by Brittany DiCologero and Chaz Saldi
Walt Disney World, like any other busy tourist attraction, comes with certain souvenirs and services that while many guests are willing to pay for, we simply are not. While we are pretty budget minded in our Disney trips, we do like to save plenty of extra spending money so we don’t feel guilty shopping while in the parks. Even so, there are certain things that our money just won’t buy:
Glow Merchandise
To be fair, if we had kids it would at least be a lot more difficult to resist buying glow merchandise, and since we do not have kids this is never a problem for us. Some of the glow merchandise is really neat, and if we were Florida resident passholders who would use those items more than a couple of times per year at the most, we would probably buy some of it. But for the inflate price of these items, and how seldom we would actually use them, we simply don’t think it’s worth it.
Dated Merchandise
If you’ve ever seen the (usually crazy tye dye) shirts or tote bags with the current year on them, then you know exactly what we’re talking about. To be fair, we did purchase a couple of 2015 pins, and the 2016 designs are probably the best in recent history. In general however, the dated merchandise is simply not our style. We find the designs to be tacky, an not something we would be interested in wearing after the year of purchase.
Water
You won’t catch us carrying water bottles around the parks with us, as we always get our water in cups for free from quick service restaurants. Especially when you visit the parks in the summer, you would end up spending so much money on water if you buy bottles instead of getting tap water for free. We know some people complain about the Florida taste, although this water comes from the filtered soda machine systems and we have no issues with the taste.
Ponchos
I (Brittany) have a love/hate relationship with ponchos. I hate the dollar store ones, that so many bloggers suggest as a cheaper option, because I think the quality is so bad that you’re lucky to get one trip out of them. Even though the Disney ones are more expensive, I think that are actually worth buying, you just should not buy them every trip. If you fold them up nice, and take care of them they actually last. Spending $10 on a plastic poncho might seem like a waste of money, but it’s really only a waste if you buy them every trip.
Certain Hats
We love Disney hats, probably even more so than the average guest, but there are some we just will not purchase. We buy plenty of baseball caps, as those can always be worn at home, and even Minnie ear headbands that are only worn in the parks take up some space in our collection too. Hats we will not purchase are the ones that are overly large, or warm. While you might argue that we could wear them in the park, we wouldn’t wear them on certain attractions, and taking them on and off and just wearing something so large to begin with would be a bit of a pain.
