Talking Donald, Minnie & Mickey Mouse at DCA
Today at Disney California Adventure, Imagineers are play-testing talking Donald Duck, plus Minnie and Mickey Mouse. In this post, we’ll share photos and video of Disneyland Resort’s talking trio, plus thoughts on the meet and greet experience.
For starters, this meet and greet is currently in test mode, meaning that there’s no published schedule of when talking Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, and Mickey will meet. In August, talking Mickey Mouse met, and it was very sporadic. If you weren’t there when his meet started, you would’ve missed it.
Today, talking Mickey, Minnie, and Donald were meeting in the Ahwahnee Camp Circle in Grizzly Peak’s Redwood Creek. This is the same spot where other characters meet. We’ve gotta say, though, this is about the coolest Disney character meet & greet ever (or, at least since Dreamfinder and Figment disappeared)…
Walt Disney World fans are likely familiar with talking Mickey Mouse, as he has been meeting “backstage” at the Town Square Theater in Magic Kingdom for several years now.
We’ve done the talking Mickey Mouse meet and greet at WDW several times, and while it has become smoother over the course of the last few years, Mickey can still be a bit slow on the responses, and some interactions can feel a bit disjointed and awkward.
With three characters, we felt none of that. There were times all three interacted with us nearly simultaneously, and other times, they engaged with one another.
This type of multi-character setup seems perfect. It gives the chance for the characters to use their rapport with one another to build into a guest interaction, drawing the guest into a group interaction. If the conversation were to, for some reason, become delayed between character and guest, there’s still a lot going on.
Basically, this group dynamic is much more conducive to a fun, naturally-flowing experience. Even the aspects that are totally scripted (like teaching us lion roars!) can seem spontaneous because of the way they’re weaved together with interactions that are more on the fly.
It should come as a surprise to no one that Donald Duck stole the show in our interaction (and literally all interactions we observed), as he has a particular way of hamming it up that just works.
Here are a couple of videos of our experience with talking Donald Duck, plus Minnie and Mickey Mouse…
First, our friend Guy Selga of TouringPlans.com:
And here’s Sarah’s video:
All in all, it was a really fun experience, and we hope that they roll this out for regular meet and greets in the near future. Based on the tests we witnessed, the ‘show’ is excellent. Of course, there’s the possibility more Cast Member training or back of house work needs to be done before this is ready for prime time, but we’re optimistic Disney California Adventure and Disneyland guests should finally have their own permanent talking character experience soon!
If you’re preparing for a Disneyland trip, check out our other planning posts, including how to save money on Disneyland tickets, our Disney packing tips, tips for booking a hotel (off-site or on-site), where to dine, and a number of other things, check out our comprehensive Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide!
Your Thoughts
Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts or questions below in the comments!
When I heard there was a talking Mickey I was mind-blown! But then we went to Disneyland we asked a crew member where was the talking Mickey meet and greet, they said he was not approved and I was devastated but they said that he was in the red trolley news boys show I loved it but that wasn’t enough for me. I hope talking Mickey meet and greet is approved to come back permanently in California. Is there an expected date of his arrival yet?
Do you think this will still be coming to Disneyland or Disney World with the talking Mickey going away?
Amazing.
I didn’t know about the talking Mickey at WDW and found it magical when I went in.
And I’m a 46 year old man.
Tom, I just wanted to say thank you for this and all your other coverage. I recently took over the Theme Park Bits column for /Film, and I also contribute to TDR Explorer under the byline The Gaijin Ghost. Between those two sites and my own blog, I always find myself linking to you. I grew up in Florida with WDW as the destination for all my family vacations, but until last month it had been about 20 years since I was back there. In 2010, I moved to Tokyo, and now TDR has become my home resort. When I did have a chance to return to WDW in August, your attraction guides provided a nice crash course in the current state of the parks. Now that I’ve started writing about it every week for /Film, I really want to visit Disneyland Resort in California, too. Anyway, I didn’t know how else to contact you, but this post will be linked to, and there will be a shout-out to you, Sarah, and Disney Tourist Blog, in the next Theme Park Bits. (These talking Disney characters strike me as both kawaii and a little kowai, as they say in Japanese.)
It was fun watching them interact especially adding Donald to the mix. Hopefully they bring these additional voices to Walt Disney World. Adding voices to Goofy or Chip N Dale would be a fantastic addition to the parks.
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Seeing three of them together interacting is mindblowing. So cool!
I was at the Magic Kingdom when they had the talking Mickey at least 4 years ago. It was terrific. I’m surprised it too them this long to arrive.
This is so cool. I really hope they eventually come to WDW, or at least Donald. My husband is a huge Donald fan, so getting to talk to him would be amazing!
I thought I heard ages ago back when they were testing Mickey that this was the ultimate goal…I’m actually surprised it has taken ~5 years to get this far.
This is absolute magic! And for reasons I can’t quite explain, makes me tear up a little. What an experience!
Donald Duck has always been my favorite since I was a young child. Having him talk to me would be incredible watching your videos was magical. I can’t believe they made him!! But super glad they did. I was worried they wouldn’t because he can be hard to understand but here he was perfect. I loved the way his tongue even moved in his mouth. I don’t think the castle forecourt show in WDW his tongue does that. It’s so incredible.
I think him being a little hard to understand might be an advantage long-term. I’ve heard Crush and Mickey bungle kid’s names before…if Donald does that, no big deal–just how he talks!
This sounds cool! I wish Talking Mickey (or Minnie/Donald) was around a few years ago when my daughter was younger.
Did she ever get a chance to meet talking Mickey at Magic Kingdom? I want to say he started appearing in 2011 or 2012.
Late 2013 is when he appeared, from what I can tell. I think we first saw him in mid-2014, when my daughter was 6+ years old. It was still cool, but she was at the tail end of her character fascination stage. (At ages 3-5 the characters were “real” to her, which was pretty fun.)
We met him in November of 2011. We were just in line to meet Mickey, and low and behold he could talk!! It was during a testing phase, but it was so cool! Hope these characters make it WDW too!