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• Only a fraction of Disney merchandise is sold online because it's meant to be part of the park experience.
• Some fans who really want an item make special trips or find someone who can to procure them.
• The fear of missing out is real for some fans, and costs can quickly add up.

It all started with a cup. 

"I don't know what it was about that cup," Shelley Cartee reminisced.

The plastic Beauty and the Beast mug shaped like Beast's head wasn't valuable. She got it in a "Happy Meal or something" in the 1990s, but it sparked her lifelong love for Disney merchandise, which now fills her Tampa-area home.

"I was one of those people that stood in line for six hours for a ," she said of the EPCOT souvenir that went viral and sold out early this year. She also planned a family vacation around Walt Disney World's 50th anniversary and merchandise drop. "It's really bad," she laughed.

Souvenirs have always been associated with travel, but for many Disney lovers, collecting things like popcorn buckets and pins are part of the park experience and sometimes the reason for a trip.

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Why is Disney so popular? 

Many fans consider Disney parks their happy place and affectionately call them home.

"Honestly, it's kind of make-believe," Cartee said. Day to day, she may be a mom and wife with a long list of responsibilities, but "when I walk into the parks, it's kind of like you leave life there. It's just so relaxing and happy. It really does bring your inner child out."

Many of the things she's collected over the years – including a wall of Loungefly bags and more than 100 pairs of mouse ears – have sentimental value. Other things she bought just because they looked cool. "Some of the things I have I can't explain, but it just makes me happy," she said.

"I mean, anybody who goes out and buys stuff has had that feeling where they're like, 'I need to have that. That is just speaking to my soul.' " said AJ Wolfe, owner of .

"It's just the same as collecting anything else in the world, right?" said Mariko Nakawatase of San Diego. "I mean, just let people enjoy themselves."

Nakawatase collects all kinds of Disney and Star Wars memorabilia, including popcorn buckets, sipper cups, "old school" toys, artwork and books. 

"When people come over, I'm like, 'Hey, you want to see my Star Wars room?" she smiled. 

How can I start a collection?

"I would start with what you love and just look everywhere," Cartee said. "Look high. Look low. I've found a Snow White snow globe at a thrift store for $2." 

Starting small is a safe bet. 

Jason Bales, founder of the  Facebook group, owns roughly 1,200 popcorn buckets now, but he sort of stumbled into collecting them in the 1990s, when he was dating his now wife.

"We bought annual passes when they were $79 for the whole year, and our Wednesday nights were two rides, dinner at (Disneyland)," he said. He would always buy a popcorn bucket. "It was the cheapest souvenir. It was $1 more to hold twice the popcorn."

He didn't start seriously collecting and trading the buckets until the early 2000s with other Disney fans around the world. 

"It started as a fun hobby, and it's just grown to a passion now," he said, "I know I can't have every single one of them ... I just really enjoy the artistry."

"Genuinely, they are pieces of art," Wolfe said, adding that she knows some of the artists "pouring their hearts into those."

Can you order merchandise from Disney World?

Some merchandise is available on , but many more items, including popcorn buckets, are resort exclusives and must be purchased in person.

"You will never see all of our offerings online," said Karen White, director of Merchandise Operations for Disney World. "It is a very small percent."

"Anything that is exclusive to the guest experience, we really want to keep on-site," she added, citing lightsabers from Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at Disney's Hollywood Studios as an example. "You really want to buy in the land because it really fulfills your overall experience of being in the park and gives you what we like to call your tangible memory, your memory that you can physically take home with you. ... That emotional connection is something very compelling and something that our guests love."

For a fee, the resort will ship home items purchased in-person in the parks, but fans can't order park-exclusive items online or by phone.

Does Disney restock sold-out items?

"If it's a food item, like a cupcake, we can get back in stock on something like that relatively fast," White said. "But a merch item, it sometimes takes us a year to develop and put through all of our safety protocols before we can get that item on site. So with all those long lead times, we really are a little less nimble to be able to bring in a top-selling product in the moment."

She said orders are based on how similar items have sold in the past and best guess estimates of what consumers may gravitate toward. 

"We always try to buy to meet our guests' needs and demand," White said, acknowledging that they were caught off guard by the frenzy for Figment popcorn buckets. "We never intend for there to be a significant shortage, but sometimes it does happen."

If designs do come back, they're usually modified, like this year's Halloween popcorn buckets, which newly glowed in the dark.

How to buy Disney merchandise

If there's something Nakawatase wants, she'll go to Disneyland just to get it.

"It's really all about the hunt," she said. 

If she doesn't think it will sell out, she may take her time, but Wolfe warned, "You don't really know what's going to go viral, so just treat everything like it might."

"If you see something that you love and that you really, really, really want ... figure out what day it's going to come out, figure out where it's going to come out," she added. "Get there first thing in the morning. Treat it like getting on a ride on the ride's opening day."

Fans who can't make it to the parks may turn to third parties like independent personal shoppers, buy/sell/trade groups on social media, or online marketplaces like eBay or Poshmark, but don't expect to pay retail.

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Is collecting a good idea?

Nakawatase has no idea how much she's spent on her collection through the years.

"I've invested a lot of money, but it's also an investment," she said. "Star Wars is always going to be popular. There's always going to be collectors, people wanting to pay for all this stuff. ... Many people don't realize how much it was worth and how big the collection game has really gotten."

Of course, not every souvenir appreciates or retains its value, and what may be priceless to one person may not be for another, so it's best not to go overboard.

Going too far

"It can be very addicting, very quickly,"  said Mae McGarry of Erie, Pennsylvania.

She and her family visited Disney World annually for years. Over time, she picked up a few themed Dooney and Burke handbags and some pins of sentimental value, but she wasn't a big collector until the pandemic.

"When the pandemic hit, it was kind of like a substitute for the magic that a lot of us diehard Disney fans were lacking," she said. She started with subscription boxes. "That started a slow trickle into collecting because the things that they would send us, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, why haven't I started collecting this before?' "

"I think I just really missed Disney, so I was getting these bags and these boxes, and then I'd see one on sale and I'd think, 'This is on sale. I have to have it,' " she continued. "I look around my room now, and I'm full of regret."

She still loves Disney and still plans to visit the parks, but she'd like to downsize her Loungefly bags and pins.

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How do you control collecting?

McGarry has advice for aspiring collectors. 

"I would just take a step back and think, 'Am I doing this for the right reasons or am I doing this because there's FOMO (fear of missing out)?' " she said. "It is very, very expensive, very time-consuming, and it takes up a lot of space."

She says she has an "obscene amount" of , but she plans to keep those.

"I feel like, one, they are a statement piece, and they are tailored to what I like," she said.

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What can souvenirs be used for?

"A lot of people use them for decorations," Nakawatase said. 

Bales displays his popcorn buckets as works of art on shelves around his Fresno home. Cartee showcases some pieces and stores others. Things like her coffee mugs, Disney clothing and accessories get regular use.

Souvenirs can serve all sorts of purposes, including their original intent as reminders of the past.

"They know that this is historical, right? Because everything Disney ends up being historical," Wolfe said. 

She still has a set of paper popcorn boxes her dad got at Disneyland in 1965 and passed along to her when she started her website. 

"I got them framed, and they are extremely important to me because they're from my dad," Wolfe said. "They're old school. They're nostalgic. They are the original popcorn boxes from Disneyland. And I wonder if, in 40 years, people are going to be looking at that Figment popcorn bucket and say, 'This was the original. This was the OG.' "

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