Hi Bailey!
My family loves Character Dining because one minute you're eating and chatting like normal, and the next you're hugging your favorite Disney Character! And the best part is there are so many options - you can dine with Dale or twirl your pasta in the company of Princesses. It's really one of the quintessential Walt Disney World Resort experiences!
All
dining reservations do require a method of payment to secure the reservation, with either a credit, debit or gift card. There are a few reservations that do require 100 percent full payment upfront at the time of booking, and those are Disney's Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show, Mickey's Backyard BBQ, Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue,
any dessert event, and all meals at Cinderella's Royal Table. These do require a 72 hour cancelation notice to receive a full refund.
All other dining reservations, including the other
Character dining experiences, are booked with a 'Credit Card Guarantee', which means that a $10 per-person cancelation fee, per meal, will be held on whatever card you used to book the reservation. Each cancelation fee will only charged should you cancel in under 24 hours notice or miss the entire reservation altogether. It's not assessed if you originally booked a table for 10 but only eight showed up. This amount is also not credited as a deposit or prepayment.
Booking Character Meals is exactly the same as booking any other Table Service reservation. The actual reservation can be made either over the phone by calling (407) WDW-DINE (407-939-3463) or online through your My Disney Experience account. You can even make a reservation on your My Disney Experience Mobile App!
I hope this helped, Bailey!
~Kristen