It is no secret that I love meeting Disney characters. Half the reason I started doing RunDisney was to meet some of the rare characters you find along the courses. My absolute favorite is when I get to meet Mickey and his friends in different outfits, so when I finally got to go to Minnie’s Halloween Dine at Hollywood Studios, it was a dream come true.
Minnie’s Halloween Dine is usually called “Holiday and Dine” because it’s at the Hollywood and Vine restaurant, and it is possibly the most unique character meal at Walt Disney World, because while the characters don’t change, their outfits do, based on the time of year. In addition to their Halloween attire, Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, and Goofy have Hollywood, Spring, Summer, and Christmas outfits for their respective seasons.
However, Mom, Jay, and I were there in October, and Minnie’s Halloween Dine was in full swing. We checked in and waited out on the patio for about fifteen minutes, helping ourselves to the free water dispenser in the corner. Once our names were called, the Hostess handed us a card that we would redeem to get our photo taken with Minnie at the front of the restaurant. I got the feeling we were supposed to meet Minnie first since she is the titular character, but she had a fairly long line when we walked in, so we waited.
We actually met our first character before the waiter had even brought us our drinks! Mickey Mouse appeared! I told him my Mom needed an extra big hug, and that she flew a long way to see him. Mickey went above and beyond, and made her super happy. We took turns taking pictures of each other, and left to get food after Mickey left.
They do really well on making the whole meal themed, instead of just the characters for Minnie’s Halloween Dine. The labels on the buffet were all little witches’ hats, and each one had some sort of themed alliteration, reference, or pun. My personal favorite was the “Vampire Repelling Garlic Mashed Potatoes”.
Our next visitor was Donald Duck, who was very upset we had Duffy, and a Minnie Mouse hat, but nothing with Donald on it. I also find it interesting to note that everyone else’s costume was Halloween themed and had stuff like spider webs and themed colors, but Donald was an astronaut. Not even a spooky astronaut, but he was still cute.
I always have two main problems with character meals. One, I’m usually too excited about the characters to eat, and two, there’s no one to take your picture for you so group shots are basically impossible.
Goofy was next to appear and the little brat, I mean kid, at the next table jumped her turn so Goofy almost missed us. He was about to walk off after visiting that family, and if I hadn’t said anything, he would have skipped us entirely. Goofy was dressed as a cowboy, but his shirt had a spider web pattern and he had a big spider belt buckle.
We were actually full before we’d met all the characters, but I kept going back for small portions so no one would try to rush us out. The dessert display lacked the cute little witch hat signs, but the names were themed and so were the desserts! Well, they tried to be at least.
Daisy Duck was our last visitor, and Jay made me promise to be nice to her. “It’s not her fault!” (For anyone who’s unaware, I’ve had a grudge against Daisy since she kicked Duffy Bear out of Epcot in 2015.)
We decided to go meet Minnie on the way out, so we wouldn’t have to leave someone at the table to watch our stuff, and we could all be in the picture. (This was the plan, it didn’t go quite the way it was supposed to.)
While we were waiting for the check, we got one last surprise, Mickey came back for another visit! He wanted to make sure we’d had a good time.
We made our way back to the front to get in line for Minnie, who had a full backdrop and a Photopass photographer. We did several different pictures so we could do individual and group shots, except our group shots wound up being just Mom and me and then Jay and me because there was a communication mix up. The Photopass photographer and character attendant were trying to hurry us up, but Minnie didn’t seem to mind.
With our stomachs full, we headed back out into the park to make our way over to Toy Story Land so Mom could see it for the first time.
Minnie’s Halloween Dine is a fairly standard character meal. The food is okay at best. The biggest hits at our table were the salmon, mashed potatoes, and desserts. However, that’s pretty much what I expected. Character meals don’t have the best food because Disney knows people are there for the characters, not the food. (The exception to this rule is Garden Grill, which I think is about the best restaurant on property.) The characters were fantastic, even if Daisy was there. My only real complaint is how dimly lit the restaurant is, because it makes it harder to get good pictures.
Cost: The standard price is $52 per adult.
Value: It’s a high price for the quality of food you get, so it depends on how much you want to meet characters in their seasonal outfits. I would like to go back for some of the other seasons, but probably only with two people.
Duration: We were there about an hour and a half.
Add Ons: Alcoholic drinks are available at an additional cost. You could also do the Fantasmic Dining Package at Holiday and Dine for $60 per person.
