No, really, I haven’t taken one too many spins on the teacups, I’m serious. I would love to have more ride specific gift shops.
There is a potential market for any beloved Disney classic ride. When I say classic, I mean rides like Space Mountain, Carousel of Progress, It’s A Small World, the PeopleMover, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Tiki Room, Jungle Cruise and Spaceship Earth.
Not everyone is a fan of the above mentioned rides, but the fact that they’ve survived this long to be granted classic status means they do have a lot of fans. Several of these already have gift shops like Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain and even Disneyland’s version of Small World. There is a very strong argument that all classic rides at Disney should get their own gift shop.
For example, Disney opened Memento Mori, a gift shop specifically for Haunted Mansion, and look how great that merchandise is. It is practically a Haunted Mansion lover’s dream; you can get everything from a Haunted Mansion key chain to a changing ghost portrait of yourself to Haunted Mansion purses and art.
The Memento Mori approach could work really well for classic rides like the Tiki Room and Jungle Cruise. They could even share a gift shop due to their proximity. I know there are a few items floating around out there for these attractions, but there aren’t very many and most of them are kitchen items.
Disney could make little jungle boat toy replicas for kids, t-shirts, figurines and plush representations of Jose, Michael, Pierre and Fritz. They could even sell a little Jungle Cruise joke book, I’d buy it if only for the novelty. Speaking of books, who wouldn’t want a cookbook from everyone’s favorite shrunken head dealer, Trader Sam?
Disney could stand to lose a couple generic merchandise gift shops, these could all be turned into locations for the classic ride gift shops. The Agrabah Bazaar is right across the walkway from the Jungle Cruise and nearby to the Tiki room, it’d be a perfect location.
While Space Mountain already has a gift shop, it doesn’t have much Space Mountain themed merchandise. Disney could do better on this front. People seem very into retro merchandise lately and Disney could fill this gift shop with retro themed items from Space Mountain and the People Mover.
Over in Epcot, Spaceship Earth is the cornerstone attraction of the park. It is about time Spaceship Earth got some love in the form of a gift shop. The gift shop could feature t-shirts, travel posters from all the destinations, miniature ride vehicles and even campfire scented candles so you can always remember the near catastrophic burning of the library of Alexandria.
What do you think? Should Disney build some more attraction specific gift shops? Which rides would you like to see get a gift shop? What merchandise should fill those shops?
