Recently, I've seen a lot of complaints about the declining uniquity and quality of merchandise at WDW. While this was definitely true up until at least 2008, I don't think this is the case anymore. Significant strides have been made since then, especially in 2010, and merchandise is now much improved.
I think everyone likes to bang on this drum because it's a popular one, but I think merchandise has gotten exponentially better in the last two years. To be sure, it's not as good as it was from 90-98, but we have noticed more ride and land specific items (take a look in the Space Mountain gift shop--Tomorrowland AND Space Mountain items! Not just High School Musical!) and the more generic merchandise was more clever, better designed, and generally better.
Other notable merchandise I’ve seen in the past year: I think everyone likes to bang on this drum because it's a popular one, but I think merchandise has gotten exponentially better in the last two years. To be sure, it's not as good as it was from 90-98, but we have noticed more ride and land specific items (take a look in the Space Mountain gift shop--Tomorrowland AND Space Mountain items! Not just High School Musical!) and the more generic merchandise was more clever, better designed, and generally better.
-40th Anniversary Logo Items
-2010 merchandise (among other things) featuring the old “D” script
-retro-inspired shirts for nearly every land in the Magic Kingdom, and for EPCOT
-Figment merchandise featuring Dreamfinder
-Resort-specific merchandise at the Polynesian, Boardwalk, and Animal Kingdom Lodge (the only three resort gift shops I checked).
-Magic Kingdom-specific Summer Nightastic shirts last summer
Anyone else care to indicate what they’ve seen—establish this as a “Merchandise-Watch” thread of sorts?
Merchandise still has a ways to go, especially in location (HSM stuff doesn't belong in Tomorrowland, period), but I think the corner has been turned.