I’ve had a few people asking me about how to get better and funnier pictures with characters. We are big character hunters in my house, but I never realized before how many characters’ pictures we take in a trip before I started to choose a few for this post. We have been to Disney World 4 times and once to Disneyland in the past 4 years. On these trips we have met 119 unique characters (120 if we count my oldest son battling Darth Vader at the Jedi Training Academy), and we have been lucky to find a few unusual and rare characters like Bolt, Jack Sparrow, Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh and the Hag.
The first thing we like is to always have an autograph book for the characters to sign. It’s a good way for shy kids to approach the characters and start some fun interaction. The last autograph book I made I had all of the pictures my kids have taken with each specific character in a themed page (single or double page) for each character. I printed it as a 12×12 album and it was a total hit with the characters and cast members. The characters always have so much fun seeing their pages and sometimes they spend a long time checking your book.
Here is an example page from my book:
And here are some reactions from the characters:
I’m not sure I have lots of tips on how to get good character pictures, so I’ll just show a few examples of how my family enjoys character interactions. I have one main piece of advice – ALWAYS have your cameras ready, and snap away. I always start taking pictures when we are still waiting in line. Sure, you will like the posed picture you take with Mickey, but you will treasure the one of your son still in line running to meet Buzz for the first time:
Or still after 5 trips running to take his picture with Lightening McQueen:
The excitment of seeing a favorite character for the first time:
Those hugs:
Those kodak moments and group hugs:
Those intimate chats:
If you have a Duffy Bear, don’t forget to take it to your Meet & Greet, Duffy will love it, Goofy might play with it, and Buzz will enjoy his Buzz costume.
The same goes for your kid’s favorite costumes. Who know if it’s your little Peter Pan’s lucky day and he gets to duel with Captain Hook?
Allow yourself to be silly and play with the characters:
And if someone ends up on the floor in a tickling session with Pluto, snap away:
Ask them to make a special pose that relate to their movies:
Or just show some ears (Mickey or Goofy ears):
I think what is the most important piece of advice I can give you is to do what you and your family are comfortable with, and just have fun. You know looking through all of these pictures makes me want to go back and make more fun memories with my kids and the characters.
And yes, there are still some characters that we need to hunt down, like Jose Carioca, the Brazilian parrot from The 3 Caballeros. I had my picture taken with him when I was 14 years old, but we definately need a new one, as I’m not showing that hair style in a scrapbook!
