Disney World Is Finally Starting to Get Character Experiences Right.
Walt Disney World just wrapped up a quiet summer, opening a couple quality stage shows and new nighttime parade, but no new attractions or any “answer” to Epic Universe. The surprise sleeper of the season was Cool Kid Summer, which brought new family-focused experiences to Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. This explains the lessons learned from this surprise success that punched above its weight and made some magical memories.
In case you missed it, Cool Kid Summer featured dance parties, extra character appearances, hands-on activities, and a lot of interactivity. Highlights included the Goofy takeover of CommuniCore Hall at EPCOT, otherwise known as GoofyCore Hall. Instead of being a festival center, GoofyCore Hall was a Goofy-led immersive experience, with games with silly twists, like Loopy Limbo and Parachutes ‘n’ Pipsqueaks all in glorious air conditioning.
Over at Animation Courtyard at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, there were games and crafts, magicians and jump rope performers, surprise character appearances, and a lively indoor DJ dance party where little ones can become further indoctrinated into the Cult of the Hot Dog Song. It was a similar story in Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom, where there were dance parties, sing-alongs, and other such silliness.
In addition to this, characters were also out in the parks earlier than normal for Walt Disney World resort hotel guests during the daily Early Entry period. How this happened was never really explained in official Walt Disney World communications, but my observation was that it typically occurred as a pop-up, free roaming ‘street party’ kinda deal, with special music cutting into the normal background loops and signaling the arrival of characters.
Similarly, guests staying at Art of Animation, Pop Century, Caribbean Beach and Wilderness Lodge were all able to enjoy more Disney-themed activities designed for families with kids. This included character visits with set appearance times to help you plan your day and an expanded itinerary of things to do with your family throughout your stay at these four resorts. So basically, the Character Caravan but with a published schedule.
Anecdotally, I also noticed more surprise & delight “Character Paloozas” during my most recent visit to Walt Disney World.
For those who are unfamiliar with them, Character Paloozas are spontaneous meet & greets with a large number of rare characters in out of the way locations. They usually happen pretty close to backstage access points, for quick entry and exits.
The true purpose of Character Paloozas is giving Cast Members on the job training in lower stakes environments. This is also why the characters featured are rare or rare-ish, as the “character integrity” bar is lower. Big Al or Wendell performers have much more, ahem, autonomy for interactions than Mickey Mouse, who must stay on-brand.
I’ve always thought that Character Paloozas are one of the best things Walt Disney World does with meet & greets, even though the purpose is mostly about training in a lower pressure environment. We have fond memories from the Toontown Teardrop way back in the day, and still enjoy stumbling upon a Character Palooza from time to time. It’s the stuff of unexpected magical memories.
The sheer volume of Character Paloozas I observed in the lead-up to Labor Day could’ve been due to a few huge waves of College Program arrivals. It probably had more to do with that than being a surprise Cool Kid Summer offering or paradigm shift in character encounters.
I’m nevertheless including Character Paloozas as something Walt Disney World should do more, purposefully, outside of Cast Member training. They’re win-win, and an example of Walt Disney World getting something right, maybe without realizing how impactful it is to the guest experience.
As for Cool Kid Summer, it was nothing special this year on paper. The original announcement struck me as an “event” that was thrown together very quickly as Walt Disney World tried to market to families and combat mainstream media reports that Walt Disney World was “turning its back” on middle class families with children. (See Disney’s Response to Rising Costs Criticism.)
In practice, Cool Kid Summer was the scrappy little event that brightened up days and brought a bit of magic to blighted corners of the parks. Animation Courtyard felt like a dead mall that was somewhat-alive for the first time in years. Just in observing kids fishing with ‘Vacation’ Goofy, coloring with Clarabelle or engaging in antics with Donald, my strong suspicion is that guest satisfaction was higher among those who visited Animation Courtyard than those who did not. I highly doubt that was true before this summer!
Animation Courtyard was the most pronounced example, but Cool Kid Summer injected a lot of excitement around various hotspots of the parks. I would likewise hazard a guess that the families who stopped for special moments with the characters behind Cinderella Castle had better qualitative experiences than those who raced on to Peter Pan’s Flight. Same goes for those who took the time to slow down in Storybook Circus, Discovery Island or in GoofyCore Hall.
No one is going to accuse Walt Disney World of dreaming too big with Cool Kid Summer. As seasonal events go, it was a minor one. There wasn’t much of a decor package to speak of, and it was thrown into several underutilized venues around Walt Disney World. So just to be abundantly clear, we’re not saying it was actually great or imploring you to plan a trip around Cool Kid Summer in 2026.
It also had a blink and you’ll miss it quality. I wouldn’t be surprised if over half of guests visiting this summer had no clue Cool Kid Summer happened. Not just that they couldn’t identify it by name (that number is probably even higher), but that they also didn’t experience anything I’ve just described.
Cool Kid Summer was easy to overlook. If you weren’t eligible for Early Entry or didn’t stay at on of the handful of hotels with extra offerings, you wouldn’t have experienced that. If you didn’t venture into some out of the way locations where it was held (they’re underutilized for a reason!), you also wouldn’t have seen any of that.
What we are saying is that there’s room for refining and improving on the concept with a full year of lead-time to plan the 2026 Cool Kid Summer. That the event has potential and its good ideas could (and should!) be implemented full-time, beyond summer.
Most importantly, Cool Kid Summer demonstrated Walt Disney World finally “gets” the appeal of Disneyland-style free roaming characters. This is something we’ve been discussing here for a while, especially back with the debut of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in 2019.
One of the biggest questions at that time was whether free-roaming characters would translate to Walt Disney World given guest demographics. The concern was that once-in-a-lifetime guests wanted posed photos with characters, not to “play” with them.
This is despite free-roaming characters being a staple of the Disneyland experience for years. So many of Disneyland’s best moments with characters unfold in an organic and spontaneous manner as characters like Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, or the Evil Queen wander the park.
(It also helped that Cool Kid Summer didn’t totally eschew traditional meet & greets in favor of character ‘play’ experiences; Animation Courtyard added a lot of both. We’re cognizant that many first-timers want the photo of their kids posing with characters, getting an autograph, etc. This isn’t an either/or proposition. And as a whole, DHS has quietly become a great park for meeting characters.)
Based on my observations, Cool Kid Summer definitively demonstrated that spontaneous character experiences not only work at Walt Disney World, but are a huge hit with guests. Animation Courtyard was the best evidence of this, and I hope what was offered there this summer was proof of concept for the type of ‘play’ that’ll be featured in the reimagined Walt Disney Studios Lot.
There’s something special about these spontaneous encounters, getting a chance to briefly play with characters as opposed to posing for a photo, assembly-line style. This is the stuff that ‘core memories’ are made of. Even though Cool Kid Summer obviously didn’t come anywhere near being an “answer” to Epic Universe, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if some of the character encounters at Walt Disney World left equally powerful lasting impressions.
Hyperbolic as it might seem, this is formative stuff. We’ve often stressed that it’s the “little things” that form the foundation of nostalgia and sentimentality, and forge new Walt Disney World fans in the process. Obviously blockbuster new attractions and lands are important, but getting these little things right is the ‘secret sauce’ for Walt Disney World.
Although Cool Kid Summer was nothing noteworthy on paper, and definitely not the type of thing anyone planned trips around (except for Walt Disney World’s unprecedented summer discounts that essentially offered 2019 pricing), it did manage to punch above its weight and offer something special to many of the guests who got to experience it.
The seasonal event also suggested that Walt Disney World is finally starting to get the appeal of playing with characters or having spontaneous and memorably interactions, and might use Cool Kid Summer as a template for future character encounters. That alone would be a huge win, and honestly, it’s kind of wild that they didn’t learn this lesson from Disneyland a decade or more ago.
As for the seasonal event itself, I’m cautiously optimistic about Cool Kid Summer getting a sophomore season in 2026. Hopefully the inaugural year was a learning experience, and it returns bigger and better next year with (presumably) more lead-time for planning it. Although this is about the character component, I hope more emphasis is placed on the cool aspect of Cool Kid Summer, as there are so many creative ways for Walt Disney World to help guests beat the summer heat.
When it comes to characters, the big thing on my wish list for a while has been 90s nostalgia. The recent Destination D23 did this really well both with its panels and the exceptional Kuzcotopia Night at Typhoon Lagoon. Hopefully that was proof-of-concept for in-park offerings, and maybe even a hard ticket event.
Doing more with Disney Afternoon, Disney Channel, and cult classics animated films from the late 1990s would be awesome. People my age adore those animated films from the second half of the 1990s, along with Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, TaleSpin, and DuckTales. We are also now the target audience of the parks, whether we’re Childless Disney Millennials or parents who want to share our own childhood nostalgia with our kids.
As covered previously in our Top 10 Rare Characters We Wish Walt Disney World Would Bring Back, we can’t be the only millennials who would overpay for a 90s nite at Magic Kingdom or Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Maybe Walt Disney World could weave that together with Cool Kid Summer, and pull deeper from the 2000s playbook by offering a “Pirates, Princesses & Pals Party.”
Regardless, I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with the event in 2026, and hopefully we don’t have to wait almost a year to see Walt Disney World apply lessons learned from this summer to spontaneous character encounters around the parks. There’s tremendous unrealized potential for Disney to leverage its beloved characters in playful ways, and the opportunity to make new lifetime fans of the parks via those little moments of magic.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Did you experience any of the character encounters during Cool Kid Summer? What did you think of these spontaneous experiences? Any special lasting memories from ‘playing’ with the characters? Do you hope Walt Disney World learns lessons from this special event and applies them year-round? Will you be visiting for Cool Kid Summer 2.0 if the event is expanded upon and improved in 2026? Thoughts on the new character experiences/encounters at the parks & resorts this summer? Any questions? Hearing your 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!
We visited all four WDW parks in June and late July. These roaming characters were great, and I hope WDW leaders see that DLR-style character interactions will and do work at WDW. Please keep them coming!
Went at the end of June/end of July. Saw it advertised in some park literature/banners, but WHAT it was actually advertising for was very ambiguous. We just figured it was something like Kidcot or Kim Possible.
My youngster isn’t too into character meet-and-greets outside of character meals, but had we known there were games and a more “carnival-like” atmosphere, he would have loved it and we definitely would have checked it out. Honestly, Disney needs to bring back some unique, rotating “local fair” flavor again to make things more engaging. I’m getting tired of just going for the rides with kiddo.
On our trip in June, we happened to see Moana at the tail end of her greeting guests in Epcot. She saw my daughter waiting just outside the meet and greet and instead of going backstage, she grabbed my daughter’s hand and walked over to a garden to look for Hei Hei in the flowers. I happened to get the whole thing on video and it was absolutely a magical moment that I haven’t seen in the parks in years. There were so many times we just missed a character and they would be shooed away by their handlers. It was really special to see how this Moana went out of her way to create that moment for my 5 year old Moana loving kiddo! These are the interactions that create repeat visitors!
Yes to all of this! I have to imagine that not only are these types of interactions more memorable for the families, but more engaging for the characters themselves as it provides more variety then being anchored to the same spot. Even as a childless adult, it’s a thrill to turn the corner and see a character just roaming around; it makes the parks feel lived in rather than just being collections of (high quality) rides.
I was surprised how great some of these areas were visiting with my 3 year old. Animation Courtyard was definitely most successful because there was so much going on. A key element for me was the entertainment in the courtyard (e.g. magicians, jump roping, etc…). The entertainment was great on it’s own but also enhanced the wandering characters who would watch/help with the shows, which in turn kept it from becoming a de facto meet and greet. People will swarm the characters given the opportunity.
The AK area coloring with Daisy Duck was another highlight. It was a little hidden so there were never more than a few kids . For my shy Lil guy, the activity and low key chill vibe made interacting with the characters more fun.
The characters were key, we wandered into a couple areas when they weren’t there. DJs and school carnival games were pretty uninspiring.
Some of my fondest memories of my college program were hanging out with Shaker during my trainings at Epcot back in 2013! I still have the autograph that Shaker got a guest to give him, plus many laughs at the amount of people who were excited to meet “Yogi Bear”. Makes running into the character paloozas now even more special. <3
These experiences are great. Just to pile on, this summer we did early entry to Animal Kingdom and were trying to make it to Flight of Passage, but then Pocahontas was stationed just before the bridge to Discovery Island. She took my young daughter by the hand and then walked her around the Oasis for ~5 mins pointing out animals and talking just to her. It was like a private tour with a character guide. We bailed on our plans because it was so cool.
Are these 1:1 interactions just too expensive? Or too logistically challenging when the crowds are large? Because they are way better memories than most of the stuff in the parks.
Gummi Bears, don’t forget them! They have the best potential ride idea, Quick Tunnels, left untapped. I’m happy you mentioned Tailspin and the others, little one has all of those DVDs and watches them constantly. To see Walt was the executive producer during the credits is nostalgia. We have never done the line meet-and-greets, not even the weird ones on DCL or Castaway Cay. The character dining seems more personal and little one loves talking to the “characters” about favorite movies they’re in or silliest personality quarks they have. Demonstrating knowing the difference between Chip and Dale is a favorite. I am cautiously optimistic about our 3rd Disney resort stay of this year that is next week (possibly dozens of day trips in between) due to articles like this, that Disney maybe finally remembering itself after 10 years. Maybe……and a clean hotel room for a change that doesn’t take until 3:55pm to check in to and at 8am they’re already calling every 30 minutes to see when we’re leaving and lock you out of your room if you don’t answer by 9am. Like I said, maybe…..
Great post Tom. This is the kind of spot-on commentary that makes your blog so enjoyable. Animation Courtyard was my four-year-old’s favorite part of the whole trip, and not only were there a lot of characters, but the interactions were high-quality. The cast members took time with each child to make lasting memories. Keep up the great work!
Disneyland being our home park, we are used to all the interactions with characters. Playing music games with Alice, having a conversation with Tinker Bell about Peter Pan while he is next to her, helping Pocahontas look for Meeko, listening to Cruella tell her side of the story. Then we went to WD and my kids were so bummed there were no characters to “play” with. I whole heartily hope WD keeps interactive character experience. Also, bring back more of the atmospheric entertainment. We really miss them!
While spontaneous interactions with roaming characters have been a cherished part of the Disneyland experience for years, I wonder if the interactions during Cool Kid Summer share a more direct lineage with Galactic Starcruiser. It has been widely reported that Starcruiser received one of the highest guest satisfaction scores at WDW of all time and that lessons learned from Starcruiser would be carried forward into future projects. One of those learned lessons is that spontaneous, immersive interactions with characters create strong and lasting memories for guests. As much as the Starcruiser location was a technological marvel with its synchronized view screens displaying coordinated views of hyperspace jumps among many other innovations, the memories that I dwell on are the hushed conversations in a hallway with a character where she asked for my help in hiding a wookie or a plan hatched in the cargo hold by a character and a few other guests, now co-conspirators, as we worked to pull off the theft of an artifact. Those types of interactions are what made Starcruiser so impactful to so many and I hope WDW works to create more of those types of moments in the parks. I can only hope that the Beak and Barrel will also benefit from the same lesson.
This is a fantastic point about Starcruiser! Not sure why I didn’t include it in the commentary, especially since it was *right there* when mentioning Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Very insightful comment.
With that said, I would not count on this coming to Beak & Barrel anytime soon with how popular it already is. (The Cast Members do an excellent job at keeping things in-universe and deepening the experience, though!)
I am old enough to remember a childhood when characters roamed MK, and I definitely have some great memories. That said, I do kind of object to non-face characters working outside in the summer. It’s better now that they have handlers and presumably some way to signal distress if need be, but I really feel they should not be allowed outdoors above a certain heat index.
Overall though, I think it’s great that they are including more exploratory, less structured activities for kids. For little kids (or maybe just for my hyperkinetic child who can’t sit still, I dunno) I feel like this is sometimes more engaging than things like rides, parades, shows, etc., which are more passive experiences.
I was lucky enough to take 3 trips this summer, all adult trips with no kids, and the free roaming characters made some of the most memorable moments. Outside of Galaxy’s Edge that hasn’t been a thing at WDW since I was a kid in the 80s and it really does make a difference in the atmosphere and experience. My partner and I had a first timer friend with us on Memorial Day week and she still gushes about randomly meeting Minnie at Discovery Island in AK. On my solo trips this summer I even found myself tossing out my carefully laid Early Entry plans to play with them or just observe and had so much fun! I’ll never forget over July 4th weekend seeing Naveen with a bunch of little kids hopping like frogs over to Tiana in Fantasyland. Last Monday when rope dropping the IG I stumbled across Belle after I left Remy and rather than continue zipping to FEA I stopped and interacted with her. She was playing hide and seek with Chip and got me to help look for him. It was the most precious thing and far more rewarding than racing to rides efficiently for the umpteenth time (btw it didn’t even slow me down—FEA was still a walk on by the time I got to Norway). You’re right, this stuff is the secret sauce. It’s also what makes Disney parks stand apart imo. I specifically mentioned the free roaming characters on a post trip survey recently as something that enhanced my trip.
(Also, it was great getting to meet you at MNSSHP the other Friday! I was the solo pirate jamming out to the Rusty Cutlass. Hope I wasn’t too awkward!)
It was great to meet you, too! I knew/know exactly who you are, for what it’s worth. You’re the only regular commenter named Aurora and I’m almost positive you mentioned that you’d be at that MNSSHP in a prior comment. It was great to meet you–excellent costume!
Oh, and great insights/experiences here–glad to hear you shared this sentiment in a survey, too.
I experience the character palooza during early entry at Magic Kingdom this morning! I was pleasantly surprised since I thought this had ended. It was a great way to meet a lot of characters very quickly. We also got to ride thr carousel with Mickey, which was super special for my son! I hope this sticks around!
Do we know…is this done with, or have characters been appearing in early mornings and around the parks since summer ended? I think it’s a great idea, really – the fact that cast members were playing with me in Galaxy’s edge the first time I went is what seriously solidified my desire to keep coming back again and again. It is nice to know if I want to meet a dedicated character I can wait in line, but that actually doesn’t offer as many fun ‘play’ opportunities since they’re limited to their environment…and I’m also then missing their interactions with one another, or other families. I remember when Wookies and Jawas would go on Star Tours with people – that’d sure get that ride a shot in the arm if they did it again!
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Early Entry appearances have continued, to some extent, but the rest of the formal offerings have ended.
Part of my motivation in writing this right now might be that we’re approaching a new fiscal year, and I’d love for Walt Disney World to get “nudged” in the right direction with more feedback from guests that this is the type of offerings they like to see. It would be fairly easy to add offerings like this again during the holiday season or in the winter. No reason any of this needs to be confined to Cool Kid Summer!
The lesson learned should be that they CAN give us more of the “organic” experiences we want and they should do it more! How about “Cool Kid Year” where the parks feel more alive anytime you go and it isn’t date-gated. Our family’s favorite experience last trip was stumbling upon the Frontierland Hoedown and watching our daughter dance with Clarabelle. More of that. It will be reflected in guest experience surveys for sure.
Carolyn had her picture taken every morning with a different character at WL. She then sent them to her friend who has a young child who wanted to see pictures of characters thus bringing happiness to places beyond WDW.
It was a win win on many levels.
We also got involved with characters at places like you show above by the New and IMPROVED little mermaid show.
We also witnessed kids shopping with special shopping carts at WL.
I think the young kids enjoyed it almost as much as the old kids.
We were there Memorial Day weekend, and while technically I think it was before the official kick-off, running into characters during the morning at Magic Kingdom was AWESOME! Our son had the best interaction with Peter Pan outside of the line for that ride, we saw Rapunzel and Finn walking around, and then on check-out day at Caribbean Beach, the lobby was alive with a lot of fun. An amazing CM at the front desk even gave our son a Cool Kid Summer tote despite the fact that we were checking out the day the event began versus checking in. He received two Cast Compliments from us, one for the tote, but more importantly for truly saving the trip after a botched last visit to Muppet Vision 3D due to a crazy storm. CMs really can and do still make the magic!!
They soft-launched Cool Kid Summer several days before it officially started (the official start was to coincide with the DHS stage shows…which were pushed back so as to not be totally overshadowed by the grand opening of Epic Universe), so it would make sense that you experienced all of that during your Memorial Day weekend trip. Thanks for sharing!
Honestly, we went to DL two years ago and I would prefer to go there from now on and never go to WDW. It felt so much more magical. And a lot of that was the characters. My daughter STILL remembers seeing Ariel as we entered DL. She was standing by a fountain and had a conversation with my daughter about sea creatures. It’s been two years. She remembers probably nothing else from that trip, and she hasn’t even seen Little Mermaid, but she remembers Ariel.
We also saw Clarabelle and we were all so excited that we ran across the street to her.
We have waited in lines for pretty much every character ever but I would far prefer to have my child play with Donald. Even if they told me I couldn’t take any photos. It would be amazing.
I was there on most of Thanksgiving week and the week before and it was definately noticable to me. Both in how you would have a lot of characters show up for early entry and in how they were just generally more around the parks.
In someways its not a major thing compared to having far more ride reliability then when I was there in 2024(though there were still some gremlins) which helped my trip a lot. It does overall maks your day feel ‘more’ though and that they care about the guest experience simply by having them out there as entertainment. Its some for lack of a better word ‘magic’ instead of just feeling like your part of a capacity sausage factory.
Did you mean Thanksgiving or Labor Day?
D’oh I meant Labour Day. Which you were right about it being an empty day I was was in Magic Kingdom and the park was a ghost town. Half and hour waits for Tron and Mine train Spece Mountain 5 minute walk on etc. I think I have Thanksgiving on my mind because I’ve done the week after Thanksgiving at Disneyland a lot because its generally in my birthday week and they have so many characters out there.
Hi Chris,
I bet you feel foolish now after eating eating all those Turkey legs!