What Star Wars and Marvel products can I buy at Disneyland Paris
I was lucky enough to spend a week at Disneyland Paris recently with the family, and alongside the rides, food and meeting Mickey Mouse. I thought it would be interesting to use the opportunity to do a "store report" while I was there - looking at the merchandise you can buy on the parks that line up with our site focus, particularly the Marvel and Star Wars offerings.
It is an understatement really to state that shopping is pretty Big at DLP. I wouldn't even hazard a guess at home many retail stores there are across the Village and the two parks, but you certainly won't ever be more than a few metres from a shop selling Disney goodies. My focus was in line with the website, and I was looking in particular for Star Wars and Marvel items. It you are going with a similar focus in mind then let me first save you some time as to which shops to hit
Your key destinations need to be the Disney Store and the World of Disney stores which are both in the Disney Village. There is then a large store in the inside of Studio 1 in the Studio Park. And your final destination should be Constellations, in Discoveryland near the Buzz Lightyear ride.
From 2017 you would also add Star Traders to that list, but this Star Wars focused store is closed until then for refurbishment.
So what is there to spend your Euro's on, and how much are they?
Let's start with Marvel, and this feels a relatively new addition to the Disney stocks and is about a 50:50 mix between Disney own brand and other suppliers. The role play items were the ones getting the most shelf space - Hawkeyes bow and Caps Shield and Helmet being the most prominent and selling for between €29.99 and €34.99 (£24-£27).
In terms of Disney merchandise you then have the big 16" or so talking figures for €34.99 and these were in Cap, Ironman and Spiderman flavour only.
Disney are also very good at the 3 inch figurines, which they knock out in sets for the majority of their properties. Marvel now has two of these a 6 pack Spiderman set and a 6 pack Age of Ultron set. Both of these are pretty decent and are only €9.99 (£7.89) but nothing that you can't pick up in any Disney store in the UK for the same price (and not have to worry about packing and bringing home).
The other Marvel stuff was all made by Hasbro, and was pretty disappointing. Mashers were everywhere but priced at nearly double what you would pay in the UK. Marvel Legends were found in both 3.75" and 6" but at €34.99 (£27) for 6 inch, and €19.99 (£15.79) they are overpriced and were older ranges - the 6" being the Allfather figures. There was a set of 5 POA figures too which I hadn't seen before, but they weren't the best quality and yet priced the same as the Legends at €19.99 (£15.79).
The nearest to a high end Marvel product I came across was in the Disney Art Store, which is just down from the Disney Store in the Village. Among a lot of art work and statues of the Princesses were a set of 5 Marvel Comic figures. Priced at €109 (£86) they stood about 10 inches high, and were not bad - although I have seen better from Kotobukiya etc, albeit at a higher price.
Research has shown these are actually made in the UK by Enesco in Carlisle, Cumbria, and are again not exclusive to Disney and can be bought at specialist stockists in the UK. They also have a SRP in the UK of £69, nearly £20 less than Disney are selling them for in Paris.
So nothing exclusive to take home in terms of merchandise, but I am sure that will change in the coming years. If you are a Marvel fan then take time to visit Spider-man in the Studio Park, and then pop into the Cafe next door which has been decked out with big walls displaying all of Iron-man's 42 armours.
Star Wars, has the Force Awakened in Paris?
I was more hopeful for Star Wars goods, even though I went at a time where Star Tours and Star Traders were closed. I did a lot of research ahead of arriving in DLP and had a number of items in mind - particularly the exclusive Astromech's, the Tie Fighter popcorn tubs and those rubbery Happabore and Dewback that had been showing up in the parks in the US. I was sadly disappointed as none of these have yet to translate to the European park. Poor show Disney!
What you have got is shelves upon shelves of Disney Elite ships and figures. Price wise these are identical to what you would pay in the high street €24.99 (£19.99). The ships were a bit more interesting in that they had older models I had not seen in the UK - such as the Y-Wing and B-Wing. The figures were restricted solely to Darth Maul, Anakin, Poe Dameron and the unmasked Kylo Ren. If ever there was an opportunity for a park exclusive figure then it sits in the Elite range and has been missed so far - and I suspect if I went back in 12-months time they still wouldn't have shifted anywhere near the total volume of these figures they are currently sat on.
The PVC figurines were knocking about in various guises, predominately the Force Awakens sets which included a 6 pack, 10 pack and the mega set at a €54.99 (£43.50) although you would need a pretty big case to bring that one home. I also located the odd set for Rebels and a few Original Trilogy sets. In an example of pricing per franchise, these were much higher priced than their Marvel equivalents.
Hasbro figures were in attendance in some stores, these were 3.75" Force Awakens and Rebels 5POA figures only and the first waves only. At €19.99, and like the Marvel ones, these are not going to sell any time soon. Not a Black Series figure in site at any point in the park, but that was expected as Disney likely see them as direct threat to sales of the Elite series.
The other quirky find was the Vinylmation figures for Star Wars. These are blind boxed, stylised 3 inch figures who each come with a mickey mouse ears head sculpt. The figures are exclusive to Disney in the US, but not to the parks, and are not widely sold in the UK. I found these mainly in the World of Disney store near the park entrance, but they did crop up in small numbers in some of the boutique type stores down Main Street if you want to vary your chances by selecting from different cases. Each figure was priced at €12.99 (£10.24) and were labelled as the Series 6 collection, including figures solely from Return of the Jedi.
True exclusivity came down to items badged with the Star Tours logo. First off were the Disney / Star Wars cross over figures at a very reasonable €10.99 (£8.69). These figures take a Disney character like Mickey and put them in a Star Wars outfit, like Luke's X-Wing outfit. They are non-articulated and stand about 3 inch high. I brought home Jedi Mickey as a souvenir, but if you want the full set you will be out of luck as most have sold out so figures like Pete as Boba Fett, or Donald as Stormtrooper can't be found.
The other Star Tours merchandise that caught my eye was the Star Tours speeder, which is still being sold and could possibly be an investment piece if it gets replaced when the 2017 ride is launched. I thought about it, but ended up leaving it on the shelf. At €31.99 (£25.29) it wont break the bank, but it looks quite cheap and most of the boxes were quite banged up.
So I save the best till last, and that is the Build Your Own merchandise that can be found in the Disney Store. Build your own lightsaber is pretty fun, and Mini-Meph built a single blade one for €29.99 (£23.71) and you can do a double for €49.99 (£39.52). BYO Light saber can be found in the Disney Store in the Village and also in the Studio 1 store.
My favourite was the Build a Droid stand, which you can only do in the Village Disney Store. The BYO Droid is a fairly recent addition from the US and is priced at €10.99 (£8.69) for a custom droid and clamshell. There are a variety of flavours to choose from and it keeps the kids happy for ages (big and small ones). Mini Meph bough a cool looking gold and black R2 unit, while I built M3-PH the new Astromech for the Archives - complete with rebel logo Mickey ears.
We will be reviewing the BYO Droid later this week, so stay tuned.
So there we have it. Disneyland is BRILLIANT and if you want Mickey merchandise or Princess stuff, then you have a shop in every direction to choose from. Sadly, at this stage, there Marvel & Star Wars offerings are a little slim and certainly not yet as strong as the US parks. I suspect the merchandise will ramp up when Star Tours returns - and Disney will also be seeking out ways to integrate Marvel more into the parks.
For now, I would recommend filling your case with Build a Droids and if you are looking for true exclusive souvenirs then try the meet n greets with Spider-man or the Jedi Training activity (for the kids 7+) the pictures and experiences from these are awesome.