new to disboard.. taking son jan 2018

morg9216

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jan 4, 2017
I'm new to disboard and love everthing Disney!! I've been several times but Jan 2018 ill be bringing my son for the 1st time. He will be just shy of 3. He knows all the characters but im nervous about his reaction to seeing them in person. Can anyone tell me about personal experiences? How can I make him less afraid of them? I don't want him to be traumatized!
 
My daughter was 3 for our first trip. It was a surprise trip but I also wanted to prepare her as much as possible. I started watching youtube videos of people's trips. I talked to her about how big the characters were in person. She absolutely loved meeting the characters!! It was her favorite part of the trip.
 
We first brought our oldest DD when she was about 3 1/2 and our other DD was 18 months. They both loved meeting the characters. Although they were at kiddie parties where there were characters - not Disney characters but they were at least used to the size of them. Our oldest is now 21 years old and still loves seeing characters. The characters will let your decide how close your kids want to get. Enjoy.
 
Well, it's not like they are just walking around like they show in the commercials. One of my kids was afraid of them at two, they are very easy to avoid!
 
We just took our son last week at 18 months. He absolutely loved meeting the characters! We did 2 character meals and also met Mickey and Aladdin/Jasmine at Magic Kingdom. I did see a few small kids who cried and ran to their parents when it was their turn to meet the characters. It really depends on the kid. But the characters are easy enough to avoid if your son is scared.

Side note - my son had been terrified of the Easter bunny, but had no problems at Disney. The Disney characters are potentially way less creepy than the Easter bunny, however.
 


My two girls (5 and 3) when we went last June. Are very into the princess and the other Disney characters. We bought the middle tier meal plan so we could go to the character meals. My kids love the characters at the meals. They were hugging them and high fiving them and just excited to see them. They were not the same way with the princesses. We met a few of them and they were very shy and sometimes they would not even look at them. I am thinking because they are real people they got shy, but you never know
 
My son wouldn't go near the characters until age 4. Up until then he was intrigued by them, always wanted to wait in line to meet them, but then would chicken out at the last minute. This past trip when he was just shy of 7 the talking Mickey absolutely terrified him. So who knows how your child will be, they can be all over the map. I would recommend scheduling characters meals for later in the trip, so you have time to cancel them if it turns out your child is scared of the characters. This way you can try a test character visit in the parks prior to a character meal, and cancel without penalty if the characters freak him out.
 
Our daughter was two weeks shy of 3 when we first took her to Disneyland. She loooooooooves all things Disney and she fared much better with the princesses than she did with fur characters with masks. We did Goofy's kitchen the first night before the parks so we eased her into the meet and greets before going into the park the next day. She wasn't a fan for the first few characters that hit our table, but by the time Minnie came over she was feeling brave enough for a hug ... a very brisk, half hug. The next day in the parks she wasn't as afraid with the fur characters and ended up clinging to Mickey like a talisman when we met him in ToonTown.
 

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