Traditional Character Meet-and-Greets Will Return SOON to the Disney Parks

Mickey, Minnie, the Princesses, and more — meeting Disney characters is an iconic part of the park experience, but it’s very DIFFERENT right now.

At the moment (except for on the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser) meet-and-greets in Disney World are distanced, meaning no hugs, no autographs, and no true up-close photos. But soon that could all be changing!

Today, Disney’s Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Christine McCarthy, participated in a question-and-answer session at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference. We tuned in to hear McCarthy speak on various topics including park capacity, Park Passes, and more.

One of the topics McCarthy spoke about is character meet-and-greets! During the conference, McCarthy actually specifically noted that character meet-and-greets should be coming back soon! Specifically, McCarthy said, “The other thing that has not yet come back but should be coming back soon is character meet and greets.”

McCarthy noted how helpful these interactions can be when it comes to managing people and crowds in the parks. She shared that one good thing is that “those character meet and greets also take people out of lines for going on, you know, Space Mountain or Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. I mean, they’re just things that you load balance the parks better.”

Just when will these be coming back? Well, right within the context of speaking about character meet and greets she shared, “And they should be all coming back on this year.” So it appears that this year could be a big one for the parks.

She even noted that face-to-face character interactions will be returning. McCarthy specifically said, “With the trending of COVID, we’re definitely going to see some of those face-to-face interactions come back.”

Again, note that at the moment character meet-and-greets are not back to “normal.” Though some modified meet-and-greets have returned to the parks, you’ll generally find the characters behind roped-off areas. No autographs are allowed and no hugs are allowed either.

We have seen a number of changes made recently in response to changing COVID-19 levels. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has changed mask recommendations, Disney World has updated their mask rules, Disney Cruise Line has updated their rules, and more entertainment — including the Festival of Fantasy Parade — will be back in the parks soon.

We expect more changes could come in the near future. Be sure to check back with us for all the latest updates.

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Are you excited for the return of character meet-and-greets? Tell us in the comments!