How To Spend A Day Getting Character Autographs In Disney World

I was recently asked how to spend the day getting autographs from the characters.  Hmm, what an intriguing idea.  Spend a whole day just meeting characters and getting autographs.  The idea to do that never occurred to me.  Going to a Disney World park and not go on any attractions is almost sacrilegious to a Disney fan like myself!  

After giving it some thought, I decided it could be a great way to stop and smell the roses.  I have to admit, I have been known to cringe when I see the lines for characters and family members want to get an autograph.  I have even gone as far as talking them out of it.  Shhhh, keep that a secret.

Here are some tips I came up with on how to spend a day getting character autographs:

• Pick A Park - Magic Kingdom and Epcot have the most opportunities to meet characters.  If you have a specific character you just have to meet, I found a great website to help you find him/her/it/animal (whatever it may be!).  The website is WDW Character Hunt.  Locations, times and characters can change often, nothing is set in stone!
• Make Reservations For A Character Meal - A character meal is the best way to get some one on one time with a character.  The characters make their way around the restaurant and will stop at your table.  Sometimes you get to see the characters more than once, depending on how long it's taking you to eat.  Each theme park has a character meal for at least one meal a day, some have breakfast, lunch and dinner.  There are also character meals at some of the resorts.  You can find a list of character dining at WDW Character Hunt .
• Get A Times Guide - When entering the park, make sure to pick up a times guide to find out the times and places of character greetings.  As I stated above - locations, times and characters can change!  You will have to take a few minutes and make a plan of where to go.  You will also find parade and show times.  You can't get an autograph, but you can see your favorite characters perform.
• Get To The Park Of Choice Early - Most people do not want to get up early on vacation.  If you get to the park of your choice at rope drop you will be rewarded with shorter lines at Character Greets (and attractions too!).
• Head To The Back Of The Park - If there are Character Greets at the back of the park, you may want to head there first.  Most people will stop at the first characters they see.

I hope these tips help you on your quest to get character autographs, even if you don't want to spend a whole day devoted to it.  I may incorporate a half day of just character meets on my next trip, I don't think I could skip attractions for a whole day!  I'll let you know how it goes.