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.
At Disney's Port Orleans Riverside resort the hotel gift shop is themed as an old-time general store. Fulton's General Store is an adorable little shop bursting with 1880's nostaglic details from the outdoor decor to the interior theming.
If you look high on the walls, you'll notice so much attention to detail. Everything from old-time tools to baking and canning supplies adorn this adorable store. Everything else, though, is what you'd expect to find in your typical modern Disney World gift shop - souvenirs, snacks, magazines, postcards, sundries and more.
We spent most of our time in the store checking out this super cute Mickey Mouse luggage. The overall design is white with comic strip styling including Minnie Mouse and Pluto. The luggage is a rolling bag and somewhat hard-sided. It rolls beatifully... the handle it even has two pull-out positions.
My husband and I look at this comic strip Mickey luggage almost every time we visit a Disney World gift shop. We look at the price tag (it is over $100 for a carry-on size piece) and know that we would just be crushed if it were damaged by airline travel.
If you can't make it to the parks for a Disney vacation, this luggage (and its big brother) are both currently available for purchase at The Disney Store online. Maybe one day...
Since we live near Disney World in Orlando, Florida family and friends sometimes ask for favors. They may need groceries or supplies delivered to their Disney hotel room while on vacation - or - after they've returned home, they realize that they wished that had bought that one last souvenir. We're happy to oblige.
This week we got a request that sounded simple enough: find postcards for each of the four Disney World theme parks (plus a couple of favorite rides). There was just one catch - the front of each postcard needed to have the park name in text. Oh... and the postcards had to be landscape (they were for a Disney vacation scrapbook project). "Sure", we said, "no problem".
I guess postcards are starting to be phased out at Disney World. It has been so long since we've sent any that we really had not been paying attention to the fact that the postcard supply is dwindling. No matter where we shopped from parks to hotel gift shops, we saw the same dozen or so postcard designs.
We can remember looking at display racks that were full of postcards. Today, the cards are not only hard to find, they're are pretty pricey. A single postcard that we picked up for Soarin' at Epcot cost $2 - it was the only one and we didn't even really like it.
Finding postcards with the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios or Animal Kingdom written across the front was nearly impossible to find... unless you wanted to buy a 10-pack of cards for $6 each. Ultimately, that's exactly what we had to do. The cards came in a long folded strip that needed to be separated by hand at the perforations.
So... I guess that's progress. Communication has become more instant (unlike the postcards that used to arrive about 2 weeks after we got home from our Disney vacations). Why send a postcard when you can quickly update friends using e-mail or social media. Honestly, I still enjoy receiving an old-fashioned postcard. It looks like they may soon become a thing of the past...
Confession... you're probably going to see a LOT of visits to the Pop Century Resort in this blog. We have stayed at almost all of the Disney hotels on property from the value hotels to the luxury resorts on our vacations, but we always go back to Pop Century. Even if our "vacation" is an afternoon strolling the grounds and getting a bite to eat at Everything Pop (shopping and food court area). It is a place we like to visit just to get a taste of Disney without crowds or bigger attractions.
As locals, we see (and visit) the Walt Disney World Resort differently than when we were simply vacationers. We don't race from one top attraction to another or even try to grab fast passes. We just like soaking in the magic of simply being there and that's exactly what we did today at Pop Century.
When we first arrived, we immediately headed to the Hippy Dippy pool for a favorite cold weather pastime: to see how many vacationers from colder climates were swimming. The lifeguards on duty were bundled up like they were on ski patrol. We can relate. As soon as the temps drop below 60 we can barely stand to be outside. To our surprise, no one was in the pool - we usually see at least one or two kids who are determined to go swimming. I don't care if the pool is heated to a balmy 82 degrees, it is still way too cold to consider jumping in. So, we did what many other Floridians do on a cold 50 degree January day, we hurried inside and ordered up two hot chocolates. Of course, hot cocoa needs a sweet treat to go with it so we also shared a delicious crumb cake. A couple hours of relaxing in a booth and listening the the sounds of hit music from decades gone by made for another perfect Disney afternoon.
