Is it weird to do character meets as an adult with no children?

[Stephanator]

Characters are some of my most favorite memories of adult only trips to DL and WDW! I've done solo and with groups of adults (up to 4 of us) at Akershus, Cinderella's Royal Table and Garden Grove at The Swan and always had fantastic interactions with characters.

At the parks, I usually ask hug the characters and then ask then, "What pose shall we do today?" and let them or their cast member buddy decide. It's always a good way to break the ice and get unique photos. I've danced with Goofy, kissed Pluto, been a super hero with The Incredibles, made some finger pointing gun salutes with both Woody and Jessie, done a prim and proper hand cupped pose with Alice, worked on my princess wave with Belle and had an overall grand time! Here is one of my favorites from DL/CA when I visited Oswald and he suggested our silly pose.

 

[keahgirl8]

This is how I see this topic, from my perspective. I had the kind of father who was not gonna spend his hard earned bar money on anything but the necessities for his wife and children. Thus we never went to WDW or any theme park, beach, or any other family amusement center. As an adult, I liked the Disney cartoons and Donald especially, but never had an urge to go to WDW. My DW had been a few times as a kid and loves everything Disney. After 2 years of marriage, she took the money given to her as gifts for earning her Bachelors Degree and convinced me go to WDW. I have been taking her and my DM ever since. We have been married 15 years as of July and have not been able to have kids, although all my nephews and nieces tell me I am like their second father and I am really a big kid, which is why I think I took to WDW so easily. I am not big on getting anyone's autograph but do like taking pictures with anything I think is cool or fun, which sometimes includes the Disney characters & my DW goes giddy around these costumed characters. I am not much for caring about what others think but my DW does so I had to convince her to take character photos. The argument I used to convince her was if adults takings character photos is weird or "creepy", does that mean everyone like me who never had the chance to go to WDW as a kid doesn't deserve to enjoy the full experience just because we are adults with no children of our own, even though I pay for the experience with MY hard earned money, and lots of it being that it is Disney? Not everyone could enjoy the things others take for granted as kids or even as adults, so people should think about that the next time they want to condemn or ridicule others for having fun or trying to find their inner kid.

Sorry if this turned into a rant, don't mean it that way. Just my humble opinion.

Agreed. Also...I feel like I'm never going to see any of these people again, so who cares what they think? If they have an issue with it, they need to enjoy their own vacation and quit worrying about what I'm doing.

 

[keahgirl8]

Characters are some of my most favorite memories of adult only trips to DL and WDW! I've done solo and with groups of adults (up to 4 of us) at Akershus, Cinderella's Royal Table and Garden Grove at The Swan and always had fantastic interactions with characters.

At the parks, I usually ask hug the characters and then ask then, "What pose shall we do today?" and let them or their cast member buddy decide. It's always a good way to break the ice and get unique photos. I've danced with Goofy, kissed Pluto, been a super hero with The Incredibles, made some finger pointing gun salutes with both Woody and Jessie, done a prim and proper hand cupped pose with Alice, worked on my princess wave with Belle and had an overall grand time! Here is one of my favorites from DL/CA when I visited Oswald and he suggested our silly pose.

Oswald is THE BEST. I almost cried.

 

[KornBred]

Characters are some of my most favorite memories of adult only trips to DL and WDW! I've done solo and with groups of adults (up to 4 of us) at Akershus, Cinderella's Royal Table and Garden Grove at The Swan and always had fantastic interactions with characters.

At the parks, I usually ask hug the characters and then ask then, "What pose shall we do today?" and let them or their cast member buddy decide. It's always a good way to break the ice and get unique photos. I've danced with Goofy, kissed Pluto, been a super hero with The Incredibles, made some finger pointing gun salutes with both Woody and Jessie, done a prim and proper hand cupped pose with Alice, worked on my princess wave with Belle and had an overall grand time! Here is one of my favorites from DL/CA when I visited Oswald and he suggested our silly pose.

That is the coolest character costume I have seen! Oswald and his backstory are awesome anyway, but the life size version looks amazing! Thanks for sharing. I will definitely have to meet with him when we go to WDW in August. Awesome picture!!!

 

[emnems34]

We LOVE character meals and we always go when we are at Disney! We've done so many and never once with a child! They are fun for everyone. I like to tell my husband "We're just testing them out so we know the good ones when we have kids!"

 

[bigempty]

This is how I see this topic, from my perspective. I had the kind of father who was not gonna spend his hard earned bar money on anything but the necessities for his wife and children. Thus we never went to WDW or any theme park, beach, or any other family amusement center. As an adult, I liked the Disney cartoons and Donald especially, but never had an urge to go to WDW. My DW had been a few times as a kid and loves everything Disney. After 2 years of marriage, she took the money given to her as gifts for earning her Bachelors Degree and convinced me go to WDW. I have been taking her and my DM ever since. We have been married 15 years as of July and have not been able to have kids, although all my nephews and nieces tell me I am like their second father and I am really a big kid, which is why I think I took to WDW so easily. I am not big on getting anyone's autograph but do like taking pictures with anything I think is cool or fun, which sometimes includes the Disney characters & my DW goes giddy around these costumed characters. I am not much for caring about what others think but my DW does so I had to convince her to take character photos. The argument I used to convince her was if adults takings character photos is weird or "creepy", does that mean everyone like me who never had the chance to go to WDW as a kid doesn't deserve to enjoy the full experience just because we are adults with no children of our own, even though I pay for the experience with MY hard earned money, and lots of it being that it is Disney? Not everyone could enjoy the things others take for granted as kids or even as adults, so people should think about that the next time they want to condemn or ridicule others for having fun or trying to find their inner kid.

Sorry if this turned into a rant, don't mean it that way. Just my humble opinion.

Well said KB, well said! My beef with all this is 'How is this any different if an adult wants to meet with a celebrity?'.

 

[MasterPrime]

My best experience to date was when my wife and I were at Disney during our Honeymoon in March 2015. We wore our honeymoon pins, my wife wore her bride Minnie ears w/ vale and met Buzz and Woody in DHS. We walked in their room and immediately Buzz and Woody saw our pins and my wife's Minnie ears. They started jumping and reacting to us without us saying a word. Woody grabbed my wife and danced around the room with her and Buzz gave me a hi-five and threw his arm around me. We were with them for a while and they were very energetic towards us. I honestly can't remember what we said but we were laughing and smiling the whole time. It was a great memory that my wife and I will remember for a very long time.

With that being said, their is absolutely nothing wrong with meeting characters. I have met many characters and some could have been better towards us (cough, sorcerer mickey @ DHS, cough cough). The rest have been amazing towards my wife and I. Chewbacca almost had me in tears when he grabbed me and bear hugged me. The magic is definitely in those parks when meeting those characters.

 

[keahgirl8]

That is the coolest character costume I have seen! Oswald and his backstory are awesome anyway, but the life size version looks amazing! Thanks for sharing. I will definitely have to meet with him when we go to WDW in August. Awesome picture!!!

As far as I know, he is only at California Adventure. I wish he was also at WDW, because he is awesome!

ETA: Dude...that is not a costume. That is Oswald!

 

[Jessiemendez1]

Just wondering if anyone on here goes to meet any of the characters in the parks without children. I haven't ever really done so myself but was thinking about it next time I go. The first time I went to WDW I was 19 so I've never really done any. Do you feel like you're being judged negatively for it? I did a quick search online which came up with a few blog posts from people saying its annoying and should be left for the kids. How were the interactions with the characters?

We go every yet with one of our babysitters (she's 24 and we go with 4 kids) and she always meets them and gets pictures after the kids. Not weird at all!

 

[Stephanator]

That is the coolest character costume I have seen! Oswald and his backstory are awesome anyway, but the life size version looks amazing! Thanks for sharing. I will definitely have to meet with him when we go to WDW in August. Awesome picture!!!

As far as I know, he is only at California Adventure. I wish he was also at WDW, because he is awesome!

ETA: Dude...that is not a costume. That is Oswald!

I haven't seen any reports of him in WDW either, only in California Adventure. He must just love the west coast.

 

[keahgirl8]

I haven't seen any reports of him in WDW either, only in California Adventure. He must just love the west coast.

Because Buena Vista Street at DCA is all about the period when Walt first came to California, I'm sure he feels right at home there!

 

[The Duke]

It's one of the highlights and "must-dos" for my wife and I when we go down to see our favorite characters - it's too bad Lady Tremaine will only be appearing at 1900 Park Fare now, since she is one of our favorites, but at least the Step-sisters will still be out and about in MK.

 

[xjillianpaige]

A few weeks ago, my family and I met Donald Duck, just a few days after his birthday (I'm 26, bro is 23). The accompanying cast member asked if we knew how old he was, and my mom's guess was 21! Donald proceeded to laugh and mime throwing back a drink. This was our first time meeting characters as adults and we had a blast. My mom especially liked meeting Tarzan! And my dad encouraged it!

 

[grumpysteelman]

Not strange at all. I've been taking pictures with Mickey my whole life - and I'm single and 35! (and a guy)

 

[Maderita]

It's weird only if you think it's weird! Enjoy it!

 

[Kris Kidwell]

When we first started going to Disney we skipped the character meet and greets because we know it's just someone in a costume. But as time went on we decided it would be fun to get pictures with as many characters as we can. We don't get autographs, the pictures are enough. I've found that I really enjoy meeting the characters, especially the face characters that you can banter with. We had a great conversation with Snow White once.

 

[tizzant]

I think it's silly and not for me, but if you want to (or someone in your group does) why not? Have fun.

Heck, I was at disneyland in 2012. I was hanging out outside the tinkerbelle meet up waiting on the rest of my party to get done with her and realized they hadn't taken a camera. So I asked the CM at the gate: yo, what do I do? They told me to sneak around the back and tell the CM guarding the handicapped entrance what had happened. I was 26 at the time. Peter Pan ended up seeing me sneaking around behind the meet n greet with a camera (which sounds far more dirty now that I've typed that) and goes "SCALLIWAG!" with the widest grin on his face because he was doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and HERE'S THIS POOR INNOCENT SOUL (me). Alice happened to be nearby (also doing nothing) and comes over to scold him and of course, this turns into a huge event with multiple cast members and characters all on a quest to get this camera up to my group. Which we did (and Tink and Peter had a big goofy interaction thing which the kids in the group were over the moon about). And sitting here typing this, I'm laughing and shaking my head because it was so silly and ridiculous, but it was fun and it got the camera in there. And that's what matters. So I don't avoid the characters, but I also don't seek them out.

On the other hand, like I said. I look back at that and smile and laugh and shake my head and go, "Ah, Disney" in the most fond of ways.

I raise rabbits that just so happen to be black and white and spotted and I've been considering tanning a little coinpurse for Cruella -if- she's out and about down in Florida. It'd take about 3 seconds to do and I'm already tanning and making a bunch of other stuff before we go down.

 

[Simba's Mom]

If anyone still feels a little "weird" about doing a character meet alone, maybe it will help if you think of it as doing a service for the children coming to meet the character. I remember one time I met with Tigger when I noticed that the back of his cost-...um, I mean the back of his neck...looked a little strange, so I whispered this to his handler. Turns out that something WAS wrong in how he was dressed that day, so they were able to discreetly straighten things out before any little ones were disturbed and asking questions.

 

[snowybelle]

I'm just back from a solo WDW trip and I did over 40 character meets. (WAY more than I normally do because most of the people I typically travel with aren't interested.) For the most part all of the characters were fabulous! Stand out meets were Gaston, Snow White, Chip and Dale, Jack and Sally (MNSSHP), and Cruella (Club Villain). For the most part nothing was weird or awkward. However, I did find that a couple of the characters spent lots of time with the kids but kind of rushed the adults along. That wasn't the norm, but it happened more than once.

 

[WendyTJ]

Over time my interest and appreciation has grown for character meets.
They are so much fun