If you are looking for souvenirs at Disney parks, you might find a few … thousand! Everything from a $5.99 Buzz Lightyear antenna topper to a $37,500 crystal-covered replica of Cinderella Castle is available for purchase on property.
While most of the items are favorites that return to stores year after year, some souvenirs get pulled from shelves, never to return. Sometimes the items vanish just because they didn’t sell well, sometimes they became outdated and other times, the reasons for their removal are more controversial. Here’s a list of souvenirs that you’ll no longer find at Walt Disney World.
1. Disney Dollars
Image: DisneyDisney’s own currency could be used to buy souvenirs, but they also made pretty nice souvenirs themselves. The bills — which featured the images of dozens of Disney characters over the years including the fab five, the Disney princesses and more were first circulated in 1987, and came in denominations of $1, $5, $10, $20 and $50. This currency could be spent just like U.S. dollars (and even had their own anti-counterfeiting printing and serial numbers), but many people chose to collect them for their beautiful designs instead.
Sadly, Disney decided to stop publishing and selling the dollars in May 2016, likely because it’s cheaper to produce gift cards instead of the printed money. The dollars will still be accepted as payment at Disney parks (because they have no expiration date), but if you’re lucky enough to own some, you might want to hold onto them. They’re about to become pretty scarce, so they’re going for many times their value on eBay.
2. Pal Mickey
Image: DisneyIn the early 2000s, you could be led around Walt Disney World’s four parks by your own personal plush tour guide. Pal Mickey’s microprocessor chip and infrared signal communicated with points throughout the parks, and the toy presented attraction information and trivia. You could also listen to jokes and play games like a Disney version of Simon Says, where you had to press Mickey’s hand or belly in a certain pattern. The toy featured a loop on the back of its head so it could literally hang out with you via a clip or a lanyard hook, and Disney even offered options to purchase Pal Mickey (for $50) or rent it (for $8 day). While the company rolled out two more deluxe versions in 2005 and 2006, it pulled all Pal Mickeys from the parks in 2008 (though the technology continued to work until 2014). The company decided to stop servicing the infrared technology to instead focus on the RFID tech in MagicBands.
3. Tagalongs
Speaking of hanging out with characters, Disney once offered another option —although these were much more low-tech than Pal Mickeys were. Tagalongs were little figurines that you wore on your shoulder. They came in a wide variety of characters, from Yoda to Jiminy Cricket, and each magnet disc-bottomed figure cost a reasonable $7.95. However, Tagalongs’ shelf life was short-lived. They first appeared in Disney shops in 2014 and were starting to be clearanced out just a year later. Their lack of popularity may have been due to the fact that the figures could be easily lost on rides.
4. Popcorn Vinylmation
Image: DisneyWhile Disney Vinylmation can’t be worn on a shoulder, many variations of these figurines are still sold at the parks. But as other collectibles (like Tsum Tsums and Funko figurines) have gained popularity, Disney has scaled back some of its Vinylmation lines, and the Popcorn series was one of the ones to go. The Popcorn figurines featured cool asymmetrical, abstract versions of Disney characters in popcorn-themed boxes, but many collectors were turned off by the price. When they were first released around 2012, the Popcorn figures cost a staggering $24.95 each. On Cyber Monday that year, Disney dropped the price 85 percent, making each one only $3.74 after discounts, but the figures still didn’t sell out. Some collectors think that if Disney had originally sold the figures for about $12.95 each, they would have sold better, but others say they didn’t like the designs much anyway. The figures were pulled from the parks a couple of years after they debuted.
5. Meet & Greet Mickey Vinylmation
Most Mickey Mouse Vinylmation features the mouse with three fingers and a thumb —just like he appears in cartoons and in the parks today. But when Walt Disney was still alive, a Mickey Mouse who had five fingers would greet guests. In 2013, a six-inch Vinylmation featuring this version of Mickey was sold at a Disney trading event for $49.95 and had a limited-edition run of 500. More versions of the five-fingered Mickey Vinylmation were planned, but only one more was produced —for the 2013 Festival of the Masters. Some collectors were turned off by the more realistic-looking Vinylmation (and others thought they were such a departure from the usual figurines that they deserved a category all of their own), so Disney stopped making them and instead focused on the more traditional versions.
6. Bubble Guns
Image: DisneyDisney parks stepped up their security measures in 2015, and a ban on toy guns (including light-up bubble guns and Star Wars blasters) was put in place. While the move was in response to gun violence that occurred in France and other places around the world, some people questioned Disney’s logic behind stopping the sale of any items that appear to be weapons. Some guests have pointed to the fact that a Frontierland Shootin’ Expedition still exists at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, and riders shoot targets with guns on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. However, the guns at those attractions are stationary, and Disney officials have said their intent behind banning the sale of toy guns is to make all of the parks’ guests feel safe and also to prevent the encouragement of gun violence.
7. MousekeEars
Miniature versions of mouse ear hats sounded like a great idea — they could be collected, worn as a hairclip or like a traditional hat (with the included strap), used as holiday ornaments or keychains, or even as a Duffy Bear topper. But these cute $12.95 chapeaus, which came in both brightly colored traditional versions and character-specific options, didn’t quite take off. MousekeEars didn’t sell well and they were out of the parks a couple of years after their 2012 debut. Traditional full-sized mouse ears aren’t likely to suffer the same fate, though — each year, more than 3 million are sold at Walt Disney World alone.
Do you miss any of the items on this list? Or are you about to head to eBay to find out how much you could get for the Donald Duck Tagalong that’s been sitting in your closet? Sound off in the comments below!
