Guests "Angry," Claim Disney Park Is Pushing $100+ Princess Meet and Greets

One Disney resort’s princess meet-and-greet is leaving guests frustrated.

Meet and greets have long been a key part of the Disney park experience, with everyone from Mickey Mouse to Moana generating plenty of hype among guests.

Over the years, some character experiences have proven more popular than others. For example, when Figment made his long-awaited return to EPCOT’s Journey into Imagination Pavilion in 2023, he drew the longest line in the entire park. (Demand has, unsurprisingly, died down since then).

At Hong Kong Disneyland, lines to meet Duffy and friends are often the longest, while Disneyland Paris can see waits of up to 290 minutes for its Princess Pavilion.

Princess Pavilion Drama

The Princess Pavilion has become a major source of frustration for Disneyland Paris guests lately.

Unlike Walt Disney World Resort, where guests wait in individual lines for different princesses at Magic Kingdom Park’s Princess Fairytale Hall or their own respective meet and greet areas, such as Walt Disney Presents, Ariel’s Grotto, or various pavilions in EPCOT’s World Showcase, Disneyland Paris has a much more haphazard meet and greet situation for its royals.

When guests enter the line for Princess Pavilion, there’s no saying who they’ll meet. Cinderella, Ariel, Aurora, and Belle are all frequent guests, but the only way you can find out who you’re meeting is to wait until you reach the front of the queue and are directed into one of its two chambers – which, as we’ve established, can take one heck of a long time.

The reason for this system is that the Princess Pavilion simply doesn’t have the space or facilities to provide separate, specific queues for each princess. As one Reddit user recently pointed out, the park did once attempt specific lines to meet Anna and Elsa from Frozen, but this “caused absolute chaos,” hence the current setup.

But that doesn’t change the fact that guests are growing increasingly tired of this system. Recent reports claim that some parkgoers are leaving Princess Pavilion visibly upset—even angry—with their chosen princess.

“Yesterday for example did the line of 90 minutes and unfortunately got Merida (sorry for the fans but I was not happy),” wrote one guest on Reddit. “There [were] 3 little kids [dressed] like princess[es] and they were all crying and the mother [was] very upset that they got that one.”

They added that on a separate day, they met Rapunzel. After leaving Princess Pavilion, they saw three people crying. “One in particular [was] completely dress[ed] up like Rapunzel, angry that she got Cinderella!”

Logically speaking, there’s a very simple way Disney could alleviate these frustrations. At the neighboring theme park, Walt Disney Studios Park, the Hero Training Center in Avengers Campus requires guests to book their meet and greet with characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe in advance.

This reduces the time spent waiting, which makes any disappointment over the “Mystery Super Hero” much easier to handle.

The Sneaky (But Likely) Reason Why Disney May Use This System

Of course, there’s one glaringly obvious explanation as to why Disneyland Paris chooses to forgo the use of a virtual queue and instead pushes ahead with the current setup at Princess Pavilion.

Disney’s parks are meticulously designed to produce three things: magic, memories, and money. If Disney can find a way to combine all three, it will. As some discerning Reddit users have pointed out, the most likely reason why Disney willingly disappoints guests at the Princess Pavilion is that it forces guests to find (and pay for) the only other solution: character dining.

The sole princess dining experience at Disneyland Park is at Auberge de Cendrillon. Located in Fantasyland, this charges a whopping €100 (USD $105) per adult and €50 (USD $53) per child to enjoy a three-course meal while meeting multiple princesses.

Alternatively, guests can pay €120 (USD $126) per adult or €60 (USD $63) per child to meet princesses at La Table de Lumière – the Palace of Versailles-inspired fine dining destination in Disneyland Hotel, which reopened with its new Disney Princesses theme at the beginning of 2024.

Reddit users have claimed that cast members actively encourage guests to pay this premium if they want to meet their favorite Disney princesses. “One of the CMs respond[ed] to the girl that wanted to see Snow White that she needs to book a princess dining if she wants to see her,” wrote one user.

Another said, “I don’t think they want to make the experience more pleasant because they want to push people into paying for Princess Dining.”

What do you think of the Princess Pavilion set up at Disneyland Paris?