Tip #1: You may never see them again!
I took my first trip to Walt Disney World in May of 1990 as a part of our honeymoon. I had always wanted to visit, but our family chose other vacation locales. In 2004 my oldest daughter was 7 years old and my son was now 5, so we thought it would be a great time to take them for their first trip. Since 2004 we’ve been a couple dozen times as a family. In 2006 we had our first grandparent reunion at WDW. By this time my children had become avid character hunters having collected over 40 signatures on this August trip.
On a Sunny day in Hollywood Studios my oldest daughter noticed Clarice making her way toward the Sorcerer’s Hat with Chip n Dale. She was excited to meet her for the first time, but we had a lunch reservation and I naively thought we must be exactly on time, so I snapped a quick photo of her passing and told her we would return to meet Clarice after lunch. Well, we didn’t know that Clarice wouldn’t return. There were no character schedules, we didn’t know we could ask the person in the yellow shirt when and where they would meet and we didn’t know of the CHIP hotline. We didn’t meet Clarice that day. We still haven’t met Clarice. It’s been more than 5 years and my daughter reminds me regularly of the one that got away. If we see a rare or unusual character, we stop to meet them now.
(Each Tuesday I will offer another tip for touring or character meeting)
