#32 - Ghirardelli's Soda Fountain and Chocolate Shop

Category: Restaurants
Category Rank: 5

Park: Downtown Disney
Park Rank: 2

Our next selection brings up many good questions for a nostalgic Disney list.  How many things from Downtown Disney should be on the list, if any?  And, should a separate non-Disney vendor truly have a spot on the list?  I would say to the first, "not many", and to the second, "no".

Ghirardelli's (boy, that is weird to spell) is a bit different.  It fits the "restaurant" category, but it is not on here as a restaurant.  Yeah, the food (i.e. chocolate) it has is pretty tasty, but that is really irrelevant in the larger picture.  I would definitely pick Main Street Plaza Ice Cream Parlor over this one, and the Parlor isn't close to making this list.

It is on here for a very unique experience for our family... namely, the process of going and getting our free chocolate square sample.

Not pictured... any pictures with our family at the store (we want to be able
to make multiple trips per visit incognito)

Ghirardelli happens to be a higher-end chain of chocolatiers, with stores in many locations.  The process of handing out their one-square individually-packaged samples of chocolate is the same at all the locations I have been to (I'm pretty comfortable saying it is their company policy).  So it isn't unique to Disney by any imagination.

However, it is very popular.  Sneakily so, I would reckon.  The place isn't that big to begin with, and it packs in people because of the handout.  I'm not sure how much profit it brings in, but in terms of marketing, it is a huge success.  So much so that some families, perhaps some that look suspiciously like the Abbeys, will go in several times to get multiple handouts.

Yes, this entry also brings up an ethical dilemma about how many handouts you can take ethically.  But heck, we are on vacation, and we don't resort to changing our clothes to give off the appearance we are a different family visiting from Wisconsin (the cheesehead hats wouldn't fit on the overhead compartment of the plane).

So bottom line for our family is, every single time we are in Downtown Disney, we stop in Ghirardelli at least twice.  Every time.  We've got to make our stop at Ghirardelli.  And even though that is a non-Disney vendor, that is enough to put this entry on this list.  There is a big difference in our opinions between this place, and the Rainforest Cafe's or Starbucks that appear in WDW and would have no chance of showing up on this list.

I think most people would agree that Ghirardelli's is a fun quick stop and the chocolate is good.  Many would disagree about it being that nostalgic of an event.  But, that is the beauty of WDW.  There are many crannies like this that each can have their own.  Just like the Riverside Food Court.  We mentioned Disney Rob before; it isn't a Disney trip until he has had his stop at Earl of Sandwich in Downtown Disney.  Which means, we apparently have never been on a Disney Trip.  Gotta try that place at some point.

Interestingly enough, there are three of these "restaurant" locations that are special to us that others might scoff at.  Our 3rd item will be coming up in a few entries and has many similarities to Ghirardelli's.

So, what about Downtown Disney, then?  Downtown Disney is the shopping and entertainment area, and requires no paid admission.  It is a "quasi-park", if you will.  We are not big nightclub seekers, and while we loved La Nouba, that would definitely qualify as a thrill, so that doesn't appear on this list.  The overall atmosphere is pretty good, actually, but it doesn't have "lands" or unique themed areas like the parks do, so it loses out there as well.

So, you won't see a lot of entries on this list.  That doesn't make it bad; it just makes it less nostalgic.  Though, the #1 Downtown Disney attraction does make it pretty high on this list.

Our next item on the list ends our first half of the entries.  We return to the land of deluxe resorts we have not stayed at.  This resort is either my favorite or 2nd favorite, if you were paying attention to earlier posts.

#7 - World of Disney

Category: Shops
Category Rank: 1

Park: Downtown Disney
Park Rank: 1

It will seem odd debuting a new category all the way at #7, but that is where we are.  "Shops" indeed was a category I considered when I originally tried to identify the things I thought were most nostalgic.  Unfortunately, this category suffers tremendously because of the Park Ambience category, as there could be several stores that would appear within the list if they were not already considered as part of the ambience (Japan's store in Epcot, for example, would have been in the top 30).  Furthermore, this category suffers because two that arguably should be considered shops (Ghirardelli and Club Cool) are placed in here as restaurants.

Still, World of Disney earns its top spots among shops rather easily.  It is the biggest of stores, the central feature in Downtown Disney, and carries its own ambience (and personal significance for me).  The store features a dozen or so rooms within the massive store, such as the toy room, the plush toy room, the men's room, the jewelry room, the home furnishing room, the infant room, and the princess room.  Many like to claim that if Disney sells it anywhere within WDW, you will find it within World of Disney.  Unfortunately, that's not true, as we have come to find out.  It pays to shop around.

World of Disney also features some additional trademark features.  It has the spitting Stitch outside (this doesn't help its rank on this list at all, as that is one item I'd rather forget).  It also has a Bibbidy Bobbidi Boutique inside as well, as girls can get princessified.  Some of the internal displays are pretty awesome as well.

So, World of Disney is easily the best store within WDW, but that doesn't explain why it is so lofty on this list.  I mean, better than the Monorail and the Golf Ball?  What gives?

There are two events within World of Disney that I remember fondly which elevate it towards this rank.  The main one is when Hailey became an employee of WDW.  Well, not quite, but we count it as so.  She was attempting to ask a person at the information desk a question about something (probably pin trading or pressed pennies) when the employee had to be called away for some task.  The lady asked Hailey to "man the booth" while she was gone, with directions to explain to anyone who comes that the regular person would be back in just a minute.  I don't think Hailey had anyone come up and ask her for help, but her work as an "employee" netted her a pin from the collection.  And more importantly, bragging rights.

The second is not as fun a story to tell, but is still memorable for me.  Kristen and I went to Orlando on a business trip (I had a mini-conference to go to).  Kristen's sister went with us as well.  We weren't there long enough to enjoy any of the parks, as I was gone at the conference most of the day.  We did, however, spend one night at WDW without cost.  This included shopping at Downtown Disney, riding the Sassagoula River Cruise and ate supper at the Riverside Mill Food Court.  We got lost trying to go to Wilderness Lodge and got a behind-the-scenes ride from a utility van over to the right spot (Kristen and I managed to do this again on our last trip).  And, we rode around the 7 Seas Lagoon and watched the fireworks from the beach at the Grand Floridian.

That night was a great night.  It was after our first trip, so it pales in comparison to the first night ever in WDW, but it was still a fun night hitting all the sights.  Our stop in World of Disney, in between our dozen or so stops within Ghirardelli's, featured the first stop of looking for pressed pennies.  I can still remember the phone conversation with Hailey, explaining where to look for the pressed pennies.

I considered many stores for this.  There is Once Upon a Toy, the Christmas Store, Goofy's Candy Shop, and the Lego Store from Downtown Disney.  The Main Street Emporium from Magic Kingdom is a favorite, as is MouseWorks from Epcot.  There are a few smaller stores from Animal Kingdom, and not really anything I find nostalgic within Hollywood Studios.  There is also stores from the hotels we have stayed at, too.  But, none of the stores contain the memories that World of Disney does.

Our next item is our last item that is outside Magic Kingdom.  It happens to be the number one resort, and a special place in our memories.