Disney has some of the most popular animated characters around the world, and you'll hardly find anyone who doesn't know about Mickey Mouse. Disney Dreamlight Valley is a life simulator that brings a bunch of these characters together while you're trying to solve the mystery of The Forgetting plaguing the land.

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As soon as you get into the game, Merlin greets you, automatically unlocking your first character. More characters are unlocked as you progress in the game, and you also get to go on a nostalgic journey with a lot of them before you bring them back to the valley.

Updated July 7, 2023, by Sean Murray: Everything's better when you are wetter, which is why everyone wants to find Ariel in Disney Dreamlight Valley. So we've updated this guide with improved formatting and a few more breakout tips to make it easier to unlock Ariel in Dreamlight Valley.

Requirements To Unlock Ariel

Ariel is not one of the characters that you can unlock at the start of the game. In the beginning, you can progress through the main quest line to unlock the Dream Castle where there are different doors belonging to the realms of different characters.

Unfortunately, Ariel is not one of these. Instead, she is stranded on an island in the same realm as the Dreamlight Valley, but she doesn't remember how to get home. To get this mermaid back to the valley, players have to first unlock the Dazzle Beach area.

At the start of the game, Plaza and Peaceful Meadows are already unlocked. You have to spend Dreamlight to unlock the rest of the areas. Further, you also have to keep following the main quest and return the Orb of Friendship to its pillar.

You will find the pillar and the Orb on the left side of Peaceful Meadows if you're coming from Plaza. You will have to raise three characters to a certain friendship level to unlock the Orb, at which point you can put it inside the pillar and then spend Dreamlight to unlock Dazzle Beach.

How To Fix The Broken Raft

Once you unlock Dazzle Beach, you have to find a broken raft to start The Mysterious Wreck quest. There are two parts to Dazzle Beach that are divided by the bridge in the middle. This bridge has some debris that you cannot clear early on in the game.

To avoid this debris, simply go back to Peaceful Meadows and you will find a pathway leading to both sides. If you open your map, you will see a small island to the east of Dazzle Beach which is where you will find the wreck of the raft.

When you reach the raft, there will be a shovel on the ground near it. It's in the open and has a sparkle effect, so there's no way to miss it. After picking up this shovel, the quest will start asking you to talk to Goofy about it. He will ask you to get a bunch of items to fix the raft.

At this point, you need to have either the Glade of Trust or the Forest of Valor areas unlocked. The former area is a better choice because it will allow you to get all the required material easily. Here's everything you'll need and how to get them:

• 30 Hardwood
• 7 Rope
• 25 Clay
• 10 Iron Ingot

Hardwood

If you've walked around the starting areas of the valley, you will find some wood lying around that you can pick up to get Softwood. Although, you won't be able to find Hardwood in these areas. This is the first reason to unlock the Glade of Trust or Forest of Valor.

Once you reach these areas, you will see a darker-toned wood on the ground which is Hardwood. Although, both of these areas are limited since they're blocked by certain obstacles that you can't remove at the start of the game. Because of this, it might take you a while to acquire enough wood.

Rope

While it's pretty simple to get Rope in Disney Dreamlight Valley, there are quite a few steps to it. Firstly, you will have to get the Crafting Table from Scrooge McDuck. You'll get one for free as you progress in his quest. Next, you need to go hunting for Seaweed around the valley.

You can find Seaweed randomly lying on the edges of Dazzle Beach as they get washed ashore. Other than that, you can fish in the areas where there are no puddles and have a chance to get Seaweed from it as well.

Once you have a few Seaweeds, head over to the Crafting Table and get yourself some Fiber. One Seaweed makes five Fiber, and eight Fiber makes one rope. You will need 56 Fibers in total to get the required amount of ropes.

Clay

You'll be using another Royal Tool to get yourself some Clay. This can either be very easy or a nightmare since it's based on RNG. This will be the second item taking you over to the new areas, and also why Glade of Trust is better than Forest of Valor.

Once you're in the area, find muddy ground with little pools of water in them. Using a shovel to dig in these areas has a chance to give you some Clay.

You can get around one to three Clay every time you get lucky with this.

Iron Ingot

In every area, there are little black rocks right beside the edges. Usually, you'll get Stone and Coal apart from Gems when you mine these rocks, but you can also get Iron Ore if you do it in certain areas. The stones in both Glade of Trust and Forest of Valor provide you with these ores.

Do not confuse these black rocks with normal stone piles that are lying all over the valley. Mining the normal ones will only give you stones, while the black rocks will give you special items.

For every five Iron Ore and one Coal, you can make one Iron Ingot at the Crafting Table. Since you need ten of these, you'll require 50 Iron Ore and ten Coal. This will be the hardest item to get since there are very limited black rocks in these areas, even though they respawn regularly.

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How To Get Ariel In Disney Dreamlight Valley

After acquiring all the items, head over to Goofy, and he will ask you to make a Raft Repair Kit at your Crafting Table. Once it has been made, you can use it on the broken raft that you found at the start to fix it.

Fixing it will allow you to embark on the raft, and you'll go to a new island where you'll see Ariel right in the front.

Talk to the mermaid and she'll ask you to place her castle in the water near Dazzle Beach to find her way back home. All you have to do now is place her castle in the valley, and she'll be unlocked for you.

It's important to note that you don't have to build the castle to get Ariel​​​.

Ariel Friendship Rewards

Once you unlock any character in Dreamlight Valley, you can upgrade their friendship by ten levels to get different rewards. Apart from the major reward at every level that commemorates your friendship with the character, you can also unlock different quests after reaching certain levels.

Unfortunately, you cannot assign a task to Ariel as you can do with every character at friendship level two. This is because she stays in the water, and can't hang out with you for anything except fishing.

This leaves only two options to raise her friendship. You can talk to her every day and give her the various gifts that she likes. There are also three featured gifts that will give you extra EXP every day.

Here are all of her friendship rewards:

NEXT: Disney Dreamlight Valley: How To Unlock Characters