Nov 6, 2010

Our Families Newest Addition by Rob Whitney

For the past several months my wife and I have been hearing a great deal about vinylmations  from our friends in the Disney Twitterverse.  We’d been seeing vinylmation during our last several trips to Disney World and decided to take our first plunge into them last week.

For those of you who aren’t major Disney fanatics like us you might be asking, “what is vinylmation?”  Vinylmation, or vinyls as they’re called for short, are vinyl toys that are shaped like Mickey Mouse, but carry different designs on them.  They are not Mickey’s themselves, rather the shape is used as the canvass for the artist to paint their interpretation of some other aspect of Disney.



Vinyls come in several different sizes, but the main size for sale is the 3” vinyls.  When you purchase a vinyl you have no idea what’s inside, instead you pick a particular series (or theme) you are interested in, pop open the box and see what you get!  If you do not like what you received, there are vinyl trading areas in every Disney store that sells the items and at several of the resorts during your stay for you to exchange with other available vinyls.


So, those are the nitty gritty facts on vinyls for all you beginners like our family.  Now, what about our experience?

As I said in the beginning we’ve been noticing vinyls at Disney World over our past few trips.  We never really “got” the concept and were always curious what these weird Mickey’s were we saw in all the stores.  Over the past few months we began researching vinyls and gathering a great bit of info from the Disney Twitter world (For vinyls I suggest following @marciodisney @WDCCDuckman and @AKL4Me).  Finally we broke down and decided we’d buy one vinyl for each family member on this trip and see how we liked them.

During one of our first nights at Disney World we went to Downtown Disney and on the recommendation of some friends stopped by D Street, a sort of urban art clothing store that has also become the center of vinyls on property. 

Here we learned a little more about the various series available in the vinyl collection.  We found out that each series contained 12 vinyls, but in true Disney fashion they only showed you pictures of 11 vinyls.  The 12th vinyl in each collection was a mystery!

So, we rolled the dice.  I bought the first three vinyls our family ever had.  For myself I chose the Park Series #3 collection and for my DS3 I picked up a brand new Toy Story collection vinyl.  As soon as we got back to the room we all checked out the vinyls and it was done—we were now addicted to the craze!

Over the next week we quickly amassed a small army of vinyls.  I picked up several more from the Park Series #3 as well as a Mr. Toad Passholder vinyl.


My wife dove into the Cutester series on the recommendation of @WDCCDuckman and loves every single one she picked up.


DS10 followed his typical style and picked up a little of everything along the way—Park Series #3, Urban #2 and Urban #3.

Along the way we received a few duplicates and vinyls we didn’t like, so we set off searching around the Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom Lodge for possible traders.  By the time the trip was done we were satisfied with everything we got!


My lovely wife has already told me I have to lay off the vinyls during our October trip, but I know she’ll break and we’ll come back with several more!  We’re definitely a family hooked on vinyls.


Rob is a lifelong Disney fan who took his first trip to Disneyland at the age of 2. Now a married man with two boys, and another child due in February, he is working hard to infect his children with the love for all things Disney.  He can be followed on Twitter @RobOnDisney and his blog can be found at http://disfamman.blogspot.com

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