After visiting Magic Kingdom last month I was thinking about how strange it is that the park has comparatively few gift shops given how popular it is. I actually struggled to name more than half a dozen in the entire West hand side of the park, which is weird when you realize just how many there used to be.
I found this blog post I remembered about the old Adventureland stores. Thank goodness there's maps for reference because I couldn't wrap my head around where all these places used to be. I swear there's only 3 gift shops in the land now, but at one point there were at least 10! The current Agrabah Bazaar actual sits in front of several of these now closed locations. Their facades blocked by tents and merch racks.
See if you can spot the entrance to "The Magic Carpet" in the more recent photo. The elaborate window is still there.
Some gift shops over time were absorbed by other things. Two Caribbean Plaza stores are now extra seating for Pecos Bills, for example.
The combo-store approach was also done with Liberty Square. The current Christmas shop used to be three separate stores. Similarly, the West side of Main Street (now just The Emporium and Main Street Athletic Department) used to be made up of smaller locations. The trend of one store expanding into another continues to this day with the Main Street Confectionary taking over the former hat shop.
Disney seems to love their one-stop mega stores. Just look at the Space Mountain exit or Big Top Souvenirs. There seems to be an unwritten rule that any location must b x number of square feet to justify its existence. So we get things like Frontier Trading Post that's basically the only shop in Frontierland.
Then there's locations that are just closed like Heritage House or the Tricorn Hat Shoppe. The gift shop that used to be next to Snow White's Scary Adventures is now just a seating area. Progress City Radio Hour mentioned on their podcast that it would have been an obvious place to sell on-ride photos from the mine train ride. What was recently The Pirate's League has joined this list too.
It all seems strange to me. Other Disney theme parks don't do this, and they see fewer visitors a year. You can't even blame the current situation because this has been going on since the 90s. The end goal has been fewer stores total and less variety of goods to sell. The only time I ever go in these stores is if they're at the exit of a ride, which is not the case for most of Magic Kingdom's rides as they were built before that became a trend. Ironically, the gift shop after Pooh (which I'm sure Paul Pressler insisted there be) doesn't even sell that much Pooh merch anymore.
The only reason I can think of visiting a Sunglass Hut in Adventureland is if I happen to loose or forget my sunglasses on a visit to MK. Can they at least reopen some of these smaller stores to sell unique stuff? Look how nuts people go over special popcorn buckets. The Main Street Cinema now selling retro stuff shows they can still think outside the box if they want to.
Personally, I would be more likely to visit a store if I knew it sold something special. Each land having an Emporium seems pointless when there's one at the exit anyway.
I found this blog post I remembered about the old Adventureland stores. Thank goodness there's maps for reference because I couldn't wrap my head around where all these places used to be. I swear there's only 3 gift shops in the land now, but at one point there were at least 10! The current Agrabah Bazaar actual sits in front of several of these now closed locations. Their facades blocked by tents and merch racks.
See if you can spot the entrance to "The Magic Carpet" in the more recent photo. The elaborate window is still there.
Some gift shops over time were absorbed by other things. Two Caribbean Plaza stores are now extra seating for Pecos Bills, for example.
The combo-store approach was also done with Liberty Square. The current Christmas shop used to be three separate stores. Similarly, the West side of Main Street (now just The Emporium and Main Street Athletic Department) used to be made up of smaller locations. The trend of one store expanding into another continues to this day with the Main Street Confectionary taking over the former hat shop.
Disney seems to love their one-stop mega stores. Just look at the Space Mountain exit or Big Top Souvenirs. There seems to be an unwritten rule that any location must b x number of square feet to justify its existence. So we get things like Frontier Trading Post that's basically the only shop in Frontierland.
Then there's locations that are just closed like Heritage House or the Tricorn Hat Shoppe. The gift shop that used to be next to Snow White's Scary Adventures is now just a seating area. Progress City Radio Hour mentioned on their podcast that it would have been an obvious place to sell on-ride photos from the mine train ride. What was recently The Pirate's League has joined this list too.
It all seems strange to me. Other Disney theme parks don't do this, and they see fewer visitors a year. You can't even blame the current situation because this has been going on since the 90s. The end goal has been fewer stores total and less variety of goods to sell. The only time I ever go in these stores is if they're at the exit of a ride, which is not the case for most of Magic Kingdom's rides as they were built before that became a trend. Ironically, the gift shop after Pooh (which I'm sure Paul Pressler insisted there be) doesn't even sell that much Pooh merch anymore.
The only reason I can think of visiting a Sunglass Hut in Adventureland is if I happen to loose or forget my sunglasses on a visit to MK. Can they at least reopen some of these smaller stores to sell unique stuff? Look how nuts people go over special popcorn buckets. The Main Street Cinema now selling retro stuff shows they can still think outside the box if they want to.
Personally, I would be more likely to visit a store if I knew it sold something special. Each land having an Emporium seems pointless when there's one at the exit anyway.
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