Shopping Question

[MagicalMonorail]

I'm going to WDW this summer and I plan to bring home many many souvenirs. I had a question about shopping though. I want to get most of souvenirs from World of Disney at Downtown Disney. I know they carry just about everything. I just wanted to know this: Can you find the same stuff at the theme parks as you can at WoD? I need to know so if I see something at the parks that I want to buy, I can just wait until I go to World of Disney.

 

[Coree]

It totally depends--which isn't the answer you wanted to hear. Some items can be found in the parks/hotels/WoD. Other items are specific to a certain place. WoD has tons of stuff, but they don't carry everything. What I try to do is go to Downtown Disney the day we get there and just window shop. That way when I'm in the parks the rest of the week I have an idea of whether I can get the same thing at WoD or if I need to buy it at the park location. Then at the end of the week I do a big shopping trip to Downtown Disney to get anything I still need.

 

[mrtoad]

Coree is correct. Not everything is available in every place, so doing the window shopping thing first is a good idea. The only trouble is that somethings in say the Magic Kingdom may not be available in say Epcot so you need to determine when you should purchase based on your travel schedule.

Also, if you see something in say the Magic Kingdom in Tomorrowland it is easy enough to get back there from anywhere in the park later in the day if you decide. But Epcot again is a different story as it takes longer to get from point a to point b.

The only other thing is if you have kids, telling them to hold off until weeks end to make sure they know this is what they really want is hard. It is even hard for big kids like myself.

 

[DanStat]

Most anything with all of the four parks represented on it can be found at WoD. If it is park or attraction specific, buy it then, if not, wait until WoD. I did that and was very pleased with what I brought home...and the second car I had to have to tow it home!

 

[paul436]

...and the second car I had to have to tow it home!

I've had to buy a small suitcase or duffle bag on a couple of trips just to bring back all the souvenirs.

 

[mrtoad]

I've had to buy a small suitcase or duffle bag on a couple of trips just to bring back all the souvenirs.

That is the only shopping problem with WDW. We usually have to ship stuff home. I remember when I was a kid my sister had gotten a large Winnie the Pooh and it got it's own seat home on the plane. My parents did not want to check it because of fear of it getting recked in the cargo area as it was $60+ dollars and in the 70s that was heavy money for a stuffed animal. The airline actually wanted to charge my parents for the seat but the plane was half empty so my parents complained and got Pooh a free seat.

 

[phlydude]

If you can, try buying everything in one store (like one year I bought $300+ worth of monorail items and had them all shipped back to home in DE and didn't have to pay FL sales tax which would have been more than the shipping!) and ship it home from there. If you can't do that, get to a post office and mail it home yourself. Nothing worse than having that souvenier you bought get broken while the TSA is searching your bag!!!