Souvenirs

[elbenn]

Are items more expensive at the parks than at the Disney Store? I know you can probably get cheaper Disney items at Kohls and Target, but is the Disney Store the same?

Specifically, I'm asking about some of their parks products. For example, the mouse ears are $14 at the DS and the magic bands charm sets are about $8-9 at the DS. Would these be the same at the parks?

ETA: What color are the magic bands you get with your park tickets?

[anonomom]

Generally, prices at the Disney Store are about the same as at the parks. The (big, huge) exception to that is when the Disney Store has a sale -- the parks don't usually have those items on discount.

If you'll have a car and some extra time, you can hit one of the Disney outlets for discounted souvenirs. It's all authentic Disney Parks stuff, but at pretty good discounts. The Touringplans.com blog has a monthly article about what's at the outlets, if you want to get an idea of what you could find.

As far as I know, the default Magic Band color is grey. If you're staying onsite, you can customize your band to one of several colors (red, blue, pink, orange, green) before your trip. You'd do that through your My Magic + account.

[elbenn]

Generally, prices at the Disney Store are about the same as at the parks. The (big, huge) exception to that is when the Disney Store has a sale -- the parks don't usually have those items on discount.

If you'll have a car and some extra time, you can hit one of the Disney outlets for discounted souvenirs. It's all authentic Disney Parks stuff, but at pretty good discounts. The Touringplans.com blog has a monthly article about what's at the outlets, if you want to get an idea of what you could find.

As far as I know, the default Magic Band color is grey. If you're staying onsite, you can customize your band to one of several colors (red, blue, pink, orange, green) before your trip. You'd do that through your My Magic + account.

Thanks for the info, especially about customizing the magic band! I didn't know that!

[rkold]

Thanks for the info, especially about customizing the magic band! I didn't know that!

And if you want to customise it ever further, I met someone in the parks who painted their band purple with nail polish. It didn't seem to affect the band's actual use.

I personally think the parks are more expensive than the store, even without the fact the store has frequent sales.

Ex:
Princess dress at the store $45 Princess dress in the parks $65
Princess shoes at the store $17 Princess shoes in the park $22
Cotton T-shirt at the store $15 Cotton T-shirt in the park $20+

And then when you include the frequent sales at the store, the price difference becomes even more significant. The Princess dresses, should you be looking for one are really very well done in the parks and are fancier than the ones in the store (other than the Deluxe and LE ones) but I find run much much smaller. Actually, everything at the parks for kids runs small imho. I think the only good sale in the parks is if you eat QS (on your own dime, no plans) other than at BoG in December and maybe some of November, you get a 20% off coupon on your receipt. However, it is for limited stores and must be used before 1 pm.

[elbenn]

I'm looking at small souvenirs online. The tsum tsum collection is really cute and a bunch of the little beanie balls are $5. Anyone that's been to the park lately, are they the same price there?

[keh602]

We were just at WDW a couple of weeks ago. I was actually comparison shopping between disneystore.com and the parks, and what I found was this: The items in the Disney Parks section of the website are the same price in the parks as online; other things may be more expensive at the parks. DS1 wanted the Ariel doll from the Animator's Collection, and in the parks it was $30, but online it's $25 (but I've never paid even that because I've always gotten them on sale). He bought a little Ariel Animator's Collection set for $25 that is $20 online.

As far as the Tsum Tsums go--they are only available at Downtown Disney. We bought ours at Once Upon a Toy, which we were told is the only place you can get them. They were 3 for $15 (or $6 for one). Disney Stores and Target have them for $5 as the regular price.