new shop to open at Mediterranean harbor

[Prometheus]

OLC just announced that a new shop by the name of "Bella Minnie Collection" is to open at Mediterranean Harbor at Disney Sea. According to OLC, the shop is about "Kawaii Minnie" and a concept art shows Minnie dressed like a person from the 20th Century

[DreamSweetsLove]

It sounds cute! It's going to go where Nicolo's Workshop was.
http://www.olc.co.jp/wpmu/wp-content...0120809_02.pdf

[Fukai]

Where is Nicolo's workshop? I can never remember the names of which shop is which in Med Harbor, except Il Postino, which sticks in my mind for some reason.

[DuffyDaisuki]

It's over by Il Postino; I think they actually connected and you could walk between them. They had the glassmaker and the silhouette artist, little dishes and stuff, I think. The silhouette artist is still there, but the glass has moved to Arabian Coast.

[TimmyTimmyTimmy]

One thing that I think is bad about DisneySEA is that all stores feel like as if all they sell is Duffy. That´s where HKDL is better. All Duffy has is that park is a small corner in one of the stores.
Duffy is fine... but... not in all stores. But I guess OLC makes money from it.

[DuffyDaisuki]

That was only true for the Spring Voyage event. Now only three shops really sell Duffy products, the historical Aunt Peg's Village Store in Cape Cod and McDuck's Department Store, both in American Waterfront. Over the past year, Galleria Disney in Mediterranean Harbor has been added to the list. The Sleepy Whale in Mermaid Lagoon also has a very limited Duffy corner, but it's hardly overtaking the shop. I really wish Duffy stuff just wasn't there myself.

So, it's really only three shops in the whole park that heavily feature Duffy, in two adjacent Ports at the front of the park. Both Galleria Disney and McDuck's also feature a lot of general park merchandise, too. And there's a little Duffy corner at one shop in the "kiddies" section. I always find it confusing when people rant about Duffy merchandise taking over the park; it's actually quite limited, especially when one considers the popularity and demand for the character.

[tloolgb]

and McDuck's Department Store,

I could deal with Aunt Peg's (well no, I had to leave that store immediately but I accepted it being Duffy) but McDuck's was one of the coolest theme park shop ideas I had heard of and I was so excited to enter and it was so disappointing. Duffy, generic merchandise and it became Steamboat Mickey's right away.

Just a drift, back to the general discussion. Does this mean the glass blowing is leaving DisneySEA? Or is it moving?

[DuffyDaisuki]

...Just a drift, back to the general discussion. Does this mean the glass blowing is leaving DisneySEA? Or is it moving?

As posted above:

...The silhouette artist is still there, but the glass has moved to Arabian Coast.

The glass sculptor is actually set up inside Agrabah Marketplace. It's a bit small and a different atmosphere from when it was in the Mediterranean Harbor, but I think it works to make that shop feel more kinetic and fuller even with less people, which it usually seems to have, compared with the shops of the Harbor and Waterfront areas.

PS: Thanks for the question. In looking up the link for you, I discovered that Genie apparently "created" the Arabian Coast. I did not know that. I almost never look at the English TDS site, or any of the "non-event" pages, really. That was interesting. I'm gonna go look around more...^^

[DuffyDaisuki]

PPS: I honestly agree with you about McDuck's...kind of. I have written a far more thorough reply to this, but I posted it in the Duffy forum, as I feared it moving this thread off topic. I've included just the concluding paragraph below, so as to respectfully reply here in case you don't feel like following the link for the full version, though I sincerely hope you will and reply there.^^

...I'm not sure Duffy shouldn't be heavily featured at McDuck's right now. It's exactly like the turn-of-the-century teddy bear boom, and it fits beautifully within the era of the American Waterfront and what's happening in the real world with "Duffy Fever." Because it works more with telling the park's story, deepening the setting by creating an atmosphere that matches chronologically, I think it should work even for guests who aren't Duffy fans. It really is pretty remarkable how well Duffy's real-world marketing success blends seamlessly into the Imagineers' vision of early twentieth century New York. It's a perfect symmetry between the park fantasy and reality itself; that's kind of amazing. The dream quite literally has come true.

I hope something similar happens with Bella Min'nie Collection, as far as real effort into merging the shop and its products into the narrative of the Port fantasy, but I don't expect it. Honestly, I think it's just one more very girly shop full of mostly (or more likely exclusively) women-only items, like the Venetian Carnival Market (very misleading name), Juliet's Collections & Treasures, and Romeo's Watches & Jewelry (also misleading in that, to me, it sounds like it could be the men's counterpart to Juliet's...it isn't).

I'm sure the theming will be cute at Bella Min'nie, but I doubt there will ever be anything for me to buy there and I'm not sure TDS really needs another "girls' shop." It had somehow started to feel to me that OLC was truly invested in broadening the appeal and target audience of DisneySEA by loosening the "for girls" brand image that dominates Disney marketing. I have no idea why I thought this; when I try to understand it now, there really is no evidence. This shop just reminds me of how female-focused the marketing is. How will they know that even grown men will not spend just as much, be just as excited about Disney, unless they actually try to make it happen? To me, that should be the challenge of a great marketing team and why you'd pay them. No one could have predicted Duffy's unprecedented success, but you can see The Disney Store actively and aggressively pushing to replicate it with the UniBEARsity line. Guys don't generally feel comfortable liking things that are heavily branded for girls, but if that marketing was consciously changed, I just have always felt that TDS is very much the kind of dreamland men often identify with: careful attention to realistic detail, historical reality-inspired contexts, architecture and mechanics, exploration and adventure. DisneySEA feels like a place more than a theme park, and I think men tend to respond well to that...although it really does need one more really good roller coaster.^^ Sadly, this whole Bella Min'nie thing feels like an unnecessary and unwelcome move to me, especially with so many very feminine shops in the same area, but I realize that's a highly personal opinion and the shop, I'm sure, will be very pretty and plenty successful.

Before it opened, I deeply hoped that the Kingdom Treasures shop in TDL, which truly does have a very "boys' fantasy" atmosphere, would also sell exclusive original medieval-themed items designed specifically to appeal to the way boys connect with fairytale daydreams - adventure. Sadly, that did not happen.

OLC does often develop original item lines especially for women, though, like D'24 in the above mentioned Venetian Carnival Market, so the merchandise may at least be unique. It could end up being highly original and a great success for its target audience which is decidedly not me. Or it'll be just one more pink and frilly girls' shop. That's okay, though. There are enough other shops full of merchandise I love in this fantastic park.