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[Javey74]

Nothing new here..  :mrgreen:

After a while you harden to it and if I'm honest ends up being part of the fun. My family have had quite a few topical chats on each visit in this very area, just when you thought you'd seen the ultimate rudeness, think again.. :mrgreen:

[Karen]

We were waiting in the massive line at phantom manor on halloween night and a group of 8 lads aged about 18 jumped over the bottom wall climbed up the bank through the trees and over the balcony to get right to the front  :shock:  but the really funny bit was that everyone in the line (and there were loads) booed and jeered them as they climbed up    they shouted back trying to look a bit hard but as my OH stated you can't pretend to be that tough going to a Disney Halloween party.

[amanda08]

Unless we are there at a quiet time of year, we never get involved in the scrum which surrounds the random meet and greets and generally can not bear the wait times for the organised ones. We get all our photographs in either the hotel or Cafe Mickeys.
 
We just got back last week where we ate at CM and we were driven crazy by the amount of parents and children that were wondering around going up to peoples tables for character autographs and photos. Whilst the charachters made arm gestures to the effect that they should sit down and they would get to them soon, not one other member of staff made any effort to get people to go back to their tables or explain how it works.  However, I do feel there should be a sign upon entering the restaurant making it clear how it works there, because if it is your first time, there is no reason why should know the characters will come to your table.

 Having said how annoying it was having people push into your dinner and character meets, we were there for almost 2 hours and in all that time only 1 character went to the area of the restaurant behind the glass partition, which we thought was terrible.

 Imaging telling your children that you were going to CM to meet lots of Disney characters and to pay a fortune for a meal and then only to get to see one character! If that had been me sitting there, I would have SERIOUSLY complained as my son would have been devastated - so maybe those people wondering around were justified in doing so?

All in all, whether in the parks or in the restaurants, the organising of character meet and greets leaves a lot to be desired!
(although dlp is still my most favourite place to be   )

[Martin B]

I can understand the frustration of some people.

We were upstairs in CM in October.

We had finished our starter AND main course before we eventually got to meet a character (Mickey)

Then we ate our pudding and saw Minnie.

We had seen people have Birthday cakes on other occasions and get loads of characters around, but we had finished our dessert and was waiting for my cake, and there was not one character in sight.

However when the cake came out so did Gideon, Hook and Smee. Followed shortly after by Tigger.

Other people would have been stuck with seeing Mickey or Minnie and that is it, especially if they were only having one or two courses. If you only have one character, you can understand kids running to them as soon as they come out. They've been bored for over an hour!

I think the distribution of characters in CM is normally wrong. We saw Eeyore, Goofy, Pinnochio and Minnie downstairs as we were waiting to go up. Then like I said we didn't see a character until after our Main course when Mickey finally showed up.
 
Martin

[alternativerock123]

Oh, my... Do NOT get my started on that.  :x
It happens all the time - I really prefer when characters pick the people they wish to meet - I.E Jack Sparrow seems to do it often and Daisy did it too - unfortunately when new people come along they don't know - but still have the rudeness to push to the front from the side.
It can get annoying, but I do respect the children more - but only if THEY go towards the character, sort of out of awe of meeting the character, but if mummy or daddy pushes them, it's not fair. It even got that bad once MY dad was pushing me and I'm 18. XD  But if I see a kid purposely pushing - I push back, then I get shouted at in another language, but I just shrug. They know what they are doing! >.<
But yeah, even though queueing m'n'gts are time-consuming, it is worth it in the end, since its "fair". But it is still nice for random character meets.

[gingajen]

We have only ever queued once to see a Character, and that was Minnie at the entrance to the Studios. We only did that because we got through the turnstile and unknowingly wandered into the queue and were about three from the front! I wouldn't ever wait in any of the scrums. Once we saw Ariel and she was surrounded, she must have been terrified! I think it's way too stressful fending off queue jumpers when there is no queuing structure, it's hard enough in thd lines for rides! I've yet to see the princess pavilion and the other meet and greet areas with dedicated queuing structures, so I'll reserve judgement there, maybe I could be convinced to utilise those. It's interesting to read about Cafe Mickey though, I'd planned to have a character meal mainly for the photos, so that we wouldn't need to queue for characters in the parks. However, I wouldn't be impressed if I'd paid all that money and seen only one character! We do laugh about the queue jumpers in the ride lines though! We have our own little formations whereby we spread out in thd problem areas such as the corners, it's difficult trying to queue jump past ten people with interlinked arms

[madondisney]

It even got that bad once MY dad was pushing me and I'm 18. XD But if I see a kid purposely pushing - I push back, then I get shouted at in another language, but I just shrug. They know what they are doing! >.<

^ My mom was like that, she was like elbows out kids. I think I'm going to take your advice alternativerock123. & Also this is slightly off topic, I love your videos on youtube of the characters, I watched them all day when I was ill.

[claire2281]

My friend and I are in our late 20's/early 30's and because I'm in teaching we can only go in busy times. However, we've normally come away having met quite a few characters. It seems to be a matter of knowing the best places (as usual a little bit of 'regular' knowledge goes a long way!). We tend to do a character meal (last time the tea party at Cowboy Cookout which was very good for interaction, better than CM!) and then meet them in the hotel (we tend to get up early when it's quiet) as well as any we see wandering around who don't have a massive scrum. Near IASW tends to be quite good for this. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you can find a quiet one at the top of Main Street.

We've never actually bothered joining one of the queues although it seems to me they are increasingly a very good idea, especially for the most popular characters.

I'm not sure whether having more queued, organised m&g would be a good thing. On one hand it helps prevent the scum but on the other I rather like just unexpectedly coming across a character.

[littlemermaid83]

Nothing new here..  :mrgreen:

After a while you harden to it and if I'm honest ends up being part of the fun.

I actually agree with this, mostly because we are lucky and are usually noticed before we endulge in flexing our elbows. So watching from afar its actually laughable watching the extremes some adults will go to.

I'm always prepared to get my elbows out if the situation calls to it. Why should you let someone elbow you out the way? You shouldn't, stand up for yourself.