I can't help myself. No matter how many times I visit a Disney resort or theme park I am drawn to the gift shop. I always want to peek inside. Size doesn't matter. I am equally drawn to a small gift shop (like the one I just visited at Maestro Mickey's at All-Star Music) as I am the larger shops in the parks and at Downtown Disney.
If I think about it, I probably like the small resort shops a little better than the ones in the park. Mostly because the resort shops tends to be a bit less busy.
One thing that has disappointed me over the last several years is a homogenization of the Disney gift shops. Before I lived in Florida, I'd truly delight in spending one day of my Disney vacation riding buses, catching boats and hopping on monorails going from resort shop to resort shop. Why? Because each gift shop used to carry unique merchandise. Now you can find just about the same core products in every shop. An exception, of course, is resort-specific merchandise.
I suppose there's a convenience factor there for some guests. But, the quest for the perfect Disney vacation souvenir was always part of the fun for me.
Still... I walk into every shop "just in case" there is something I've never seen before. That maybe, just maybe, the shops will go back to being a little unique. A girl can dream, can't she? That's part of the Disney magic.
Disney's All-Star Music resort was once our favorite bargain hotel (and still is for nostaglic reasons). At that time it was one of only two All-Star resorts. The other, of course, was All-Star Sports. Several years later, Disney added All-Star Movies.
One of the things I really enjoy about being at the All-Stars is that it is really like getting 3 hotels in 1. All three All-Star hotels are within walking distance of each other. The All-Star Music resort sits in the middle and this is where we spent most of our time today. We shared the Chicken Penne Alfredo with bread stick meal for lunch - and boy was it delicious. This same meal can be found at several of the value resorts. Some prepare it a little better than others. All-Star Music did it right today!
We typically park between Sports and Music. As we walked towards Music we could hear the fun in the distance. The All-Star Music tends to be the party destination for all three resorts - filled with popular music and activities for the kids. LOTS of scheduled activities from games to dance competitions and night-time movies by pool.
We walked through the entire resort, admiring the over-sized theming at each set of buildings. When we stay at this resort, we will like to request the Calypso section because it offers the closest distance to the food court and bus transportation to the Disney theme parks (but it can be loud). If you look close in the photo above, you'll see the giant yellow maracas. But... our favorite themed area is Broadway featuring big marquis, ticket windows and the sounds of Broadway tunes.
After several hours at the Music, we ended our day by strolling over to All-Star Movies for a walk among the over-sized characters like Toy Story's Buzz and Woody. And, by that time, we were hungry for dinner so we split a chili cheese dog. Another excellent choice. In fact, several people around us in line commented on how good it looked. We've had chili cheese dogs at other Disney resorts and they always have beans. I'm not a big fan of beans in my chili so I was pleasantly surprised to find the chili dog at All-Star Movies to be free of beans! Each time we're about half-way through our meal I realize that we should have taken a picture. Hopefully, we'll start remembering to take photos of our Disney meals.
