This past year at Disney, we met over 30 characters throughout the parks. One of the things the kids loved to do was to go get their autograph and take photos with them. The first year we did this, I had a basic autograph book for each child. It actually proved to be a little more cumbersome than I imagined, and the end product didn’t turn out all that great. This past year, I started with the end in mind and created individual note cards that the kids used for each character (found online), plus I took more candid photos of their interactions with them. The end result was that I had so much more flexibility as to how to put together each kids final album and it came out rather great (if I do say so myself).
So, if I had to give any advice to my friends who visit Disney and want character autographs, I would give the following::
1. Take Candid Shots:
With “professional” photographers stationed at each character spot (and especially if you have a spouse or a friend with you), the “official” shots of each child with the characters will most likely be in abundance. However, what I found to be really cool is getting the kids approaching the characters and interacting with them (or even the characters signing the autographs)
It allows you to do so much more when you return if you’re putting together scrapbooks. What I also do is shoot videos of those moments (with pretty much any smart phone you can take the stills while the video is still shooting).
2. Plan in Advance
Planning which characters you want to meet, find out where they are located (and get fast pass to meet them if you can) and plan out the ideal times to meet them. It will also help ensure that you get to meet your child's favorite.
Ben wanted to meet Woody (we met him twice),
Planning in advance also allows you to make pre-printed character cards for each character you plan on meeting. You print it out blank (with the characters name or image) and then they sign it for you.
For me, it also allows me to sort them into separate bags based on when I plan on meeting them. I would bag each day (or even part of the day) in separate bags so I didn’t have to go looking through all of the cards when we met each character.
Sure, it’s a little more effort, but the end product makes it worth it.
4. Generic Cards
While I love the personal cards with each characters name and image, you will also come across characters you either didn’t plan to meet or even know existed. For us, we met Stitch (what the heck is a Stitch?), among others so I had some blank cards printed with Disney logos etc. for those occasions and always made sure I had a bunch with me just in case.
5. Put it all together:
When you get home, you are probably pretty exhausted and it would be easy to just throw the autographs in a box and be done with it. The beauty of the cards is that you can easily put them in an album right by the pictures you took for a pretty cool finished product.
