy so we wanted a brunch time with the thinking also that they would bring out different kinds of food. I don't think they did (they had made to order omeletes, sliced ham, salmon and the usual breakfast goodies and some very nice deserts......the food wasn't bad. It could have been a lot worse)

We went for 11am and the place was pretty deserted

We sometimes had to ask the manager or wait staff to encourage the characters to come over to our table, and they obliged. The manager was very nice and they always asked us if the food was good and if characters came by. That was a nice touch

Actually the characters came quite frequently and in some cases we saw them come to our dining area many, many times. GK had Chip n Dale, Goofy (of course), Alice, Aladdin, Pluto, Donald and some other character I didn't recognize. I was told Mickey never appears but Minnie sometimes does and the characters vary at dinnertime

Someone mentioned that you could only stay for 90 minutes, but we actually stayed until GK closed at 2, and to be honest it was fine. No one asked us to leave and no one pressurised us to eat faster or to move along. Perhaps because it was only half full (maybe even less)

Another reason we chose brunch over dinner was purely from a cost saving point of view. Brunch is cheaper than dinner and we preferred to eat out at dinnertime outside the park

Btw, someone I think mentioned in the forum already, but it's worth repeating, that Disney already adds a gratuity, so don't feel obliged to add another tip

We also had upgraded to an AP by then. Disney offers 10% for AP and AAA holders

Thanks
Richard

 

[Albertan mom]

THanks Richard, for you good info.

I called and booked it for wednesday. Then I called and changed it to friday. Now I am still debating.....!!

I wanted to make it into a lunch, but I was told that on those weekdays that the characters leave at 12:15 or so. So if I would have went at 11, we would have an hour with the characters. So I made it for 1030.

I asked which day was the busiest, he said they are all crazy at Goofys kitchen!

Richard-did the characters leave at 1215 when you were there?

I didnt think we would want to do rides after stuffing ourselves at the buffet (which we will be doing after spending $100 on it-haha). So I wanted to plan it for a day where we could do Aladdin right after. That is why I went with that day. So we can sit, all stuffed and full and watch the show!

Anyone else have any input?

 

[richfei]

Hi,

I think the characters pretty much stayed until the end
Perhaps not till 2, but it was certainly much later than 12:15, and the people at GK gave us plenty of time with all the characters

Perhaps I shouldn't say this, but I was kinda glad they moved on, since they came to our table so often and my son after a while got disinterested....I think Goofy came round three times in 20 minutes

Lunchtime around the park tends to be pretty crazy anyway and our thinking also was we always wanted a quick breakfast so we could head to the park and if we booked for breakfast i.e 7-8 we'll miss out on precious early morning ride time

We're also not really breakfast people - I just need cereal and some tea and I'm good to go. So I didn't feel as though I wanted to pay a lot and book for breakfast. But in hindsight, when I looked at the brunchfood, there were a lot of breakfast type foods there

Personally if I did it again, I'd book for the same time i.e 11am
Since the park nowadays opens at 9, you can still get a lot of rides in by 10 or 10:30 and then make your way to the DL hotel. Btw, the monorail was closed when we where there, so we couldn't take advantage of a quick train ride from tomorrowland to the DL hotel and had to walk. I quite enjoy walking but to be honest, unless I had reason to go to downtown disney or the hotel, I wouldn't want to do that everyday of my stay

Thanks
Richard

 

[Albertan mom]

I am thinking we will have a really light breakfast-fruit or a granola bar or something to tide us over until the 1030 brunch at GK.


You can take the Monorail from Tomorrowland to the DHotel right?
That'll save alot of walking, I really hope it is open then!!

 

[samkj]

THanks Richard, for you good info.

I called and booked it for wednesday. Then I called and changed it to friday. Now I am still debating.....!!

I wanted to make it into a lunch, but I was told that on those weekdays that the characters leave at 12:15 or so. So if I would have went at 11, we would have an hour with the characters. So I made it for 1030.

I just have to laugh, because this sound like me EXACTLY!! I have scheduled and changed our PS times/days so often its amazing I can still keep it straight!

Maybe we can start a Disney chapter of over planners annonymous?

 

[albianne]

We are booked to see Lilo & stitch at 8:50 AM, I chose this time because according to the schedule the gates don't open until 10:00 on the 14th. I thought that gave us time to eat before we headed into the park. How much in advance do they change the openning times, if they change it to 9:00 we will be hooped because we will be an hour late entering, hopefully I didn't make a mistake in booking so early.

 

[Dale-n-Chip]

We are booked to see Lilo & stitch at 8:50 AM, I chose this time because according to the schedule the gates don't open until 10:00 on the 14th. I thought that gave us time to eat before we headed into the park. How much in advance do they change the openning times, if they change it to 9:00 we will be hooped because we will be an hour late entering, hopefully I didn't make a mistake in booking so early.

That depends on when you want to get to the gates. If you follow the advice of many and want to be at the gates a half hour before opening (at 9:30 for a 10 am opening), you might be cutting yourself a little short. This is the stinky part of character breakfasts--they eat into prime park time!

I admit to being anal and booked our L&S at 7:00 for a 9 am opening. I would have made it for 6:30, but those lazy aliens don't open that early! (That was a joke, folks, not a slam on DL or any CMs.) It helps that we are Central Time folks and, excluding DH, are very early risers in general. My folks will be up at an obscene time and starving to death by 7!

Keep checking the calendar (there are those of us who--anonymously--check the calendar more than once a day). You can probably call back and change times later.

Good luck!

 

[AFMom]

We booked at 7am breakfast for a 9am park opening and got done eating, seeing characters (there were 15 of us in the group by the way....) just in time to be at the front gates 30 minutes prior to park opening. It worked out wonderfully - and since the park hours were shorter - 9am to 7pm - when we were there - we didn't want to leave the parks at all!!!! We had a long realxing breakfast - and a short quick lunch - and were still able to get in all the early ride times. Don't let this interfere with an early entry day, though!
I will say that at 7am the buffet wasn't crowded - but by 7:45 it was packed, and it was almost imposible to get to characters (or the food) by the time we left at about 8:15. It was a great experience, though and everyone agreed it was well worth the time and money!

 

[Albertan mom]

I just have to laugh, because this sound like me EXACTLY!! I have scheduled and changed our PS times/days so often its amazing I can still keep it straight!

Maybe we can start a Disney chapter of over planners annonymous?

If I knew how to make a logo for us Overplanners I would !!!!

 

[Rivergallery]

I just reserved an 8:30am for the Lilo and Stich breakfast.
We won't have park access that day, and we can sleep in a bit, and still hit the pool one last time before we have to check out.