Disney is expanding its character offerings for the holiday season, and has said via official Disney Parks Blog post that Disney characters will be heading to the Walt Disney World Resort hotels in the very near future. We don’t have any specific dates on where or when these characters will show up, but given that this is supposed to be a special limited time magic offering just for hotel guests celebrating the season at Walt Disney World, we’d guess that these special character interactions will be starting in the very near future.
Like in the theme parks, characters will not be able to directly interact with guests due to current health and safety measures, but it sounds like Disney will be setting up distanced character experiences like the spontaneous character “cavalcades” we see during the day where guests can wave and take pictures from a distance. According to WDWMagic, these new offerings are being marketed as “pop-up adventures” with characters arriving in customized RVs at randomized times throughout the day and will greet guests from socially-distanced locations.
Though character arrivals will likely be a big event at the hotels, it seems likely that there will be no published schedule for when these character experiences will happen (again, similar to the cavalcades in the theme parks) and guests will just need to be in the right place at the right time to experience this special holiday character offering.
Though there aren’t that many details right now on what characters will be meeting guests and how these experiences will be facilitated, it is great that Disney is trying to make some additional magic for resort guests, as the majority of character dining is still unavailable, and entertainment options are still very sparse within the theme parks. Perhaps if these limited time character experience prove to be popular over the holiday season Disney can continue adding character touches to the Walt Disney World hotel experience while entertainment in the theme parks is still very limited.
