The Options
The DIY Option | The Cheap Option | Disney Official Autograph Books | Encyclopedia of Characters | |
Image |  |  |  |  |
Cost | Free to $10 (and up) | Around $3/book | $14.95/book | $11.69/book |
Pros | Fun way to personalize | Affordable | Official Disney characters | Beautiful artwork, pages for each character |
Cons | Takes time to make; materials cost money | Not creative; not very durable | Expensive | Expensive; hard to pack and carry |
When it comes to preparing for your upcoming Disney vacation, there are plenty of big decisions to make; where to stay, which Disney parks to go to, flights, packing, and so on. When it comes to some of the smaller details, they can sometimes be overlooked. One of those details is preparing to collect character autographs from your kids’ favorite Disney characters. To do so, it’s a good idea to come prepared with Disney autograph books for the kids or even the whole family.
When we took our first Disney family vacation, we had a hard time finding autograph books that we liked. The cute or creative books were expensive, while the more affordable ones had plain (or no) designs and weren’t very durable. That led us to start Character Signatures, where we’ve designed dozens of creative and affordable autograph books perfect for characters’ signing autographs.
But don’t take our word for it – in this article we share all of the options that are out there so you can make the decision that works best for your family!
The DIY Option
If you’re a Disney family that happens to have a crafter as a family member, you might want to explore the DIY option. Crafting your own autograph book typically means grabbing a cheap blank book or using something you already have. You can get very creative with either scrapbooking supplies or printables from the internet to create your own memory maker!
The Pros: For creative Disney-goers, this can be a fun way to personalize the family’s autograph books. Kids can even help create their own autograph books to become part of the experience.
The Cons: Time and money. For us, with three kids and lots of planning to do, we didn’t have the time to craft our own books. We also knew if we were going to take on creating our own, we’d have to purchase blank books and craft supplies, which would make these books more expensive than many options out there.
The Cheap Option
It’s no surprise that Disney is expensive. Whether you’re going to Walt Disney World or Disneyland, the cost of tickets alone can be a lot. Consider adding in souvenirs or character meals and it’s tough to imagine spending money on much else. That’s where we were, so we were looking for a very budget-friendly option.
We decided to purchase Spiral Bound 4”x6” Index Cards for each of our 3 kids. If I remember correctly we purchased these at one of the big box stores near us, and there were a few dollars each.
The Pros: These are definitely affordable. They’re a couple bucks each. We liked that you can easily flip from notecard to notecard to grab your favorite character’s autograph. The notecards were also thick enough that the marker didn’t bleed through them.
The Cons: These are cheap, and, well, you get what you pay for. No creative designs, so it wasn’t anything that our kids got excited about. We also found that during some of our character dining experiences when we had these autograph books on the table, if we had any spills they weren’t durable and were easy to ruin.
Official Disney Autograph Books
If you want an autograph book that features some of your favorite characters, including Mickey Mouse, you may want to look toward an official Disney autograph book. You can find and purchase these online before your trip, or you can find these at any Disney store or souvenir shop on property.
There are many options, including an official Disney World Autograph Book that features Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto.
The Pros: These autograph books often feature Disney characters and are easy to grab online or at any of Disney’s parks. Some of them will even come with a pen that you can use with the book.
The Cons: These autograph books tend to be a bit more expensive costing around $15 online or as low as around $9-10 at the parks. For a family with three kids like ours, this would run between $30-45 for three books.
Disney Encyclopedia of Characters
When we first set out to find the perfect autograph book, we actually purchased three of Disney’s Junior Encyclopedia of Animated Characters. We had read that these were great to use as character autograph books because kids could have their favorite characters sign their unique page in the book.
Here’s the problem: these books are big. And heavy. Not only is there no way our kids could carry these around the parks, but we would really have to make some room in our backpacks to tote these around.
That being said – these books are amazing. We kept them for our kids because they have beautiful artwork and awesome background and stories about Disney’s characters. They’re just not amazing for autographs.
The Pros: Full-color pictures of many Disney characters to allow them to sign each page.
The Cons: They’re big, they’re heavy, and they’re not cheap. These books are around $12 each (depending on when and where you get them), meaning around $35 for a family of three.