Ever since I was a little girl, memories of being in the Disney Parks are flooded with character experiences. Both Disneyland and Walt Disney World offered a wide array of characters for fans to meet and engage with. Now, you might be thinking that they still do, and while this is true, the new way of doing character meet and greets is packaged so differently. I can’t help but wonder if the old school experience of roaming characters might truly be a thing of the past. Let me explain…
As a Disney adult, I live with what I think is the sweet spot of Disney fandom. A strong-willed respect for the nostalgia of the parks, combined with a healthy dose of delight in the future. I don’t want things to stand still, I’m old enough to respect the old ways, and young enough to appreciate the new. However, there is one particular Disney experience that I have watched my children (now teens) enjoy for years, always wondering if they will ever have the opportunity to experience characters the way I did, freely roaming the parks.
It was as though they lived there. Rarely was there a dedicated spot where you needed to meet them, or a queue to wait hours on end. Disney characters would high-five you going past the line, sneak into the back of your castle photos, and greet you like an old friend as they moved through the parks. If you had told me as a child in the 80s that one day you would need to stand in an endless line or buy a special ticket to get in a smaller queue to meet characters, I would have laughed. Now, the experience is very different, yet not without its pros and cons.
Even though the act of choosing a character meet and greet in the form of an attraction feels much more clinical, there are definitely a few benefits. In most cases, characters have a dedicated setting, often indoors with beautiful theming, music, and dramatic lighting to suit their aesthetic. Inside those hurried photos we had by chance as children, today’s experience is much more intentional. Complicated, but confirmed. Most often, you will know in advance who you are seeing, able to check your child’s favorite Disney friend off the list, and sometimes, even be treated to air conditioning while you do it. Even still, there was something about the unknown of who could walk past you next and what would happen that added to the magic of a Disney Parks vacation. For a while, we seemed to be able to walk the line between the two options, but now, roaming characters in the parks seem to be a very rare sighting.
Could Disney’s roaming characters be a thing of the past?
