Hi Friends! Please enjoy the scroll down this page. Unfortunately, I continue to search the web for content of Disney Store history but it is few and far between. I have lots of photos but not all linked up to a location/store #. I will keep posting photos but unless I have more specific location info, I won’t be posting much here. Please, please, please if you have any photos on your personal computer or devices. (or , physical photos….polaroids…) please contact me! I can pay for shipping if you have photos or TDS nostalgia you want to part with.
334 Faneuil Hall Marketplace - Boston , MA. Opened 11/1989
Closed? (Unable to find closure date- if you know it, please email me in contact section. Yes, I will also update Larry Schutt!)
Photos shown credit to Mr. Dan Alexander (link to his site)
827 - Highcross Shopping Centre
Leicestershire, England, UK
PINK and GREEN. Curtain Rise: 11/14/1994
Final Curtain Call: 1/14/2017
Photo Credit: Shannon Web
The Castle Store Prototype
Please stand by while I research history on this store.
I know from personal experience having assisted at Sun Valley several times, that it transitioned from a P &G to a Castle design I believe in the early 2000’s. These stores had their own unique uniform that differed from the denim uniform of traditional Disney Stores.
The Castle stores were a more cost efficient design but still had bright colorful features, characters (not moving), and a design that was focused heavily on plush and children’s softlines.
766 - Via del Corso - Rome
Flagship “Special” Design. Curtains Opened: 05/09/1999, Curtains Closed: 2022
Aloha Disney Store!
At one point, there were three Disney stores in the magnificent state of Hawaii.
Store #346 - Ala Moana Center, Honolulu, opened March 24, 1990
Store #388 - Pearlridge Center, Aiea, opened June 1, 1991 and closed in 2003
Store #585 Queen Ka’ahumaau Center opened October 14,1997 and closed in 2003.
Photo credits to each respective owner, including 346 p&g animation photos from http://danalexanderdizmentia.blogspot.com/2010/09/aloha-mickey-honolulus-ala-moana-disney.html
Oakbrook Center #383 , Oak Brook, Il.
Opened: 4/5/1991 Pink and Green, Remodel to Millennium 11/18/2001, Closed 6/19/2016
*Photo Credit: Howard Kier
#818 Union St - Bath Somerset, England
Opened: 11/21/1991 , Closed: 1/20/2013, Piperail Store
Below Photo Source Chantelle Marie
#576 Caesar’s Forum
Las Vegas, Nevada
Opened: 05/15/1995 , Closure Date: Uncertain- mid 2000’s
The Forum Shops at Caesar location was a unique flagship style store located in a large indoor casino shopping complex
This store opened with the largest opening team of cast members , 125! This store had an incredibly high level of attention to detail in the design and construction. Fixtures had special sequenced animations, timed to go off every so often. There was even lights under a certain part of the floor that would light up and sparkle every hour. These photos are amazing but even a thousand photos does not encapsulate the magic of the Caesar’s location. It was like a World of Disney Store, but with the magic only a “Disney Store” can provide.
Photo credit to Donna Woolsey Thompson, Eric Julie Aguilar, and Ray Melissa Navarel
Store #637 - Hilltop Mall
Richmond, California.
Pink and Green - Open to Close | 1995- 2008
Opening Store Manager: Darlene Hinojosa | Closing Store Manager: Jennifer Griffith
This is me (100 pounds lighter) with fellow Cast Member Megan at #637-Hilltop, in our Plush Mountain!
Close your eyes and imagine this….. you hear the enchanting sound of Disney songs, the smell of clean carpet and plastic, and you hear “Next Guest”. Open your eyes! You are transported to Richmond, California, inside the Hilltop Mall, at Disney Store #637. You look around you and see 101 Dalmatians animations up above the shelves, a beautiful mural of Magic Kingdom and the Monorail, Donald Duck trying to direct a film, beautiful characters from Fantasia.. you walk to the back of the store to see Plush Mountain! Perfectly set with countless plush Minnies, Mickey’s, Donald’s, and all the other pals. Above plush mountain is a video screen which is playing the latest Disney Channel hit song. Cheerful Cast Members walk around the store in blue denim uniform shirts, helping guests. Each Cast Member had a lovely bubble name tag with Mickey on it. In the center of the store is the Cash Wrap ! Where Lead Cast Member Angelina is ringing up a guest who is buying a Tigger plush for her daughter! (Did you know Tigger is Angelina’s favorite character? In fact, she donned a green Tigger pin attached to her name tag because she got a prestigious guest service award! ) The hum of the old IBM cash registers with green screens and the till box opening, to the sounds of the cast member saying “Thank you for being our guest, have a magical day!” That was the Disney Store at Hilltop Mall.
Disney Store #637 - Hilltop Mall, Richmond, California, opened in 1995 as a pink and green design store. You will see in the gallery below some of the animations this particular design had.
Sorry for the blurriness. I took these photos on my last night as Lead Cast Member. I voluntarily demoted, as this was when I began my career as a 9-1-1 dispatcher. 14 years later, I’ve worked my way up to manager of a 911 Center! I attribute my time at Disney Store to my success in my career so far. It was a magic time in my life. Where my time here brought so much joy to my life, it helped me through an incredible depression that I may have otherwise not made it through.
Backstage! EEP! Photos forbidden. Some Christmases we had SO much merchandise we had to use our second bathroom to store merchandise in! (It was clean and not used) … because the company began cutbacks on offsite storage. We always kept our backstage beautifully clean! It looks a little cluttered here but this was mid-shift through shipment processing.
The Manager’s Office! Oh how I loved our little office. It never felt cluttered, though in hindsight, good golly it was. I felt so cool having access to the safe. Gotta count those Disney Dollars! What was it (Department 32? or something?) The home to the IBM POS Controller we had to open and close the store on, and our Disney Store Intranet. I remember the system was like the old AOL. Every SM had the same password, ASM had the same password, and Leads had the same password. I remember our lead password was “Tweedledee69” . Someone in Rescue Rangers was responsible for that……
I would look through all the forms and reports and information you could pull on the old store intranet. One time I accidentally sent a message to the entire region that was meant for the DM, about an employee disciplinary issue. Whoops. Got a scolding from the Regional Director, which back then was like being called in by the principal to me!
Anyway, on the store intranet you could see region, district sales, KPI’s (key performance indicators) and all kinds of neat things. I was always interested in the business side of the store. They used to give managers a lot of really cool tools, because they trusted them to drive sales.
I would spend my breaks reading the binders, many of them old, to try to learn and develop to become manager. I read the ASMDP, SMDP, management development program binders. New SM’s used to go to a weeklong training at home base in Glendale. That was always my dream, to become a SM. I would be content having that job for the rest of my life, making $20 an hour, I would not mind. That would be my dream come true. That is how much I loved the Disney Store. I never made it there but , in another life maybe I was. By the way I am sure by now you know I am a huge huge nerd.
This was my first and only Disney Store. I began my TDS career here as a seasonal Cast Member with one of my very best friends. She and I were lucky to be hired when Disney reduced the hiring age from 18 to 16 for seasonal. So, at the end of our season, we were told we would be let go. However our manager liked us so much she made a call all the way to VP of Store Operations, Kay Murfin, to ask if she would consider eliminating the 18 year age minimum. Kay listened to Maria and decided to change that rule. (Or at least that’s how our SM told the story to us..)
We were kept on as part-time permanent CM’s. I loved working the floor but was mostly utilized to manage and organize the backstage area and process shipment. I never minded processing shipment. I found it so fun to open the boxes and sometimes see new merchandise before anyone else. I always felt like that was a neat perk, like seeing a movie before it’s released to the public. (I am a nerd, I know).
I made many wonderful friends here, one of whom I dedicate this post to. Angelina Luna was a Lead Cast Member and worked at this store for almost 10 years. Sadly, she passed away from stomach cancer , leaving behind two young daughters. She was an amazing person, friend, and Cast Member. She dreamed of promoting to ASM and eventually SM, with ambitions of Regional Manager. (Back when all those positions existed before field restructure). Her favorite character was Tigger and she would always zero in on guests looking at any Tigger merchandise. She was a great seller and could add on anything to anyone without skipping a beat. She was a dear friend to me also. A funny story to share… during our time at TDS, she was pregnant,. She was very private and secretive about the Father, and people eventually suspected it might be me! Angelina and I thought this was the most hilarious thing ever (I am gay), so we told people I was the father. It was an ongoing joke. I digress, I dedicate this post to my beautiful and wonderful friend, a dedicated Cast Member, mother, and overall amazing human, Angelina Luna. I know you have met Walt in heaven and told him all about your amazing time at Disney Store, spreading his legacy to guests of all ages.
