Downtown Disney: Entertainment, Dining and Shopping!
Written: Aug 02 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: lots to do
Cons: spend way too much money
The Bottom Line: This is a great place to spend some money and get all of your souvenirs!
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| goldjay's Full Review: Downtown Disney |
While we were in Disney World, we spent at least two evenings in Downtown Disney. After the kids were tired out from the parks but we were not quite ready to retire for the night, this was a great place to hang out, get a bite to eat, and do some of the shopping we didn’t have time for during the busy days. We just popped the little one into the stroller (he fell asleep by the end of both evenings here!) and my daughter was able to walk along and check out different things.
There are three main sections of Downtown Disney. Each section has a different focus although there is some overlap between them.
West Side
The West Side features a lot of entertainment venues and we did not spend much time here. Basically, there is Cirque du Soleil that has a live show with daring, circus-type acts. My understanding is that it’s no ordinary circus though but much more special. It should be since tickets are around $85 each!
This area also features Disney Quest which is five floors of games and fun for the kids and for the family. There are interactive and simulator type rides. There are also some games that you have to pay an additional fee for. Admission to this attraction is around $30 for adults and $24 for children. I had heard from a friend that it is really best for kids who like the virtual reality type games and rides and mostly best for kids over 10. We had also heard from my friend that it can be very loud and crowded inside, especially in the evenings. Since both of my kids are younger than that, we decided not to check this area out as we didn’t want to pay the fee and find that they were not going to be happy here. There is no just going to look around. If you enter, you must pay the admission fee.
There is a 24 screen movie theatre on the West Side of Downtown Disney. There are also several options to eat at as well as a small shopping area.
Pleasure Island
This was also an area we did not visit. Pleasure Island is mostly clubs for adults and we did not feel it an appropriate place to take our children. There are many different clubs, however, to suit whatever one’s tastes might be. There is a comedy club, an adventures club, and a club with music from the 70’s and 80’s among others. There are also a few restaurants and shops in this area and one may walk through the area without going into the clubs if one wishes to. There is a separate admission to many of the clubs though.
MarketPlace
This is the area that we spent the most time in. There are so many unique shops and places to eat here that one could spend a lot of time here and not see it all. All of it is done in Disney style and it is a lot more fun that “just shopping” as my daughter put it. There are statues of different characters around the area, a fountain that is fun to look at and even a fountain that children can run through to get wet. My daughter was wishing she had her bathing suit on so she could do this!!!
We chose to eat at a restaurant called “The Earl of Sandwich” on our first evening here. The line was daunting at first and we didn’t know if we should stay but we reasoned that other places would have similar lines. We stayed and my husband got in line while the kids and I found a table. We were lucky to find a table right away. The line moved much more quickly than I would have imagined it would. My husband placed our order within 10 minutes and we had our food within 15 minutes. We were also amazed to find that they accepted our Disney Dining Plan and we were able to get the meal in exchange for a counter-service meal on our plan. This was a nice surprise as we were prepared to pay for the food our of pocket. Sandwiches were around $8 each. I found that the sandwiches were well filled and tasty. My daughter got what she thought was a “pizza” but turned out to be a pizza sandwich (which makes sense since it was a sandwich shop) and she absolutely loved it!
Other eating options in the Marketplace include the Portobello Yacht Club, Fulton’s Crab House, McDonalds, Ghirardelli’s, Wolfgang Puck Express, Rainforest Café, and Cap’n Jack’s Restaurant. We were going to try Fulton’s Crab House which specializes in seafood but the wait was way too long and we were way too hungry for that. It did smell good and we were able to see the menu and it had a lot of options though I thought that they were on the expensive side. Ghirardelli’s had the best milkshakes I have had in a very long time. I had a chocolate milkshake that I shared with my daughter and it was so good I wanted to go back for another (but I stuck with my willpower and did not!) They also have a whole shop full of chocolate candy and one could really lose control in there. My husband pulled me out just in time!!
The rest of the Market place features unique and fun shops. The first place we ventured into was the Lego Center. It was an AMAZING place!! First of all, they have every Lego kit you can imagine and then some. There is a whole room where there are Lego pieces in little drawers and you can pick and choose whatever pieces you want and fill a bucket with them. There is a small bucket for about $8 and a bigger one for about $12. My husband and daughter had a blast filling containers with Legos to bring home. My husband filled one for my son (who is 2….it is on a high shelf until he is a bit bigger!) and my daughter filled one for her good friend. In addition to that, there is a huge play area. Kids can build different things. There is a race area where kids can build Lego cars and race them. It is like a huge Lego playground that one could spend a lot of time in. And, we did! It was appealing to both of my kids who had a lot of fun “shopping” at the Lego store. It was hard to pull them away.
Our next stop was “The World of Disney.” If there is anything Disney that you want, it is probably in this shop. From stuffed animals to clothing to knick knack items, it is here! There is room after room of items arranged by general category. There was a whole room that had stuff that appealed to girls with things such as sets of princess figurines, costumes, and more. There was another room just full of stuffed animals! We spent a lot of time and money in this store as well.
Looking for the perfect gift for my sister-in-law, we ventured into Mickey’s Pantry. They specialize in food items as well as all types of kitchen gadgets. We bought potholders and dish towels with Mickey Mouse on them for our house and we wound up buying a Mickey Mouse shaped salad bowl for my sister-in-law. You could buy things like Mickey shaped pastas here if you had a mind too. We were amazed by the fine things they had as well! Of course, it all comes with a price tag…..
Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique was my daughter’s dream and we made it come true. This is a cute little boutique where girls can have their hair and nails and more attended to. We had to make a reservation on our first visit to the shop which is why we had to go back a second evening. My daughter was treated like the ultimate princess and it made her feel so good! She had her hair styled and cut just a bit and it looked really cute. Done Disney-style, they really made the appointment special for her!
And, then there is the shop for the sports fans in Team Mickey Athletic Club. Anything relating to any sport can be found here. Pin Traders boasts a huge collection of pins for keeping or for trading. Most of the cast members (employees) here wear the Disney lanyards so you can trade your pins with them as well. We got a really good trade off of one of the cast members here!
We had to stop into Once Upon a toy. Here we were excited to find a HUGE selection of Mr. Potato Head parts. We filled a box with different Disney Potato Head parts such as Mickey Mouse ice cream sticks, Mickey Mouse ears, and even Mary Poppin’s umbrella! Based on tips we got from others, we did not choose to get the potato itself. We had several of those at home anyway but they take up too much room in the box, leaving less room for unique parts that you cannot find elsewhere. If you do have to get a potato, remember that you can stuff parts inside of the potato itself to make up for some of that lost space. Since it was about $20 for the box, no matter how you stuffed it in, it makes sense to be careful! They also had a similar box for My Little Pony accessories. Both toys had a play area where you could try out the different parts before selecting them! This shop also had many other toys, both ones you’ve seen in other toy stores and many unique items as well. It was hard to walk out of this store without going broke!
The last two shops we chose to shop at were Pooh Corner and Goofy’s Candy shop. Pooh’s Corner had everything you can imagine from the Winnie the Pooh stories including classic Pooh as well as today’s version. Goofy’s Candy shop had more candy than I could ever imagine. My daughter’s favorite part of this store was filling a bag with different flavors of Jelly Belly Jelly Beans! They had them in clear containers and you could pick and choose your flavors.
There are a few other smaller stores here as well that didn’t appeal to us or we just missed them. There is so much to see and do that it seems you cannot ever do it all! But, it was so much fun trying!!
Recommendations
The general atmosphere of this whole area is just very Disney. My kids had fun posing with almost life-sized statues and I have some great pictures to show for it. Their favorite stores were places where they could play with things as well as shopping. There is just so much variety here and it is more unique than just going to the mall so it is fun. It is, after all, Disney World. I would recommend at least one visit to the Marketplace in particular but the rest of Downtown Disney is worth exploring if you have the time and the money to do so!
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Families
Best Time to Travel Here: Sep - Nov
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Epinions.com ID:
goldjay
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 in Kids & Family |
 - Top 500 |
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Member: Allyson
Location: Maryland
Reviews written: 1017
Trusted by: 274 members
About Me:
Back from our DISNEY WORLD Vacation!! Had a BLAST!!
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