Disney World Souvenirs

First of all, I'd like to state that Disney World knew exactly what they were doing when they planned their parks....gift shop as soon as you come out of nearly every single ride?  Genius on their part, parents worst nightmare!!  And of course, the gift shops are themed to whatever ride you just stepped off of, so the kids are all pumped about whatever that one thing is, now they're inundated with a million toys all set to that very theme.  (case in point: Jake has never cared about Pooh characters, but there he was, stepping off the Pooh ride, sucked into all of the merchandise...well played, Disney....well played.)

Anyway, the kids had received some generous gift cards and gift purchasing from both sets of grandparents and even Brian's boss.  And as you may remember from a previous post, Jake had been earning some extra money with some chores around the house for a few months prior to leaving to save up for a build-it-yourself lightsaber. 

Overall, I think they made some good choices.  Jake got a star wars action figure set (which was a surprisingly reasonable price of $15 for 5 or 6 figures), and Liam picked up a similar set only the characters were Mickey and friends decked out in safari gear.  Liam also got 2 cars (one tigger and one with Mickey and Minnie in it) and Jake picked up some Toy Story stuff to add to his collection...a bucket of army men and an Evil Zurg action figure.  And of course, Jake built his own lightsaber!!

 

Again, I was pleasantly surprised with the reasonable price tag; the double lightsaber was $24.  I've seen regular light sabers (that you didn't get to build yourself!) priced more than that at walmart.  Of course, once Liam saw his lightsaber, he wanted one of his own, and selected an $8 version that was already put together but featured Mickey Mouse :)  He was sold.

image courtesy of ebay.com

 

My mom picked up this adorable Alice in Wonderland themed teacup for herself:

And my souvenir was something that I knew I wanted to have going into the trip, and thankfully we were able to do it on the very last night there since I kept forgetting earlier in the trip:

Silhouette of the boys!  We had this done in Sleepy Hollow at Magic Kingdom, I know they also did them on Main Street there.  Not sure about any other parks.  The total cost was around $25 and that included 2 prints and the frame.  It's hanging up in our upstairs hallway and I LOVE it.