Is the Disney Dress Shop really worth the $$$?
Is the Disney Dress Shop worth the cost? I don’t know about you, but I don’t often spend more than $25.00 on a dress. At $128.00 per garment, the Disney Dress Shop is far out of my normal price range for any single dress. Most of my clothes come from Amazon and thrift stores. I’ve ogled more expensive brands from time to time, but I like to constantly switch up my wardrobe and often only wear a dress a few times before donating it, or passing it onto a friend. That said, the Disney Dress Shop is well worth the price. The dress I chose was absolutely beautiful, very well made, extremely comfortable, AND it had A++ pockets!
The pockets on this dress are very deep and secure. All day, I kept my giant cell phone (a Google Pixel XL- roughly 6"x 3”), 2 chap-sticks, a money clip, and water bottle stored away in my dress pockets. Yes, an entire water bottle fit, the cap stuck out a little but the bottle stayed deep down in the pocket. When I first spotted the dress, I immediately checked for pockets. Once my hand went into the pocket, I was in love. The girl next to me grinned, and said, “It has pockets!” Her mother replied, “That’s hard to find.” I had found my people.
On top of having great pockets, I love the vintage look of the dress (and all the dresses), and the subtle Mickey/Minnie polka dot print was super adorable. It’s made out of 97% cotton and 3% spandex so I was very thankful for the breathable fabric when we were sweating our brains out in the 90 minute line for the slinky roller coaster.
Sadly, we never made it onto the roller coaster as it started thundering and lightening and they stopped the ride. There’s always a Fast Pass for another day, and several people complimented the dress as we made our way out of that maze of a queue. This is gross, but because of the heat, I was sweating buckets. While we were waiting in line, I added, “Bring Disney dresses to dry cleaner” to my To-Do list. My other Disney Dress Shop dress (featured in my first post) is dry clean only so naturally I thought this one was too. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this dress can be hand washed, and cool-ironed if needed.
Speaking of my other Disney Dress Shop dress, I actually have two. The last time I went I had a terrible experience because the sizing was so small. I could not find a dress that would zip up all the way, and ended up crying in the fitting room. At the time, I purchased a “goal” dress to help inspire me to get into shape, but I still have not been able to fit into it. The dress was an XL, and if I’m being honest, their largest size, 1X, didn’t fit- hence bursting into tears in the fitting room. I’m not going to kill myself trying to lose weight because I was probably a little mental purchasing a dress that was over 2 sizes too small.
I still strive to be healthy,
but I believe you should make the dress fit you, not make your body fit the dress.
Someday I’ll either sell it, or wear it but that’s not really why I'm mentioning this dress. I’m roughly the same size now, and today I purchased a large. I think that the Dress Shop may have clued into their unrealistic sizing, and fixed the issue.
Going back to this post’s featured dress, the last thing I’d like to say is that the zipper is phenomenal. Very high quality, and easy to zip. When most of your dresses come from Amazon, a lot of your zippers suck BIG TIME. By now I am pro at zipping dresses, but I have some dresses that can’t be zippered by another person from the back. The third-rate zippers are so tricky, I literally have to keep my arms out of the sleeves, turn the dress around with the zipper in the front, zip it closed most of the way with my magic zipping powers, twist the dress back around, and wiggle and contort my arms into the sleeves. I’ve nearly missed the train into NYC because the cheap zipper on my dress popped as I left my apartment. Please believe me when I tell you this is a GREAT zipper.
I’ll end this post with one final thing about the Disney Dress Shop as a whole. It is costly, but if you can afford to buy a dress there I recommend putting it on your bucket list next time you visit Walt Disney World. If I’m being honest, it probably is slightly over-priced. Let’s face it, a lot of the merch is, but the dresses are quality. I’ve had the one in my first post for about 7 or 8 years, and it is in great condition. Also, it’s just a fun experience. The Dress Shop itself is adorable, and there are a lot of great accessories, including purses, Mickey Ears, and jewelry. I’m just waiting for them to stock shoes. If you feel that spending $100+ on a dress is unrealistic, you could just go try some on for fun, and take some photos in their full-length vintage-looking mirrors.
