Gen Z has taken this Disney character meet-and-greet trend to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL and honestly, why didn’t WE think of this?!
Mickey and Minnie
Asking Disney characters for their autographs is an iconic, longstanding tradition in Disney World. An autograph book filled with your favorite pals’ signatures makes a great keepsake! But how often will you actually pull out that book to look at those signatures? Probably never, if we’re honest. That’s why people sometimes ask characters to sign other stuff, like hats, t-shirts, or other souvenirs. Now, there’s a NEW souvenir autograph trend going around, and we LOVE IT!
A few weeks ago, we were having dinner at Storybook Dining at Artist’s Point in Disney’s Wilderness Lodge (which is a seriously underrated and delicious character meal in Disney World), and that’s when we FIRST spotted this new character meet-and-greet trend.
Snow White
Snow White, Grumpy, and Dopey walk around the restaurant, but the Evil Queen stays stationary at her meet-and-greet spot (probably so she doesn’t accidentally scare any little kids by sneaking up on them), so you can go up and meet her if you want.
Some girls went up to meet the Evil Queen, and they brought their Stanley water bottles with them for her to sign! We noticed that the bottles were covered in signatures of other Disney characters, too, and that might be the best idea we’ve seen in a while.
Evil Queen at Artist Point’s Storybook Dining
By having Disney characters sign your water bottle, you’re creating a keepsake that you’ll actually use every day back home! While you’re staying hydrated, you’ll be reminded of your fun Disney vacation and all the characters you met in the parks. One of our editors here at DFB tried it out with a Corkcicle bottle, and the results are gorgeous.
Autographed water bottle
Since that experience, we’ve spotted this trend just about EVERYWHERE in Disney World. It’s spreading fast, and we can totally see why.
So cute!
One thing you’ll want to be careful of with this trend: Make sure you get a water bottle that can be drawn on! You don’t want all those signatures to just wipe right off. So far, we’ve seen lots of people use Stanely cups — so we’re assuming those hold signatures pretty well — and we’ve tried it ourselves with a Corkcicle, so we know those are OK, too.
Corkcicles in Disney Springs
If you choose to buy a dark-colored water bottle, you’ll probably want to bring along a silver or white Sharpie for the characters to use so that their signatures show up. It might also be fun to get a white water bottle and bring several different colored Sharpies for all the autographs! If you want to try this out on your next trip, here are a couple of suggestions for bottles you can use:
Get the Viral Stanley Quencher Bottle Here!
©Amazon
Yep, this is that viral Stanley water bottle that you’ve seen all over your TikTok feed. It’s a great option for collecting character autographs because it’s durable (so it’ll last a long time) and big (so you can fit a lot of autographs on there). We’d recommend NOT picking one of the gloss designs — we’re not sure that Sharpie will stick as well to that material. There are a ton of different colors to choose from, just steer clear of the ones that say “Gloss” in the color name!
Grab the Stanley Quencher here!
Click here to grab a Corkcicle Canteen Water Bottle.
©Amazon
These Corkcicle Canteen bottles are a great option, too! They’re not quite as big as the Stanley ones, but they’re also a bit cheaper, so if you’re not going to collect tons of autographs, this might be the way to go.
We love learning new tips and getting ideas from all the super creative Disney fans out there. Make sure to stay tuned to DFB so you always know about the new trends in the parks!
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Any word on if when washed the signatures come off easy?
Are these easy for the characters to write on? It seems like the rounded surface would be hard rather than a flat surface.
As a Character Attendant, I can tell you that it is very difficult for the Characters to sign Stanley cups or anything curved (sphere ornaments, water bottles, funko pops, those white plastic mickey dolls.) I do not recommend it.