gifts of a lifetime, need help

[katamarana]

OK. I found the web site and got so involved that I felt it only fair to start a new thread. First, do you think they can and would it be a good idea to deliver a basket to FW. We are arriving in a motor home and are staying at the campgrounds. Now, I want to order some things like character fat pens, autograph books and Honor Badges. Mostly so we don't have to hunt them down when we get there and it will make the kids feel special. But, I am curious about how much more I am paying through gifts of a lifetime than buying them at the park. What do these gifts run at the park? And how hard are they to find once you get there? Are they at the FW shops or inside the parks? Wondered if anyone would know. Also, they won't allow any pet names on the honor badges. Poppa just doesn't go by any other name. Is that a Disney thing or a gifts of a lifetime thing? They said no pet names i.e. Tubby, Moose or Daddy. Thanks in advance for more answers. I feel like I'm posting all the time. Hubby says I'm addicted and need to join DA. (Disney Anonymous) I told him that wasn't funny.
Oh yeah! Shipping to hotel room is $20 and badges are $7.50 each, fat pens are $3.60 each and autograph books are $6.85 each.

 

[Kermit]

I've never bought a GOH badge, but the prices look like you're paying the same price, you just pay the extra delivery fee. The rule about no pet names is from Disney. For some reason they only do "normal" names, and I've even heard of people with unusual names not being able to get one.

 

[katamarana]

What kind of unusual names? We have a Junior and a Trey which are nicknames for well Jr. and III. I wonder if they will allow those?

 

[BevS97]

You are paying extra, the guest of honor badges are $5, and my scrapbook was $25 and gol are charging $31 for it.

They will engrave unusual names in the park, but we also so a sign about no nicknames - I don't know about Junior and Trey, but you could email Disney to ask them

Bev

 

[UrsulaFan]

Fat pens are $2.50 at Disney. I called mail order dept and got my GOH badges & fat pens. You cannot get custom GOH thru mail order @ Dis! I tried! They said too many problems before.

 

[UrsulaFan]

by the way, they don't have a great selection of "normal names" anyway. I have to have a custom done for my DS, Jake! We would settle for any form of Jacob, but they don't have one.

 

[katamarana]

So, the best way to get a GOH with an odd name on it or spelled correctly would be through the gifts of a lifetime. The GOH's at the park are preprinted?

 

[ceecee]

How do you contact mail order and what is the S&H fee?
What is gifts of a life time S&H?

 

[katamarana]

Gifts of a lifetime tacked $20 on delivery to your hotel, but I'm not sure if there will be additional fees or not. WDW Mail order Dept. phone number is 407-363-6200. I did not order from them, but they were very helpful. They told be exactly where to go at Downtown Disney to purchase everything we wanted on our first night there without wasting any of our theme park time. She even told me about a cart who does GOH badges custom made while you wait.

 

[LoriZH]

$20 seems pretty steep for a delivery charge! Are they doing something special with these items or are they just delivering them? If they are jacking the price up of the items already, then I don't see why they would charge so much for delivering them.

The fat pens, autograph books are at every turn in DW. We have never run into a problem finding them. I don't know much about the GOH badges, sorry. I would think that it is more fun for the kids to go buy these items with their own money (that they have earned from you of course

Then again if time is an issue and you really want these items, the the $20 isn't a bad price to pay!

There now that I have absolutely done nothing to help you with your delema, lol, have a great trip!

 

[katamarana]

Actually, you have helped a lot. I think you're right about the kids getting to purchase things themselves. Also, they may find something they like more than GOH badges. We were concerned about buying our fat pens and autograph books before we ran into our first character. But poppa said we could go to downtown disney first day before we even go to the parks. Plus I'm hoping that they will be available at FW gift shops. Anyways, if not, nanny can go grab them while kids are on first ride if necessary. Thanks for your input. $20 will be spent better elsewhere.

 

[LoriZH]

Wow, I would have thought I confused you more, lol

If you are going to the MK the first day, as soon as you walk into the park there is a cart that sells these items. I am pretty sure this is the same with all the parks. I'll bet they have them at the WL gift shop, I remember seeing them at the Contemporary's.

Well have fun! When are you leaving?

 

[FergieTCat]

If you go to Downtown Disney, you can get badges made with any name you want. They engrave them there. I don't know if they are guest of honor badges, but they do have Pooh, Mickey or Minnie (and probably Donald) on them.

I have one that says Fergie T Cat, which is obviously a pet name (although the Duchess of York might beg to differ!)

Donna

 

[Susie-Q]

I just contacted Gifts of Lifetime myself about a week ago. They told me it was a $25 delivery charge for the delivery to the resort. And a 20% shopping charge added to anything we wanted them to shop for. So for example, a $10.00 epcot passport would cost you $12.00.

 

[BuzzMe]

I bought my badge (actually it's a keychain) in one of the shops on Main Street in MK. I can't remember which store it was- this was in a section of a larger shop. They do all different kinds of monograming. This is where to get the traditional Mickey Ears with your name embroidered! Your kids will have a great time shopping at downtown Disney.

 

[Beverly Lynn]

why not try contacting www.pixiegifts.com and see if Cindy can help you out! she did a basket for me for someone last month and it was fantastic! they were so excited with it and she really went out of her way to get what I had requested and then some!

 

[motheroftwo]

Hi!

We went to Disney in April and I had wanted to make the trip special for my kids. I worked with Jane at Gifts of a lifetime to get little packages set up and delivered to the hotel for the kids. And they were great. the kids loved getting a welcome present from Mickey....

Yes, they were a little more expensive than what they would have cost at the park, HOWEVER......

they came in nice giftbags with postcards from Mickey mouse ....


She made up two gift bags but only charged one delivery fee - which was fair.

the packages include a name tag, a pen, an Epcot passport and a squashed penny book. They were able to have all the stamps int he right country before we got to Epcot.

jane ran all over the parks looking for a Jessie from Toy STory 2 t-shirt for my daughter, and although she couldn't find one she had lots of other sugestions.
After our trip and we wanted something we had seen at the park but it was sold out, we e-mailed Jane and she got it for us.

Great service... Great help....great idea!
I would definitely use them again - paying a little more, heck isn't that what Disney is all about?

 

[katamarana]

OK, my interest is back, Tell me more about the passports and how they work. We have never been so, I am curious. We intend to do the kidcot fun centers. And also, hubby wants to know how much it costs to squash a penny. I am guessing 50 cents, he thinks it will be a dollar per penny.
And how many penny squashing stations are we looking at?

 

[stacie_d]

It was 50cents from what I remember. Well, I guess that would be 51 cents actually!

 

[MaryAnnDVC]

There's must be HUNDREDS of pressed penny machines throughout the Disney Resort...all over the parks, the hotels...everywhere. It does cost $.51, including the penny being pressed. There are also pressed quarter machines...$1.25, including the quarter being pressed.

When we went to WDW in '99, we found two places that sold the GoH badges, and neither would do custom-made ones (DtD and MGM). And I'm not talking about unusual names--I mean you could only buy a name they already had. So, last year, I had Jane get badges for everyone (all 5 of us, including DH, who had initially refused to own one, but LOVED wearing it and the interaction with people), as well as 4 water bottle holders for our Brita bottles (one from each park, so we could tell the difference at a glance). I also got GoH badges for my friend's family...she was surprising her kids for Christmas by giving them a trip to Disney, and gave them GoH badges as part of the announcement.

It worked out great for us having these things ahead of time, because we were going to Universal first for a few days, and wanted bottle straps to use there, but wanted them to be Disney ones. And with the problem I ran into the previous year, it was nice to get the GoH badges and have them beforehand...even on the plane, the flight attendants acknowledged everyone.

And I will ALWAYS be grateful to Jane for getting me one of the last bricks sold at WDW in the Walk Around the World program.