Disneyland Character Meals: The Definitive Guide

Character meals are an important part of a Disney vacation for many travelers. Character dining gives you a chance to interact with multiple characters in a short period of time while taking a break from lines and the heat (or rain or cold, depending on the season). Even though these experiences can be pricier than other dining options at Disney parks, the benefits often justify the extra bucks spent.

My family almost always makes time for at least one character meal on every Disney trip we take. Since Disneyland is the resort we visit most often, we've experienced all of the character meals in Anaheim, most of them more times than I can now count! We've done character dining when they were babies and toddlers all the way up until the teen years now.

As a result, I can offer up some very valuable comparisons and analysis. I've created a handy chart below that summarizes the variables and options so you can choose for your family too.

Disneyland Character Dining Basics

First things first: what do you need to know about character breakfasts and other character meals at Disneyland?

First, be aware that compared to Walt Disney World in Florida, Disneyland actually has relatively few character dining options - just 4 to be exact.

The current Disneyland character meal offerings (as of the second half of 2025) include two options (one standard and one premium) at Disney's Grand Californian Hotel, one at the Disneyland Hotel, and one within Disneyland park. They are:

1. Minnie & Friends – Breakfast in the Park at Plaza Inn in Disneyland park (breakfast only)
2. Goofy's Kitchen at the Disneyland Hotel (breakfast, brunch, & dinner)
3. Storytellers Cafe at the Grand Californian Hotel: Mickey’s Tales of Adventure (formerly Chip ’n Dale's Critter Breakfast) (breakfast & brunch) and Donald's Tales of Adventure (dinner)
4. Princess Breakfast Adventures at Napa Rose at the Grand Californian Hotel (breakfast/brunch only)

Note that character meals have changed a LOT in the last Disneyland decade, so make sure the information you are reading and watching is up to date! Gone forever are previous character dining restaurants at Ariel’s Grotto (closed in early 2018) and PCH Grill at Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel (closed in 2021). Many character meals have also changed names as well as the times of day when characters are available.

How Early Do You Need to Book Disneyland Character Dining?

Character dining is very popular, but Disneyland visitors historically haven't needed to make reservations crazy-early, especially in comparison to Walt Disney World. But these last several years - with Disneyland park reservations and pre-planning becoming essential - have resulted in changes.

Dining at Disneyland in 2025 has now has become highly competitive too. In the past, while you may have been able to book a character meal even just a week or two in advance of a Disneyland trip, that is rarely the case. Character dining reservations go very fast - often within minutes from when reservations are released for the most popular restaurants and time slots.

If your kids simply must dine with Mickey, you need a competitive advantage. Start checking in the official Disneyland app ASAP. Reservations are usually - but not always - released at 6am exactly 60 days in advance. Refresh often to snag cancellations or new openings.

I also highly recommend using a service called Mouse Dining which will alert you to openings and save your sanity. There is a free version with a limited number of email alerts as well as a reasonably-priced paid version that sends instantaneous text alerts. Paying for 1 month of Mouse Dining text alerts right before your trip is money well spent if character meals are a must-do.

See my annual guide to visiting Disneyland differently for complete current dining reservation tips.

What is the Best Character Meal at Disneyland?

I see this question asked so often by travelers headed to Disneyland for the first time. If you see someone trying to answer it definitively, I'd actually recommend not taking their advice.

Why? In my experience, the best character meal is different for every guest. And it may be different for that same guest from trip to trip!

For my family, the best character meal at Disneyland is the one that fits in best with our schedule, logistics, and location. We value park time and rides most of all, so meals that work with our overall touring plan are best for us. We also go to Disneyland regularly, so we have more than one opportunity to try character meals.

If you are a family taking a bucket list one-time vacation to Disneyland, your calculus may be very different. If your child is obsessed with a certain character, the best character meal for them may well be the meal that gets them that coveted character interaction time and photo opp.

The bottom line is that all of these meals are very good and you likely won't go wrong with any of them. You just may go more right with some of them depending on your personal situation.

Things to Think About When Choosing Disneyland Character Meals

As a result, the purpose of this post is to help you choose the character meal that is best for YOU. Here are the factors to think about in making your decision.

1. How big is your budget?

The first major factor to consider for most Disneyland visitors is cost. Disney character meals are more expensive than most meals at Disneyland so these are special experiences that many families budget carefully for.

Since I first published this post nearly a decade ago (yes, I've been regularly monitoring and updating Disneyland character dining THAT long!), prices have increased at a somewhat shocking rate. Historically, Disney did not even publish character dining prices with any regularity, but with increasing prices has come some increasing transparency at least.

As of September 2025, prices are (from least expensive to most expensive):

• Plaza Inn Breakfast (Served daily 8am-11am): $55 for adults ages 10+ and $33 for children ages 3-9 (plus tax and tip)
• Storytellers Cafe Breakfast (Served 7am-10:45 am daily): $59 for adults ages 10+ and $36 for children ages 3-9 (plus tax and tip)
• Goofy's Kitchen Breakfast (Served 7am-10:30 daily): $59 for adults ages 10+ and $36 for children ages 3-9 (plus tax and tip)
• Storytellers Cafe Brunch (Served 11am-1:15pm daily): $64 for adults ages 10+ and $36 for children ages 3-9 (plus tax and tip)
• Goofy's Kitchen Brunch (Served 11am-1/1:30pm seasonally): $64 for adults ages 10+ and $36 for children ages 3-9 (plus tax and tip)
• Goofy's Kitchen Dinner (Served 4pm-9pm daily): $69 for adults ages 10+ and $39 children ages 3-9 (plus tax and tip)
• Storytellers Cafe Dinner (Served 4pm-9pm daily): $69 for adults ages 10+ and $39 children ages 3-9 (plus tax and tip)
• Princess Breakfast Adventures (Served 8am-11am daily): $149 for all adults and children 3+

Plaza Inn Breakfast is still the least expensive character meal, likely because guests move through that restaurant more quickly due to its in-park location.

Prices are now the same across the two other restaurants offering standard character meals, Storytellers and Goofy's. As you can see, time of day matters quite a bit for pricing variability there. Breakfast is cheaper than brunch which is cheaper than dinner.

If you have a much bigger budget and a princess fan in the family, there is a super-premium character dining experience to know about. Princess Breakfast Adventures is a character breakfast with Disney princesses in Napa Rose in Disney's Grand Californian Hotel that launched in May 2019.

At $149 per person pre-tax and tip (for both adults and children ages 3+), it’s a spendy experience in another league entirely than other character meals. The meal includes gifts and premium activity experiences in the price, so it’s a bit misleading to compare it directly to the other character meals since it offers more for the price.

Some travel agencies used to sell discounted character meal vouchers, but sadly those have been discontinued across the board. But remember that you can always save on your overall Disney vacation costs by purchasing park tickets or a vacation package from Trips With Tykes partner Get Away Today. That will certainly help free up a little cash in your budget to afford a character meal! (Use promo code TYKES10 for an extra $10 off all package stays of 2 nights or more.) Check out out my other money-saving Disneyland tips.

2. In-park or out?

The next major choice to make is whether you want to eat in-park or out-of-park in one of the hotel character meal locations. If you choose to eat in the park at a character meal, the dining experience can take away valuable time from rides, parades, and other experiences that you are paying mightily for as part of your park tickets. But some families also like to enjoy a break during park time, and hey - you gotta eat anyway, right?

If you are dining out-of-the park, you won't need a park ticket that day to have a Disney experience. For that reason, I often schedule a character meal in a hotel location on my arrival or departure day when I already might not be purchasing a park ticket for just a partial day. This strategy allows my family to make better use of our park days and also potentially to save money by purchasing tickets for fewer days in the parks.

Plaza Inn in Disneyland park is currently the only character dining experience where a park ticket is required, so your choices of out-of-park options in the on-property hotels are pretty extensive.

3. What time of day?

Restaurants offering character dining only offer characters at some of the meal times, so you have to check carefully as you optimize your overall schedule.

All of the character meals in Disneyland at least offer breakfast. Since the early morning breakfast hours can be valuable park time when lines are shortest, however, I often recommend a non-breakfast option to a lot of guests if you are an early-morning ride fan always rope dropping the parks.

There are now two restaurants that serve character dinner (Goofy's Kitchen and Storytellers). And while no character meals advertise "lunch," Disneyland has slowly expanded brunch hours so that these same two restaurants usually offer lunchtime character meals now. So it's easier than ever to eat midday, even if it's not labeled as lunch!

One strategy I recommend is to schedule a later breakfast or brunch if you plan to dine with the characters on a park day. My family regularly schedules breakfast at Plaza Inn at 9:30 or 10:00am, which is just about perfect. We spend the early morning hours in the parks when ride lines are shortest. When things start getting busier and we need a break anyway, it's time for our character meal! We usually give the kids a few snacks in the early morning so they aren't be starving before meal time.

4. What characters are a can't miss?

Is there one character that your kids MUST see? Then your choice in character meals may be narrowed down easily. While you'll probably meet 4-6 characters during any given meal, there is only one character guaranteed at each Disneyland dining location (with the exception of Disney Princess Breakfast Adventures):

• Goofy at Goofy's Kitchen
• Minnie Mouse at Plaza Inn
• Mickey Mouse at Storytellers Cafe breakfast/brunch; Donald Duck at Storytellers Cafe dinner
• (No particular princess is guaranteed at Napa Rose, but Rapunzel generally greets guests upon arrival in the waiting area and Ariel closes the meal with an included Photopass photo).

Even though there is only one guaranteed character, there are some characters that make fairly regular appearances at certain locations. For example, you'll often see Chip 'N' Dale at Mickey's Tales of Adventure and Winnie the Pooh is a frequent guest at Plaza Inn. Minnie Mouse can regularly be seen at all character meals (except Princess Breakfast Adventures) these days. Check out the chart below for common characters you may see at each location.

And if you simply want the most variety of characters rather than a specific one, the restaurant that does that best is Plaza Inn. There are sometimes more obscure characters who appear there, including Goofy's son Max and Perla and Suzy, the Fairy Godmother's mice pals from Cinderella. Storytellers Cafe and Goofy's Kitchen play it a little safer with Fab 5 favorites most of the time.

5. What kind of food?

The basic breakfast options at most of the character dining restaurants are all fairly similar. You'll find standard fare like eggs, sausages, bacon, and Mickey shaped waffles everywhere on the buffet. Restaurants that offer brunch expand upon these core breakfast offerings with a couple of extra entrees like smoked salmon or chilaquiles.

By dinner time, the buffet menu changes over to entrees like carving stations, fresh catch, veggies, and more (with kid-friendly favorites like macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, and pizza too!).

Juices and sodas are included in the prices of all meals, although alcohol is of course extra.

If you are looking for food that is a little more whimsical, I usually recommend Goofy's Kitchen. Goofy’s is known for a few wacky choices like pizza topped with macaroni and cheese or PB&J.

Storytellers Cafe has evolved to have some more refined cuisine as it has expanded to offer brunch and dinner as well, so foodies may find the buffet there a little more of a fit.

But true foodies may want to spring for the priciest option, Princess Breakfast Adventures, which has a unique and much more extensive menu. While there is a breakfast buffet component to the meal, the offerings are much less mass produced and definitely aimed at foodies - including champagne for adults. The meal begins with a bread basket of breakfast pastries, followed by tiered display of starters like an open faced and cheese sandwich with cranberry cream cheese or a chia and granola parfait.

Then the hot buffet is open, featuring kid-friendly favorites like Mickey waffles, macaroni & cheese (with and withOUT breadcrumbs for pickier eaters), and scrambled eggs. Adults will also enjoy more exotic options like tempura shrimp with a spiced dipping sauce and braised short ribs. Home fries are also provided on the table as well. Finally, the meal finishes with a tiered display of 5 different miniature desserts like cake pops, seashell macarons, and strawberry honey sorbet.

The menus of every character meal are available on the Disneyland website now, so check them out in advance to see what looks most appealing to you.

6. Indoor or outdoor dining?

If you are visiting Disneyland during a pleasant time of year for weather, having outdoor dining as an option during your character meal could be a big draw. But if you are visiting during an Anaheim heat wave (they do happen - it was over 95 degrees during my visit in late September a few years back), you may prefer a location where you are guaranteed indoor seating and air conditioning.

If indoor dining is a must-have, choose one of the hotel restaurants, as all of them have only indoor seating. The in-park character meal at Plaza Inn has both indoor and outdoor spaces. While you can make a request to be inside or out, there are no guarantees on where your table will be. That said, Disney cast members have been very good at accommodating guest preferences, so you should be able to get a table of your choice if that is important to you. Just be prepared that you may need to wait a bit longer depending on the weather situation!

7. What extras interest you?

While all character meals include food and character meet-and-greet time, a few of them have some extras that might matter to you or your kids.

For example, at all of the character meals except Storytellers Cafe, Disney PhotoPass photographers take a formal photo of you. This photo is usually with the meal's main character, and Photopass photos are included the cost of the meal as well.

If your kids are outgoing and want even more character fun, they might like some of the offerings that allow them to get up out of their seats and interact with the characters. For example, at Mickey's Tales of Adventure at Storytellers, the characters parade around the restaurant every 20 minutes or so, leading the kids as they go. At Goofy’s, there is a similar character procession that where kids can get up by their tables and dance along. Plaza Inn is traditionally a bit quieter; it has a character procession, but it isn't quite so noisy!

And when it comes to activities, none of the character meals can hold a candle to the offerings at Disney Princess Breakfast Adventures. There, kids can participate in story time with Belle or learn some warrior skills with Mulan. Children ages 3 and up receive an autograph book at the start of the meal and can also choose between a parting gift – a tiara necklace or a sword and shield set. Adults receive a free Photopass image and a tote bag with chocolates.

8. What season are you visiting?

Last but certainly not least, a new factor in choosing character dining has emerged in the last couple of years - seasonality.

Over the last few years, Disneyland has begun offering special seasonally-themed character meals at a select few character dining restaurants. Depending on what time of year you plan to visit, you might be able to experience special decor and menu items for springtime/Easter, Halloween, or Christmas/winter holidays.

Seasonal meals started first at Goofy's Kitchen, but now have also expanded to Storytellers Cafe.

I've now dined at two of these new offerings (one in spring and one for Halloween). The buffets are usually extra impressive, and it's also fun to see characters in unique costumes. For several of these meals, Disney brings in new characters as well. Clarabelle was the star, for example, of the springtime meal at Goofy's Kitchen earlier this year. She and Goofy appear at the Halloween seasonal dinner at Storyteller's Cafe as well (instead of the usual Donald and Daisy).

Just be aware of one crucial factor: these seasonal dining experiences cost more! Upcharges are usually about $10 per adult (and about $3 per child) more than the standard meal pricing at that time of day. That can really add up for families when the starting price of a character meal is already pretty high.

Dates for the seasonal meals are usually not released until a couple of months in advance, but here is what the meals for 2025 were/are so you can plan for the future, along with pricing and special characters:

Goofy's Kitchen

• Goofy's Kitchen Celebrates Springtime (April 3-May 9, 2025): breakfast ($65/$36), brunch ($65/$36), & dinner ($75/$39). Special character appearance: Clarabelle. Reservations opened February 26.
• Goofy's Kitchen Celebrates Halloween (August 22-October 31, 2025): breakfast ($69/$39), brunch ($74/$39), & dinner ($79/$42). Reservations opened July 15.
• Goofy's Kitchen Celebrates the Holidays (November 17, 2025-January 6, 2026): breakfast ($69/$39), brunch ($74/$39), & dinner ($79/$42). Reservations will open Sept. 25.

Storytellers Cafe

• Mickey's Autumn Adventures (August 22-November 16, 2025): breakfast ($69/$39), brunch ($74/$39). Reservations opened July 15.
• Clarabelle’s Enchanted Halloween Dinner (August 22-October 31, 2025): dinner ($74/$39). Special character appearance: Clarabelle & Goofy. Reservations opened July 15.
• Daisy's Holiday Pajama Party (November 17, 2025-January 6, 2026): breakfast ($69/$39), brunch ($74/$39). Special character appearance: Daisy & Donald. Reservations will open Oct. 2.
• Mickey's Christmas Carol Feast Dinner (November 17, 2025-January 6, 2026): dinner ($74/$39). Reservations will open Oct. 2.

Additional Tips & Tricks for Disneyland Character Meals

Need even more tips and tricks for a successful character dining experience at Disneyland? A few final thoughts:

• Anyone can dine at the hotel character meals. You do not need to be a hotel guest to make a reservation or dine.
• If you are staying at one of the Disneyland resort on-property hotels and can't find availability for a character meal, call (714) 781-DINE and ask about Preferred Reservation Access. Disneyland holds back a small selection of dining reservation times for their hotel guests!
• Even with a reservation, you might not be seated immediately upon arrival. Leave some buffer time in your schedule for the day to account for this, especially if you are trying to make rope drop or work around a Lightning Lane return time.
• Kids under 3 are free at all character meals. You should, however, count them in making your table reservation. The true count is needed to assure proper table size.
• Parking validation is available for character meals in the Disneyland resort hotels if you drive to your meal and park. But don't try to use this trick to then go to the parks for the day - the validation limit is usually only for 3 hours and you'll get stuck with a hefty bill if you park all day.
• I know a few savvy guests who will try to "hack" their character meal and save some money booking the latest breakfast slot at Goofy's and Storytellers. The plan here is to also get to enjoy the more extensive brunch buffet as it changes over while only paying the lower breakfast price. I like the way you think(!), but be aware Disney has cracked down this a bit more in recent months by making the last available breakfast reservation slot up to an hour before the brunch changeover.
• Be sure to let your server know if you are celebrating a birthday. You'll get a special birthday song and a cute cupcake at most character meals.
• If you plan to dine at Princess Breakfast Adventures, plan on at least 3 hours to complete the experience. Consider carefully whether your toddler or preschooler has the patience for a meal of that length – I personally think the meal is really best suited to kids 5 and up.
• A lot of the character dining restaurants don't have great lighting to get good photos with characters at your table unless you are a pretty talented photographer. Try to get seating closer to windows at Goofy's Kitchen and Storytellers in particular for a better chance at quality snapshots. And if photos are important to you, pick one of the character meals that includes a Photopass shot (all of them except Storytellers).

Chart Comparing Disneyland Character Meals

Want to line up all the Disneyland character meal choices and compare them? You're in luck! Check out the infographic below with essential comparison information about Disneyland character dining, including what additional characters often make appearances at each meal.