disney shopping spree!
so... not that i've been gone for like, a month and a half, i should probably finish documenting the very last of my time at disney world...
well, the last week consisted of a LOT of shopping. there's alot of cool disney merchandise that's exclusive to the theme parks, and i wanted to make sure i got some of it before i left. however, i had the little issue of space and getting everything back to canada to worry about... my car was pretty much completely packed on the drive down, and needless to say, i'd managed to accumulate some more belongings during my year there. although i did send some stuff home with my parents, and gave my guitar to my sister to take home, ultimately, if i wanted to buy anything of any size, i was going to have to ship some stuff home. i looked into several options... disney's international shipping program (way too expensive), fedex (also too expensive)... and i ultimately thought just sending stuff through USPS (united states postal service) would be cheapest. so, i put together a little test box a few weeks before i left, about 50 lbs, and took it to the ups store. i told them i wanted to ship it the cheapest way possible, and, while i expected it to be USPS, there was an even cheaper option: UPS Canada Standard. it was gonna cost me between $50-60 for a 50 lb box, that would arrive between 7-9 business days... which i thought was pretty reasonable. however, they warned me that there could be additional customs or brokerage charges as well. i decided to take the risk and see what happened.
well, it got home in like, 3 or 4 days, with no apparent brokerage fees attached. and i did a little happy dance.
very soon after, i went shopping... with little to no regard for how much stuff i was buying, because i had a reasonably-priced way of shipping it all home. and the fact of the matter was, with the *40%* holiday cast member discount that i was getting on all the disney stuff i was buying, the discount alone more than made up for the cost of sending it home.
most of the stuff i bought was either at Once Upon a Toy, the giant disney toy store (me being a giant kid), Disney's Wonderful World of Memories (scrapbooking stuff), so that i have a nice way to put together all my pictures from the year (whenever i get around to it, that is), World of Disney (pretty self-explanatory... basically everything Disney under the sun), and Disney's Days of Christmas.
i got *really* excited at Once Upon a Toy, upon finding that they not only had all kinds of great theme park-related toys and games, but also the newest (and some of the coolest i've ever seen) Transformers... which also, for me, were 40% off!!! *drool* i've always had a soft-spot for transformers... and if i wasn't fairly certain my parents would shop me off to the nuthouse, i'd probably still set them all up in opposing forces across the room from each other and have epic, several-day-long battles with them. yet another reason to get my own apt soon. now, back from the tangent...
i won't even try to document everything i bought, but i will make some highlights:
Once Upon a Toy:
- the entire collection of theme park playsets: Cinderella's Castle, Spaceship Earth, The Tree of Life, The Sorcerer's Hat, The Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain
- almost the entire monorail set: Monorail, Switch Station, The Polynesian Resort Station, The Contemporary Resort (that the monorail actually goes through!!), and some accessories. (and yes, i plan on putting all that, along with all the playsets, together into my own little disney world. i'm just that big of a dork.)
- several Disney versions of fun board games: Disney Theme Parks Monopoly, Haunted Mansion Clue, Pirates of the Caribbean Life, Splash Mountain Sorry
- an entire collection of Pirates of the Caribbean action figures!! (they're pretty sweet... i'll take pictures sometime)
- one of every Transformer they had
Days of Christmas:
- A Set of Nightmare Before Christmas Ornaments
- A Set of "Mickey Through the Years" Ornaments
- 2 Sets of Walt Disney World Ornaments (one of ride vehicles, the other of the icons of each park)
I also went on a little bit of a pin shopping spree, bought a few Disney DVDs, as well as purchasing a bunch of Disney candy (they've got some good stuff!)
.... alot of that stuff from Once Upon a Toy was really big stuff, and I think I was starting to scare the cast members working there with the pile that i managed to amass. i told them i had alot of kids in my family.... my total there was somewhere around US$600... after the 40% discount. at a toy store. i know that sounds bad, but you've got to understand, I restrained my Disney merchandise spending all year long waiting for that holiday discount to come back in november. i'm very opportunistic when it comes to spending money, and i wait until the best deals come along whenever possible.
i actually had trouble fitting all the stuff from Once Upon a Toy in my car... it was literally packed full of just all the bulky packages of the stuff i bought there.
in the end, i wasn't really worried about how big the packages i sent home were, because weight is the primary determining factor in shipping cost. i figured most things wouldn't get damaged if they were shipped in their original packaging, since that's what they get shipped in commercially. so i shipped all those playsets and monorail stuff and transformers in their huge, bulky packaging, which resulted in me ultimately sending home 9 boxes, ranging from between 16"x16"x16" to huge 24"x24"x24" boxes... anywhere from 30-60 lbs. the people at the UPS store knew me pretty well by the time i was done shipping all that stuff.
i'm sure i'll finally finish talking about all this... eventually. :op
well, the last week consisted of a LOT of shopping. there's alot of cool disney merchandise that's exclusive to the theme parks, and i wanted to make sure i got some of it before i left. however, i had the little issue of space and getting everything back to canada to worry about... my car was pretty much completely packed on the drive down, and needless to say, i'd managed to accumulate some more belongings during my year there. although i did send some stuff home with my parents, and gave my guitar to my sister to take home, ultimately, if i wanted to buy anything of any size, i was going to have to ship some stuff home. i looked into several options... disney's international shipping program (way too expensive), fedex (also too expensive)... and i ultimately thought just sending stuff through USPS (united states postal service) would be cheapest. so, i put together a little test box a few weeks before i left, about 50 lbs, and took it to the ups store. i told them i wanted to ship it the cheapest way possible, and, while i expected it to be USPS, there was an even cheaper option: UPS Canada Standard. it was gonna cost me between $50-60 for a 50 lb box, that would arrive between 7-9 business days... which i thought was pretty reasonable. however, they warned me that there could be additional customs or brokerage charges as well. i decided to take the risk and see what happened.
well, it got home in like, 3 or 4 days, with no apparent brokerage fees attached. and i did a little happy dance.
very soon after, i went shopping... with little to no regard for how much stuff i was buying, because i had a reasonably-priced way of shipping it all home. and the fact of the matter was, with the *40%* holiday cast member discount that i was getting on all the disney stuff i was buying, the discount alone more than made up for the cost of sending it home.
most of the stuff i bought was either at Once Upon a Toy, the giant disney toy store (me being a giant kid), Disney's Wonderful World of Memories (scrapbooking stuff), so that i have a nice way to put together all my pictures from the year (whenever i get around to it, that is), World of Disney (pretty self-explanatory... basically everything Disney under the sun), and Disney's Days of Christmas.
i got *really* excited at Once Upon a Toy, upon finding that they not only had all kinds of great theme park-related toys and games, but also the newest (and some of the coolest i've ever seen) Transformers... which also, for me, were 40% off!!! *drool* i've always had a soft-spot for transformers... and if i wasn't fairly certain my parents would shop me off to the nuthouse, i'd probably still set them all up in opposing forces across the room from each other and have epic, several-day-long battles with them. yet another reason to get my own apt soon. now, back from the tangent...
i won't even try to document everything i bought, but i will make some highlights:
Once Upon a Toy:
- the entire collection of theme park playsets: Cinderella's Castle, Spaceship Earth, The Tree of Life, The Sorcerer's Hat, The Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain
- almost the entire monorail set: Monorail, Switch Station, The Polynesian Resort Station, The Contemporary Resort (that the monorail actually goes through!!), and some accessories. (and yes, i plan on putting all that, along with all the playsets, together into my own little disney world. i'm just that big of a dork.)
- several Disney versions of fun board games: Disney Theme Parks Monopoly, Haunted Mansion Clue, Pirates of the Caribbean Life, Splash Mountain Sorry
- an entire collection of Pirates of the Caribbean action figures!! (they're pretty sweet... i'll take pictures sometime)
- one of every Transformer they had
Days of Christmas:
- A Set of Nightmare Before Christmas Ornaments
- A Set of "Mickey Through the Years" Ornaments
- 2 Sets of Walt Disney World Ornaments (one of ride vehicles, the other of the icons of each park)
I also went on a little bit of a pin shopping spree, bought a few Disney DVDs, as well as purchasing a bunch of Disney candy (they've got some good stuff!)
.... alot of that stuff from Once Upon a Toy was really big stuff, and I think I was starting to scare the cast members working there with the pile that i managed to amass. i told them i had alot of kids in my family.... my total there was somewhere around US$600... after the 40% discount. at a toy store. i know that sounds bad, but you've got to understand, I restrained my Disney merchandise spending all year long waiting for that holiday discount to come back in november. i'm very opportunistic when it comes to spending money, and i wait until the best deals come along whenever possible.
i actually had trouble fitting all the stuff from Once Upon a Toy in my car... it was literally packed full of just all the bulky packages of the stuff i bought there.
in the end, i wasn't really worried about how big the packages i sent home were, because weight is the primary determining factor in shipping cost. i figured most things wouldn't get damaged if they were shipped in their original packaging, since that's what they get shipped in commercially. so i shipped all those playsets and monorail stuff and transformers in their huge, bulky packaging, which resulted in me ultimately sending home 9 boxes, ranging from between 16"x16"x16" to huge 24"x24"x24" boxes... anywhere from 30-60 lbs. the people at the UPS store knew me pretty well by the time i was done shipping all that stuff.
i'm sure i'll finally finish talking about all this... eventually. :op