One of the most important aspects of visiting Disney Parks are character meetings. These ageless stars make the Disney memories come alive. As flaky and cliche as this sounds, and if it didn’t actually happen to us while we were there, I wouldn’t even give them a second thought as to something to see while there until my baby had a full out temper tantrum because he couldn’t see Pluto. And of course, Disney totally redeemed itself!
Visiting Epcot Center, Orlando:
We were visiting Disney on a four day park pass. One particular day while visiting Hollywood Studios. My kids were on line to have their picture taken with Pluto. He’s actually my baby’s favorite character. So you can imagine the excitement he was experiencing for a two year old.
Bam – out of nowhere a grey cloud passed and spit out a bunch of rain.
Everyone ran for cover. Including Pluto.
Once the rain dispersed, all the characters were in other places and we seemed to have missed our chance with Pluto.
This was at 11 am.
All day after that my baby was saying Pluto, Pluto.
To get his mind off of the furry dog, we took him to see every other character you can imagine at Hollywood Studios:
Mickey Mouse
Mater and Lighting McQueen
Phineas and Ferb
But no matter what, he would then look up with his big eyes and softly ask – Pluto?
Finally, the park was closing and we simply ran out of ideas. We started to say goodbye to all the different rides and characters. It didn’t matter, he started to cry.
He was hysterical!
So what does a mommy do for her baby while at Disney?
I immediately started asking for help from the workers. Quick side note, the cast members (Disney term for staff) seem to be full-on Disney fanatics So when I came with this weird dilemma, they all totally sympathized with us!
They sent me to the customer service office where the man was even more sympathetic (and not because it was part of his job, but because you can tell that not meeting a Disney character while visiting Disney was truly a sad affair and needed rectification immediately).
He started calling everywhere to see where was Pluto. Finally, confirmation came – Pluto was at Epcot.
We only had the one park per day passes, which are different than the hopper passes which allow you to move from one park to another all in the same day. He said not to worry, and immediately printed out our new passes for Epcot.
Disney Character Greetings
With Epcot Center map in hand we knew exactly where to go. I have to say, out of all the parks, and we visited 4 of them, Epcot turned out to be the best place to see the characters.
Inside a large building, with carpets and an air-conditioned room, with a waiting area where you can sit comfortably, was the greeting area. Here you enter a room with three different characters at once.
No need to worry about rain, or huge lines in the heat.
If we only knew about this place the first day, nevertheless, we were sooo happy to see Pluto.
Funny enough, after this whole run around, Pluto somehow became my favorite character too!
Oh wait, there was a bonus to it all:
Mickey Mouse (again)
So the second the photo shoot of Pluto was done, my baby quickly forgot and was now dying for Minnie Mouse – and there she was!
However, he did start with his crying for Pluto again. So what did any reasonable parent do? We simply showed him pictures of him with Pluto!
NOTE:
Baby seems to be a magic word in Disney. You can pretty much get anything you want, if they see your baby is in need of something!
Fun info needed for Epcot:
Epcot Center Schedule and hours of operation
Visiting Disney Epcot Center Orlando – Disney Characters
