My parents took me to Disney World when I was about 4 years old (around 85/86) and I was still in a stroller. Although I have no memories of this there are pictures...i had to go to the bathroom so my mom took me while my dad waited outside, leaning on my empty stroller. My dad was apparently looking at some "hot chick" which was off in the distance and not paying attention to much when all of a sudden he felt this heavy weight in the stroller as it moved forward a bit. He looked down and sitting in the little fold up stroller was Baloo. He was just sitting there staring up at my dad. He then stood up and pretended to see what my dad was staring at and pretty much giving him a hard time. Whenever we meet someone who mentions Disney now my dad makes sure to tell the story. This was when the characters walked around freely! I remember the same trip one of the bears from Country Bear Jamboree gave me a kiss on the cheek and it made some kind of smooch noise. Maybe someone can help me out with this memory...did some of the costumes have a mechanism that could make this happen or is it just a kiddish memory thinking the costume did it when in fact it was the person in the costume? :) Thanks!
Another great experience was of recently with my niece. She wanted to meet Jasmine so bad and before the trip down my sister had purchased a Jasmine costume that my 4 year old niece insisted on wearing in case we met her. We finally found out she would be in Moracco so we headed straight there and unfortunately when we got there the CM informed us that Jasmine had to head back to MK for a parade. My niece was devasted but we waited anyway to meet Aladdin and Genie. When it was my niece's turn Aladdin made a huge deal about her costume saying, "oh look Genie, Jasmine came back! I thought you told me you were leaving princess Jasmine." My niece was floored. They took their time hugging her and giving her squeezes, treating her like Jasmine. Then we thought they would be done as there was a line forming but Aladdin goes, "Wait, before you leave Princess Jasmine we should go on a magic carpet ride!" At this point they all kneeled down on the carpet and Aladdin pulled up the edges and they pretended they were flying. It was so sweet and made for excellent pictures. After that my niece was convinced Aladdin was her boyfriend.
