Pssst. Hey, buddy. Want to buy some Disney souvenirs - cheap? Check out a Character Warehouse store.

Okay, so maybe the AMS Character Warehouse stores are not the biggest secret in the world. But you can find great bargains on Disney stuff there.

I recently visited the Character Warehouse at Opry Mills in Nashville, Tennessee. The only other Character Warehouse stores I had visited had been in Orlando. Two are located at the huge Belz Factory Outlet World there, and, at least for a time, there was another store in the Lake Buena Vista area. I also know that some stores are located in southern California. There are also a few others scattered around, such as the Opry Mills location. Sometimes the stores are temporary, so it is rather difficult to track down an accurate list of locations.

What can you find there? When I have been to the Orlando stores, they have always had a large selection of Walt Disney World merchandise, as one would imagine. The merchandise is usually discounted between 20 and 80 percent. That's right, 80 percent! It seems like most of the stuff they have is clothing, but they have several other items as well. On the last few trips, I have seen several of the bean bag characters that were popular not that long ago. And I often find things that I had looked at in the parks on my previous trip but decided not to buy; I always feel like I am getting a good bargain when it is something that I had actually considered purchasing at the original price.

At the Nashville store, I was pleasantly surprised to find Disneyland merchandise, something you don't usually find at the Orlando stores. I got two t-shirts, a magnet, and some note cards, all for under $25. One of the shirts was only $3.60, and I believe the original price was $18. Hard to pass up bargains like that, especially since I have not been to Disneyland in a while.

Usually there is not anything wrong with the merchandise. I would imagine it would be difficult to be in charge of merchandise for a park that gets tens of millions of visitors every year. It would be hard to always know ahead of time what will sell and what won't. A lot of the items are probably things that someone thought would sell very well, but they didn't. Sometimes, the items are probably getting toward the end of the stock. For example, at Opry Mills I found a shirt that I liked, but they only had it one size, which wasn't the size that I needed; I was able to find the same shirt in another color in my size. I have found a couple of shirts before that have had insignificant factual errors, such as a wrong date in a graphic, so I would guess that is why it was discounted.

What will you not find there? That famous Disney theme. In the stores there are virtually no decorations of any type. The Opry Mills store had two very large plush Mickeys in the windows with signs saying they were not for sale, so I guess those were their decorations. That store also had a small stereo at the back of the store playing Disney songs, but that was it. All the merchandise was placed on very generic folding tables, with a few shelves here and there. The Orlando stores usually also have a good bit of merchandise hanging on the walls, but I suspect those locations are a little more permanent than some of the others; they even have an actual store sign, instead of just a banner at the entrance.

So if you are looking for a Disney bargain, try a Character Warehouse. You just never know what you might find there!

- Story by Steve Burns; Image ©Disney
Posted

Steve is a three-time Disney Store National Trivia finalist and webmaster of BurnsLand, home of Steve's Disney Railroad Adventures.

E-mail Steve at steve@startedbyamouse.com, discuss this article in the StartedByAMouse.com Disney Discussion Forums or use the Talkback feature below.

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