Disney Day 1, Part 3: Meeting Rapunzel and Flynn Rider from "Tangled"

This post will have a lot of content, too, to give the details of what happened when we met the characters whose movie inspired our costumes.

As a reminder, to help you keep track of the sequence of posts about this trip, use the column on the right-hand side of this blog called "Blog Archive" to read all the posts that detail this trip in order! You should be able to find your spot in the trip report by the posts' titles.

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After the parade, we wanted to meet the princesses. Our main goal was meeting Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, given that we were in costumes from their movie. The wait was just about 5 minutes. I should mention that Disney has photographers who are stationed throughout the park to take pictures of you with their cameras and with your own. It's a great service. They always have one at character interactions. Anyway, we walked into the main room where you could meet Cinderella and Prince Charming, Rapunzel and Flynn, and Snow White and The Prince. As we turned the corner into the room, "Rapunzel" literally cried out in surprise. A second later, "Flynn" did as well. Like I said, these characters are supposed to remain in character, so their comments to children are in keeping with their characters. For example, Cinderella will talk about her friends Gus and Jaq (the mice) and how they helped her make her dress, Jasmine asks if people travel by magic carpet in their "kingdoms," etc. It's cute. Anyway, the squeal was special since they had stepped out-of-character. That meant their excitement was genuine! :) Flynn exclaimed, "Well, now I've seen the light!" (That's a line from the song he sings with Rapunzel in the scene with the lanterns.) Rapunzel said it was "the best day ever" (a line she says a few times in the movie).

We had to meet the princesses in order, so we met Cinderella and Prince Charming first. Next up was Rapunzel and Flynn. I have to admit, it was pretty great to interact with them. :) Rapunzel literally ran around us in a circle, oohing and aahing over our costumes. She said she'd never seen a lantern up close before and wondered if the whole kingdom should dress as lanterns. Flynn joined in and said they could make little lantern souvenirs and hand them out to the citizens of the kingdom. Rapunzel again said it was "the best day ever," and Flynn said, "Yes, it's like a fog has lifted!" (That's another line from the song they sing during the movie.) They signed Hannah's book (and Hannah was beaming by now with all the attention from her current-favorite princess), and Flynn talked to Hannah about asking her mommy to teach her how to use a frying pan for self-defense (which Rapunzel uses in the movie to protect herself - you're getting the hint by now that they managed to get back into and stay in character for the rest of the meet). Rapunzel talked to me about all the costumes she had seen that evening and said, "I've seen a lot of wonderful costumes, but these top the list." These character interactions usually last about 30 seconds, but they must have spent about 5 minutes with us. I was too nervous to look at the line of people waiting to meet the princesses because I felt badly if we were keeping them waiting, but Miss was more courageous. We had stopped the entire line! Thankfully, Miss said the other guests were all smiling as they watched us. We got our picture taken with them, and as we were preparing to leave, Rapunzel said, "Can I give the lanterns a hug, too?" It was the most memorable character interaction we've had in 13 trips to Disney, and we were so excited to tell our mom about it later that night. I think the picture below might be one of my top 5 favorite Disney pictures of all time, and I think I've got about 4000 pictures from all of our trips combined, so that's saying a lot! :)

We got some candid shots from the Disney photographer during this meet-and-greet, but I haven't gotten those yet. I'll probably post those sometime in the future. It was fun to have the photographer so into getting candid shots of our interaction with these two characters; it made it feel like everyone recognized that this was a memorable moment. :)

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We moved on to the next princess, which was a quicker meeting. Hannah always gets bashful meeting the characters; I love the look on her face here while they fuss over her.

One of the cast members in this room urged us to go meet Mickey and Minnie, saying it was a 5 minute wait. (It turned out to be 35 minutes, but that's fine.) As we circled back to meet these two, we encountered some other cast members who said, "Oh, look, it's the lanterns!" That made us feel good to know our costumes made an impression that got cast members talking. Since there are about 40 parties each year, it's fun to know you've come up with a creative idea that people enjoy.

Minnie helped Hannah pose like a princess....

... and we all posed together again.

At this point in the night, the party had ended, so we walked back to our hotel (a definite perk of being in this hotel this time) and called Mom. It was about 12:30 AM. She was excited to hear how the costumes were received, and we made sure to let her know that everybody was in awe of her work. It was a wonderful evening, and I'm so glad we went in costume!