Disney California Adventure Character Meet & Greets: A Walking Tour

A couple weeks ago, I took you on a walking tour of some of the various character meet & greet opportunities in Disneyland Park. This week, let’s take a look at some of the spots in Disney California Adventure Park where you can meet your favorite Disney characters.

Before the park became known as Disney California Adventure, and before the major “DCA 2.0” overhaul, a park visitor would be pretty hard-pressed to find characters to take pictures with or get an autograph from. But over the years, that has changed. DCA is now home to many characters, much like its companion park across the esplanade.

Once you walk in the front gates, you can often find members of the Fab 5 in their retro Hollywood best. On rare mornings, I’ve even seen them standing in groups of two or three. I love seeing characters in groups because watching them interact with each other can be more fun than meeting them yourself. Also on Buena Vista Street, you can find the Buena Vista Street Citizens such as Donna the Dog Lady or Officer Calvin Blue. These are original characters similar to the Citizens of Hollywood at Disney’s Hollywood Studios Park in Walt Disney World.

Head to the right, and you may bump into Aviator Minnie! This character meet and greet has survived, despite the fact that the show that featured her, “Minnie’s Fly Girls,” was eliminated a couple years ago with no replacement. I only caught that show once on a visit to the Disneyland Resort before I was a SoCal native. I wish it was still around, but at least Minnie is there to cheer me up!

Keep going around the park’s perimeter, and you will find yourself in Redwood Creek. Check your times guide for the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail ceremony where you will be able to meet Russel from Disney Pixar’s “Up” and become a Senior Wilderness Explorer. (But first, make sure to earn all of your Wilderness Explorer badges!)

Head over to Paradise Pier, and you might just spot some of your favorite friends from Toy Story like Woody or Jessie. This land is also home to the “Phineas and Ferb Rockin’ Rollin’ Dance Party” and the Green Army Men, although these are not traditional meet and greets and more streetmosphere events.

If you visit Carsland, you can often find Mater and Lightning McQueen out for a drive. Take your picture with them and you might just hear a familiar catch phrase or two.

Finally, stop into Hollywood Land in order to meet with some well known characters from Disney Junior such as Jake the Pirate, Sofia the First, and Doc McStuffins. You might also find some of your Pixar pals like Frozone, the Incredibles, or Sulley from Monsters Inc. (Although he’s been wearing his Monsters University varsity jacket for quite some time, now. I kind wish he would take it off and return to his original meet & greet look.)

Of course, there are a few opportunities to meet characters that I didn’t mention. If dining with the princesses is your cup of tea, I would recommend a stop at Ariel’s Grotto. Over on Paradise Pier you can catch Duffy and Donald. The Incredibles and Frozone have also been spotted in Hollywood Land.

You may think that this marks the end of our character meet & greet walking tour. But you are wrong! There are even more characters to meet outside of the two theme parks. Come back next time to see them!