WDWCP: A Marketplace of PhotoOps



My mom and I with the sleeping
and snoring Lego tourist!

The final visit on our Downtown Disney tour is the Marketplace. This is a Disney shopper's paradise! Even now, on any visit I make to Walt Disney World I fly in, drop my things off at the hotel and then go straight to the Marketplace to do some early shopping. For non-park specific items, you can pretty much find it here. I like to check it out here and then possibly buy what I like so I don't have to buy it in a park and carry it around all day! Just my little helpful hint for those of you that may visit some day.

Let's start with the biggie, the must-see store. This is an attraction in its own right. The World of Disney! The name is 100% accurate. It is enormous. Multiple rooms, each with its own theme. Children's toys. Children's clothes. Baby clothes. Men's clothing. Women's clothing. Miscellaneous souvenirs. Jewelry. Purses. Hats. Kitchen items. Toys. Coats. Luggage. Bedding. Towels. You want it, it will be here. And each room is full of "character". Ha, you see what I did there?? For example, to the left is a photo of Danielle with Belle, one of her favorites. Even the ceiling has characters, lights and decorations! If you do get to visit, just pause and look up and take it all in. It is quite impressive!

Nearby is the Ghirardelli chocolate restaurant/store. Go inside the store and you are guaranteed a free piece of chocolate! Do it! They have quite an extensive menu of desserts made to order, so if you're in the mood, you have my recommendation. I've even gotten some ice cream there without chocolate and it was pretty tasty!

McDonald's is long gone, but when it was there it was quite the spectacle. Not your normal neighborhood McD's!

Full disclosure: I sat at my computer holding a sleeping baby. I went to my file for Downtown Disney Marketplace and grabbed some photos and placed them in this empty post. I have no specific order to any of this. I'm just talking along with how the photos ended up sitting. They aren't even chronological order - which is so unlike me. So anyway, this is a random post of photos and some words to go along with it.

These next photos have so much going on that you don't actually see.

As part of our Cast Holiday Celebration, which lasted for quite a long time, we got coupons to get a free photo taken at select locations. This is way before Disney PhotoPass. Our choices were basically to go and get a green screen photo taken and printed out. *PhotoPass is where you can get your photo taken by Disney photographers and buy them later on. Typically when you are in the park in front of icons like the Castle or Spaceship Earth, or even while on attractions. This all pre-dates that feature! It was a rare moment that all 6 of us in Apartment 3101 had the day off. To commemorate our experiences together we decided to load up into the DTD van and get a "family photo" taken with our free photo coupons. Everyone picked out something nice from their "professional business attire" section of the closets and we set out for a day of fun.... Yeah.

There was so much damn tension!! I can't remember what was going on behind the scenes. I'm pretty sure my photo album caption even says "fake smiles" on photos from that day. I wish I could find my journal and shed some light. Was it the rift between Danielle and Sarah? Ooh, that's right!!! We DID have a lot of tension with Danielle around my birthday. I hate confrontation, so I stayed out of the drama, but I was good at observing it. So yes, I think there were some issues going on with her. And this might be around when she was refusing to help us keep our apartment clean and never helped buy toilet paper!  So anyway, we basically all turned into actresses for our photo to look like we loved each other, but secretly the storm was brewing!



Brenda, myself, Zaira, Marcy (in the same ugly dress I also had), Sarah, Danielle

This is what our Vista Way vans
looked like back in 1997. Tiny and cozy!!
Here we have Brenda, Sarah, Ronda, Marcy, Danielle and Zaira

After my first day working in the Pecos Bill Café kitchen, Marcy and I decided to go to the Marketplace just the two of us. We had been best friends in high school and dorm roommates in college, so for us this was just a normal thing - us venturing off somewhere as a duo. The following are photos from that day!

First we were total tourists and got our picture with some dinosaur Legos!

This Goofy thing was pretty cute, too. so why not get a photo. I have no idea who took these photos since clearly they weren't done with selfie sticks!



Since I had officially worked in a kitchen I insisted on this photo with the Chef Mickey hat! Gosh, I was so scrawny and young. What happened??

And lastly, it started raining, so I put on a new pullover I had just bought. I still own it. Of course. This shouldn't surprise anyone at all. I always loved this cute little topiary thing. I wish I had any sort of plant skills. I'd totally want to make something like this.

And that's all I have to say about that. It's a very cute, fun place to visit. It has evolved a lot in the last 20 years, and I look forward to seeing it again some day!

See ya real soon! °o°

I found the official photo!! Here it is, isn't it just awful. Hello, Green Screen!