unique souvenirs

[GrtWtNorth]

Part of this week's show included advice about unique souvenirs for once-in-a-lifetime experience. Here are a few suggestions of my own:
* pal Mickey -- it's useful in the parks during your visit, and it's a nice toy at home too.
* Menus from your favorite restaurant -- we have menus from our favorite meals like Victoria and Albert's and Artist Point. If you're having a good time, ask your server if you can keep something as a souvenir -- the answer will likely be yes.
* Unique postcards -- I have a favorite postcard from "Cloud City", which I bought at Disneyland shortly after Star Tours opened.

 

[aaronmckie]

All three are great suggestions, they would definately remind you of the trip, and are cheap/free (except Pal Mickey, but he's worth the money, IMO).

Great first post, welcome to the boards

 

[robind]

While it is not very unique the best souvenir I've gotten at WDW was a Mickey, Goofy and Donald back scratcher I use it almost everyday and it reminds me of my trips almost every day.

So, I say get something that you will use - it will give you a ton of chances to remember the magic.

 

[Mrs. M. Mouse]

my favorite thing I got from WDW was my photo album. It fits all the pics from our trip last summer. My kids love to look through our pics all the time and think about what happened and when and how much fun we had doing each ride, meeting all the characters etc.

Also we picked up a magnet for the fridge from each park and use them daily to pin up the latest art work from the kids. they love those!

I will second the first poster's tip on the menu's from the restaurants you eat at.

 

[exwdwcm]

one of my favorites is a huge 25th anniv poster that i had autographed by all the characters.......my roomie was in entertainment and had it done for me and my sister. the poster has all the characters on it and they signed by their character.

i also love my pic frames i have gotten there.

some other cool things i have done is buy postcards i love and then i have framed them - i have 4 in one really nice frame with mattes around each one. cheap and easy.

my most recent fav purchase was the huge toy castle that opens up and comes with all the characters. i had to have it shipped, it was so big. i bought it before i even had kids, i just thought it was so neat. lol My niece loved it so much, my mom ordered her one through merchandising.

 

[WaltD4Me]

A few years ago, my sister got one of those etched crystals they sell at Mouse Gears in Epcot. It says Walt Disney World with the year and has the castle and then above that they took a picture of my nieces and laser etched the picture into the crystal. It isn't cheap, but my sister absolutely loves it and it is unique.

One of my favorite souvenirs is the certificate we got at the end of the Family Magic Tour signed by "certain" characters we met on the tour. I had it framed with the picture of us with the "certain" characters. I love it.

 

[scrappinggirl]

Hello,
I am a consultant for Creative Memories the scrapbooking company.
So from my last trip to WDW in Feb '06 I took tons of photos (of everything), got signatures from every character we took a picture with and napkins from where we ate and went.
I scrapped a small 7X7 scrapbook for the pictures with characters and a 12X12 album for all the rest. That is my favorite Souvenir I got from my trip.
Our next trip is in Oct and I am planning on doing another scrapbook for that and doing one up for my parents for Christmas that are coming on the trip with my 7 yr old son and me.
Hope this helps?

 

[tinkbutt]

I think my favorite is my charm bracelet. no too unique but I got four charms the first time to start it off and get one or two new ones specific to my trip each time I go down.. like the resort I am staying in and maybe one of the characters of the latest Disney movie... a way to time line my vacations??? it is fun for me to look back and remember why that charm was chosen.

 

[kimsuenew]

We got several items that we felt were very unique to our Disney trip, they never fail to remind of us of our first visit!

We got the Disney backscratchers for both sets of our parents at DTD.

We bought our nieces Disney lanyard and pins (three each, I picked these out specific to what each girl liked), I bought these at the big pin shop in MK (Frontierland perhaps?). They keep them displayed in their room... waiting for their 2009 WDW trip! I also bought many pins and lanyards for us.

In MK our DS got the really cool skull that you stuff full of pirate "stuff" (gold and silver POTC coins, rings with "gem stones", pirate eye-patches, big eyeballs, dice, rubber insects, sticky scars, ect...), coming off of POTC (in the gift shop). This is one cool souvenier! It was about $20.00 for the skull if I remember correctly, and you get to stuff it full of the "pirate loot"! We didn't realize the eyes should have been stuffed inside the skull as we were filling it (we got one of several from the shelf with eyes intact). The CM lauged as we checked out (with oodles of other items... he spent quite a bit there), she told us the eyes should have been inside, so I offered to go "unstuff" him, put the eyes inside, and stuff back what we could, but she wouldn't hear of it! It is very unique, I have never seen anything like it before.

I loved Mr. Potato Head growing up so of course I bought a couple (the big plastic one and the smaller box with the Potato Head and parts). It is fun and unique to Disney, because of all of the awesome Disney themed parts! I love when the nieces visit, as they always switch my MPH clothes/accessories. I keep them displayed on my big oak roll-top desk (lots of room on the top) and they make me smile!

It was our first WDW trip (and expected to be our only for quite some time until we found out about bounceback) so we went a bit "souvenier wild"!

 

[checkwriter]

There was an artist at World of Disney, I believe it was, who drew and personalized with our wedding date a rendering of Beauty and the Beast.

 

[Poohbug]

I love my Peter Ellenshaw Pooh prints-I wish they would print more of his Pooh paintings because I can't afford an actual painting or glicee. He also paints castles and other characters but I only collect the Pooh ones.

The most expensive souvineers are DS #2 and #3-still paying for those.

 

[californiadopeyfreak]

Before we got married a friend told us that one of the best things you can bring home from any trip is some kind of art. Well, we decided that when we were at WDW for our honeymoon that we would go to the Disney Gallery and get something that we could take home and frame. We ended up getting a really nice old fashion pooh lithograph and the American Mickey lithograph. Took them home and had them professionally framed! Now we look at them and think of that awesome time we had!

Cali

 

[princess&her4princes]

There was an artist at World of Disney, I believe it was, who drew and personalized with our wedding date a rendering of Beauty and the Beast.

I have one of these too with our wedding date and our names but it's of Mickey and Minnie all dolled up in their wedding attire. I love it. And for our last trip, we bought a collage frame that had a matte in it with all of the characters and some great saying.....it's so cute and once I filled it with our pics it was a great souvenier!!

 

[YellowMickeyPonchos]

When the gang mentioned that photos were your best sourvenier, they forgot to mention the photopass CD you can get. Then, you can go to www.disneyphotopass.com and upload the rest of your photos and make a memory book. Basically a computer done scrapbook.

You can do as many pages as you can afford and mix and match your photos with the professional photopass ones, enter text comments, etc. The page backgrounds are Disney pages that you choose, as well as the layouts. Choose how many photos you want on a page and it will give your 3-4 choices of layouts with and without text. You then choose your photos and tell your story!

We did one from our trip last year and it was simply marvelous. It took me about 6 hours to do a 28 page album and I had two made. One for us and one as a present for our best friends, who live in Orlando and meet up with us every time we come down. She works for Disney an just loved it, too!

You might want to check the detail on the website to see what their shipping policies are to send to Greece, but I would definitely say it's worth it!

Enjoy!
Nancy

 

[Obi-Mic]

I also love my potato head w/ Disney ticket, mug and sandals! Although, being a man with long red hair, the only hair that was remotely close was Ariel....not exactly the image I try to present!

 

[Nooshkin]

I have a lot of great Mickey themed kitchen items that I use daily - pasta powls, s/p shakers, dish towels, oven mitts, etc.

One of my most special souvenirs was from DL a couple years ago. I had a silhouette made of my nephew. He wasn't with us but I planned ahead and brought a photo on him in profile. (Not easy to get a 1 1/2 year old to stay still and NOT look at the camera!) I think it might be cute to get one done of him every couple years and collect them in a scrapbook. The woman who did it was so fast- snip-snip-snip and it was done! She's been doing it at DL for over 20 years and she said a lot of people come back over the years. I like it because it's well done and not too pricey. And since it's a little old fashioned, it's not something you see a lot of so it's unique!

 

[Nooshkin]

Oh! I also really like the ring I picked out after "picking-a-pearl" in Japan!

I love telling people where I got it! Many people never think about buying a souvenir from WDW that doesn't have anything to do with Disney. But I think of EPCOT whenever I wear it!

 

[JeemaRee]

Oh! I also really like the ring I picked out after "picking-a-pearl" in Japan!

I love telling people where I got it! Many people never think about buying a souvenir from WDW that doesn't have anything to do with Disney. But I think of EPCOT whenever I wear it!

Mind if I ask what the price ranges are for the rings? I think I recall Julie mentioning that the pearl itself was $14.99 or thereabout, but I wondered how much it would cost to get it set...

 

[Nooshkin]

Mind if I ask what the price ranges are for the rings? I think I recall Julie mentioning that the pearl itself was $14.99 or thereabout, but I wondered how much it would cost to get it set...

I don't mind at all! Before we went I read all the related threads on this site and others so that I had an idea of the cost. It was actually a birthday present. My family and bf all pitched in Disney Dollars for my birthday so that I could pick out a ring when we got to EPCOT! If you haven't already, you may want to check out this thread. It's LONG...but there are a lot of pictures to give you an idea of the settings and price range. http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1520941

Yes- the pearl was under $15. My setting was $115.00. It's white gold with 2 CZs. Price-wise it was middle of the road. There were some under $50- sterling silver I assume? And some were more. But all were pretty! I'm considering doing it again this year!

Before you commit to it, check out the selection in Japan and over at DTD. The store at DTD had more settings to choose from but the girls working in Japan make a big deal out of the whole process of picking and opening your oyster. Do it- it's fun!