Guide to Meeting Characters on a Disney Cruise

If you’re someone who likes meeting characters, Disney Cruises are for you! Disney Cruises offer some of the best character experiences available.  Read on for our guide to meeting characters on a Disney Cruise.

If one of your main goals on your Disney Cruise is meeting characters, then you’re in luck! Disney Cruise Line offers so many opportunities to meet characters, and sometimes you can only meet them on a Disney Cruise! In this post, we share everything you need to know about meeting characters on your Disney Cruise.

Character Meet and Greets on a Disney Cruise

Almost always, you can find character meet and greets for your Disney Cruise in the Disney Cruise Line Navigator app. It’s important to check this throughout the day as times and characters can sometimes be added at the last minute when possible.

To find out who is meeting when, you’ll just go into the “Daily Activities” portion of the app or more specifically, you can check the “Characters” section as well. The character will be listed along with their location. One caveat here though is that you don’t know what outfit they will be in. Sometimes you can guess based on the theme of the day (Pirate Night, or Glacier Day in Alaska, for example) but if you are really curious about their outfit beforehand, just as a cast member. Some people like to match the characters, so this can be good information to have ahead of time. 

Characters meet all over the ship including in the atrium, Deck 4, the upper decks, and even the kids’s clubs on Disney ships.

Roaming Characters on a Disney Cruise

Sometimes you’ll see what are called Roaming Characters. This means the character is just walking around almost always with a handler. Sometimes they are just interacting with the environment or other guests. And sometimes they are kind of putting on a little “show”. An example of this is Dr. Strange. You may seem him trying to open a portal in the middle of the atrium. 

You can interact with these characters! Unless instructed not to do so (this is rare), you are welcome to walk up to them and say hi, ask them questions and almost always, you can get a photo or video with them. 

Meeting Disney Characters During Dance Parties

The character dance parties are a ton of fun. And many times, you can meet characters and dance with them during this party. It’s usually very clear if you cannot dance with the characters, but more often than not, characters will disperse into the crowd and you can enjoy the party right alongside them. 

After the dance parties are over, they usually have a few moments of opportunity to get in line for meet and greets. These don’t usually last long, so be ready to get into the line of your favorite character. You can find out when the dance parties are held in the Disney Cruise Line Navigator App. 

The Royal Gathering on Disney Cruise

Love Disney Princesses? One of the best ways to meet Princesses on a Disney Cruise is during the Royal Gathering.  Formerly known as the Princess Gathering, the Royal Gathering is an event that happens on all Disney Cruises, where guests can meet multiple Princesses at once. Princesses meeting at this event change depending on the cruise but you can often meet 4-5 different princesses at one time. These include Cinderella, Belle, Tiana, Rapunzel, Moana, Ariel, and Jasmine and change depending on the itinerary.

The Royal Gathering is free. But you do need to have a reservation to attend. You can do this at midnight, 30 days before your cruise. Or you can try again once onboard as sometimes more openings become available.

Meeting Characters on Pirate Night

Pirate Night is such a fun experience! Most cruises that sail through the Caribbean will have a Pirate Night so it’s good to be prepared! Be sure to pack pirate type attire or a pirate costume so you’re ready for the festivities. One of the best parts about Pirate Night is the characters dressed in their Pirate attire! This is a great time to meet characters in different outfits. And you can often meet more rare characters, like Hook and Captain Smee during Pirate Night as well. 

Many characters will be in their Pirate outfits all day on the day of Pirate Night. So, feel free to try to get some meet and greets in before the evening so you’re not rushing around. 

Meeting Characters during Formal Night

If you’re sailing on a 7-night cruise or longer with Disney, there will be a formal night for your cruise. This can be a great opportunity to get formal family photos with your family all dressed up. Or even just give you the opportunity to be a little fancy for a night. During Formal night, the characters dress up too! You can find many of your favorite characters dressed in fancy dresses and even tuxes for this special evening. 

Taking Photos with Characters on a Disney Cruise

There are a few ways you can get photos with characters on a Disney Cruise. If you’re buying the photo package, you can get as many pictures taken by the onboard photographers as you’d like. These are included with your package. And if you’re not buying the photo package, you can still have your photos taken by the photographers as well, you’ll just have to pay for them individually once you have a chance to look them over.

Just bring your Key to The World card with you and your photos will be linked!

You can also opt to take your own photos and videos with a camera or phone. And most of the time, the characters’ handlers are more than happy to take your pictures or videos of you with the characters. I have to emphasize most of the time here. I have never been turned down by a handler to take a photo with my phone, but I have heard of an occasional instance where the Cast Member will not take a guest’s picture with their phone. So just be sure to have a backup plan! And if you only want a photo of the character (without you or a family member in it), you’re allowed to do that too!

How early should I arrive to meet characters on a Disney Cruise? 

That depends a lot on the character! There are some characters that have notoriously long lines on Disney cruises. The Sanderson Sisters on Halloween on the High Seas Cruises are a great example. These lines can easily be over an hour long. Any kind of Stitch meet and greet can be quite long. And the meet and greets on Glacier Day for Alaska itineraries are also very long. You’ll want to plan to be in line for these characters usually 30 minutes or more. Or as soon as you see the line forming. 

Otherwise, if it’s just a standard meet and greet, you usually can show up about 10 minutes beforehand and you’re likely to get to see the character meeting. Many character greetings are scheduled back-to-back in similar areas. So be sure to check the app for the times and see how can maximize your meet and greet times. 

So there you have it- all you need to know about meeting characters on Disney Cruise Line! For a look at which characters you might find on each ship, check out our Disney Cruise Ship Guides for each ship. Hopefully this post has been helpful as you plan your next Disney Cruise. Bon Voyage!