Downtown Disney: Marketplace

On my adventures on Disney property comes along Downtown Disney for some window shopping or more. Downtown Disney is the major shopping destination on Disney property, the best part about it is there is no Disney pass required or parking fee for the area.

When you stay at certain Disney resorts you have a wider choice of transportation. My family decided to take the boat from Port Orleans French Quarter (where we spent the night), one thing you should know before taking a smaller transportation is that many of the drivers/captains will give you some Disney trivia so do your best to brush up on your Disney knowledge.

Once you reach the Marketplace in Downtown there are over a dozen stores. I'll start from the bus station. As you enter Downtown you'll find a kids fountain play area, notice the fountain is shaped as a giant Mickey, also if the fountain is not working at that time you can see that the fountain heads in the ground are also Mickey shaped.

To your left is Once Upon a Toy, now before you think it's just a toy shop let me tell you about some of the things inside. Of course there are toys, but also towards the middle of the giant store you'll find a t.v. monitor that lets you try out a new Wii game (Toy Story Mania is the current game). It's worth the time it takes to wonder around every store, you can always find something interesting. If you go to the right of the fountain there are a group of stores: The Christmas shop, the Candy store, Art of Disney, and Design your own T-shirt store. With the T-shirt store even if you don't get the shirt it's fun to create one on the monitors.

If you keep walking down past the Toy store you will pass Tren-D this is my favorite store to look in the windows, Disney has perfected window art. The contents of the store are mostly of a higher price range and includes displays of Disney Couture. Walk through that store and you'll end up right in Team Mickey, the ultimate sportsperson store, there you'll find shirts of local collage teams, and in the front of the store in the window display there are daily demonstrations of baseball and baseball bat building. The Ghiradelli Chocolates store is a definite favorite of mine, if you enter on the store side they are often handing out samples of chocolates they are currently selling, it's great as something small to nibble on. The World of Disney is the largest store in the marketplace, it has everything from apparel to home goods. If you walk to the farthest area (the girls section) you can usually get a dousing of  "pixie dust" from the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.

If any of you are pass holders (either seasonal or annual) many stores inside the parks as well as Downtown will give you a discount of 10% so always ask.