How do you bring back your vinyls when traveling

[Deus]

I am headed down to WDW and I plan on buys a case or two and some open windows. About bringing them back. How do you bring yours back. I don't want the open windows to get crushed in luggage seeing as I don't open them.

[orkira]

I prefer shipping mine back.

[crazybones27]

Don't quote me but I believe the last time I was down the World of Disney store had something going that if you purchase $500 or more they would ship the product to your home for free. If you buy two cases and some window boxes this might be something easily obtained. You might want to see if they are still running this promotion .

[LindsayinNJ]

I am headed down to WDW and I plan on buys a case or two and some open windows. About bringing them back. How do you bring yours back. I don't want the open windows to get crushed in luggage seeing as I don't open them.

Last time I bought a case of P7 and I just kept the "headboard" display part (like when they're displayed in store) and I cut off the front where the previews of the VM are, kept 2 boxes and put the actual VM in the little clear Walmart baggies into a tackle box ink my carry on. Probably not the referred way, but how I did!

[JDub11]

I always pack an empty carry-on bag in one of our suitcases on the way down, then make use of it on the way home..

[Allotes]

Don't quote me but I believe the last time I was down the World of Disney store had something going that if you purchase $500 or more they would ship the product to your home for free. If you buy two cases and some window boxes this might be something easily obtained. You might want to see if they are still running this promotion .

All the gift shops at the park offer to ship your purchases for a fee. This also means you don't pay the tax if you have them ship it

I've done this quite a few times.

[crazybones27]

All the gift shops at the park offer to ship your purchases for a fee. This also means you don't pay the tax if you have them ship it

I've done this quite a few times.

I knew they shipped items but since he was thinking of doing two cases I figured maybe they'd still be running the free shipping promotion I saw. I definitely suggest shipping them back instead of packing them up and praying the flight gods don't crush'em . I didn't know you don't pay tax though .

[K.P.]

We use a combination approach... We hit D-Street our first day and had a pretty big order. We paid D-Street to ship it to our home. Since we live out of state, we saved the sales tax which went a long way to off-setting the shipping charges. For the figres that we traded in the park and other smaller purchases here and there, we brought some empty carry-ons down with us and used these to bring home the vinyls that we didn't ship.

A few notes about paying Disney to ship: the shipping cost is based on the price of your purchases so bulky and inexpensive items are a bargain to ship compared to something small and expensive like jewelry. I'm told that as long as you have the receipts with you, you can have items purchased at multiple locations shippped out from 1 place. In other words, if you buy stuff from 10 different places around the park, you can bring everything to the gift shop at your Disney hotel and have them ship it all together. This helps because Disney charges less to ship 1 package with $500 worth of goods than it is to ship 5 packages with $100 each. If you go this route though, you probably get hit for sales tax at the time of each purchase and I doubt that you could recoup this.

[BigAl_PT]

The only time I bought a case on a trip was for Park Starz. Since I planned on making the purchase well in advance I packed accordingly and left space in my luggage for the case. Any of the loose figures or the window figures I carried on the plane. Again, I anticipated that so I had an empty carry on to fill.

[archie]

if you are getting a rental car, i find it best to buy what i want, then take it to fedex/ups store have it packaged up and shipped home. shipping cost for 2 cases and a punch of window boxes shouldnt run more than $20-30 which is about half the cost of tacking on another fee for a bag (unless you get free checked baggage).

[MansionAddict]

We usually travel with an empty suitcase. In that I pack smaller empty shipping boxes and bubble wrap. That way I canwrap what I buy in bubble and box it up so it is double protected in the suitcase. If I buy a case, I just wrap that in bubble and put in the suitcase . I have have purchased 3 cases on separate trips and luckily not one case has been dinged or crushed yet (knock on wood) on the plane ride home.

[JoshW]

if you are getting a rental car, i find it best to buy what i want, then take it to fedex/ups store have it packaged up and shipped home. shipping cost for 2 cases and a punch of window boxes shouldnt run more than $20-30 which is about half the cost of tacking on another fee for a bag (unless you get free checked baggage).

Yes, I totally agree with you. If you have a rental car, drive to the nearest post office and have them ship it to you (or FedEx or UPS stores). That way, you don't have to worry about it on the plane.

[wdw]

I make sure to leave extra space in my carry on so they have a smaller chance of being damaged

[magic61983]

I've had just about everything shipped except for the Sea Captain from the Room For 1 More event because I didn't want it to leave my sight. Other then that it's pretty save to ship everything home. I think we had one issue with something from the food and wine festival but Disney was able to resolve that. Thankfully it wasn't a limited piece.

[psu4glory]

we generally bring 2 carry-ons with us, and use 1 to carry souvenirs back home. in DEC, i bought a case of P7, and it fit like a glove right in the carry-on!

granted...that didn't leave much room for anything else in there but we found the space that we needed...

[Gillyweed]

What I just did on our trip last week was pack a crushable carry-on size bag in my checked luggage, then carry it on full of goodies when I left.

I just don't really trust anyone to handle my treasures but me... And the way D-Street described shipping, made me kind of scared of it. They said they put it in a plastic bag and send it off to be packed somewhere else. And I really didn't want my hat box to get dented. So I opted to carry it on with me and not take the risk. If I had bought a case or something that was more protected, I probably would have just shipped it.

It is an added annoyance carrying it with you though. But I thought the annoyance of worrying about it showing up at my house damaged was worse, lol!

[K.P.]

What I just did on our trip last week was pack a crushable carry-on size bag in my checked luggage, then carry it on full of goodies when I left.

I just don't really trust anyone to handle my treasures but me... And the way D-Street described shipping, made me kind of scared of it. They said they put it in a plastic bag and send it off to be packed somewhere else. And I really didn't want my hat box to get dented. So I opted to carry it on with me and not take the risk. If I had bought a case or something that was more protected, I probably would have just shipped it.

It is an added annoyance carrying it with you though. But I thought the annoyance of worrying about it showing up at my house damaged was worse, lol!

When we had to ship from D-Street they did a good job for us. You are correct that they put your items in a plasticshopping bag and then send them somewhere else in the world to get packaged for shipping. Our last D-Street purchased included 3 or 4 hat boxes and 4 of the light up vinylmations. These were just too bulky to bring back on the plane (along with all the other stuff that we got) but D-Street did just fine. I'm pretty sure that all the merchandise gets packaged at one centralized location so those folks are used to shipping plenty of fragile stuff and plenty of high dollar collectables from Art of Disney, etc...

[Gillyweed]

When we had to ship from D-Street they did a good job for us. You are correct that they put your items in a plasticshopping bag and then send them somewhere else in the world to get packaged for shipping. Our last D-Street purchased included 3 or 4 hat boxes and 4 of the light up vinylmations. These were just too bulky to bring back on the plane (along with all the other stuff that we got) but D-Street did just fine. I'm pretty sure that all the merchandise gets packaged at one centralized location so those folks are used to shipping plenty of fragile stuff and plenty of high dollar collectables from Art of Disney, etc...

That is really good to know! Thanks for the info K.P.!

Although I have to say... even if 99.9% of things are fine being shipped, I would be convinced my item would be in the .1% that weren't fine, lol!

I guess I've just seen too many things happen to my items in the past that were taken out of my hands, or damaged in shipping. Not by Disney in particular, but just in general.

[Disneyclaire]

Thanks to my husbands expert packing and patients we managed to get just over 200 vinyls home safe and sound.
All double packs, open boxes and 9" were wrapped in plastic bags and then wrapped in laundry for extra protection. Extra special vinyls were placed in our hand luggage just to be on the safe side. All 3" and 1.5" we're put into plastic bags then placed into craft boxes from Jo-Anne's (thanks to lotsoVinyl for the info).

[banglin17]

Luckily, I live within driving distance of WDW. So it's easy to bring them home in their original packaging. However, if I were to fly with my Vinylmations, I would definitely bring some sort of empty carry-on with me. I have a hard time trusting checked luggage when it comes to my collectibles. Now, if you were to buy an entire case, I would take my favorites and the chaster out and carry them on, and then check the rest in some extra luggage! =)

[rogpalmeruk]

Thanks to my husbands expert packing and patients we managed to get just over 200 vinyls home safe and sound.
All double packs, open boxes and 9" were wrapped in plastic bags and then wrapped in laundry for extra protection. Extra special vinyls were placed in our hand luggage just to be on the safe side. All 3" and 1.5" we're put into plastic bags then placed into craft boxes from Jo-Anne's (thanks to lotsoVinyl for the info).

200!!! That is a amazing haul.......did you leave your clothes in Orlando? lol can't wait to see what you got... next time i go I will need to take a load of this little zip lock bags

[Disneyclaire]

200!!! That is a amazing haul.......did you leave your clothes in Orlando? lol can't wait to see what you got... next time i go I will need to take a load of this little zip lock bags

Those little plastic bags are amazing, we couldn't find any here (surprise, surprise) so we had to order them from china!
We did leave some clothes, 4 pairs of shoes, and all our toiletries! My haul is on the mail day

[Deus]

We just got back from WDW. i bought two cases plus several SW open windows etc. Luckily, someone I knew drove down and I was able to send a bunch back with them. But the case I bought after they left I would up dismantling and putting in my luggage. With the boxes flattened and the guys wrapped in clean linen, all worked out well.