A HUGE update...Designer Disney Princess dolls and Beauty & the Beast

I'm sorry it's been so long since I last updated! I got a bit lost in my own personal Disney fantasy once Beauty and the Beast opened. It has since finished its season, and I can truly say that doing the show was the most incredible thing I've done in a long time. I can't even begin to tell you how exciting it was to be part of such a beautiful show, and playing my favourite Disney character! It was so easy to lose myself in the character of Belle, and in the end scene of each show I found myself crying real tears, just because I was so overwhelmed with the experience.

One thing that was so special was that at the end of each show, I would have at least 5 little girls come up to me, wanting to meet 'Belle'. So I would stand around in my yellow ballgown and take pictures, sign autographs, and talk to my little fans! The most exciting moment was when two little girls in Disney costumes (one Belle, one Snow White) came up to have a photo taken with me! The lucky women who get to be face characters in the Disney parks must have the best job in the world - I could easily do that all day!

It's all quite bittersweet now that the show is finished; it was a purely happy experience for everyone involved, and we're all quite sad to see it go. I'll always be able to look back on it though and be thankful that it happened. 

Plus, I've had something to keep me occupied since then...namely those little things called Designer Princess Dolls! It's been crazy watching the hype since the dolls were first released, I think everyone was surprised at how demand for them skyrocketed. I will forever kick myself, because I remember when Cinderella was first released and hardly anyone knew about it...I was this close to buying her, but wasn't prepared to pay $50 postage and handling (I live in Australia) for a $59 doll! So I decided to give it a miss - after all, it was only a doll, right? From there, they only got more and more popular, and when I was seeing Cinderella and the subsequent dolls selling for upwards of $200 on eBay, $109 didn't seem so expensive after all! 

Ariel I wasn't too sold on, despite the fact that she seems to be the most sought-after. Belle I was at first disappointed with also; her design sketch was absolutely gorgeous, but I found it got lost in translation when it made the journey to doll form - her hair was too tightly coiled, almost like a beehive, and her dress suffered the same fate. However, she is starting to grow on me, and I will try to buy her one day. 

Mulan I wasn't sold on at first, so I gave her a miss. Snow White I adored from the beginning, but she was the start of what some people are calling 'Dollmageddeon' - there was so much demand for her on the Disney store website that it crashed. So, no Snow White for me. 

So, after the dolls' popularity rose with each weekly release, Disney decided to release the remaining 5 dolls (Jasmine, Aurora, Tiana, Pocahontas and Rapunzel) at one time - bad idea. If Snow White, one doll, crashed the entire website, how did they expect to handle customers wanting to purchase five?! But, I decided to brave the final sale as I adore the Jasmine doll. I would have also happily gone after Aurora, Tiana and Rapunzel, but I knew the odds were against me even purchasing one. 

So, I set my alarm for 1:45am (8:45am in America) so that I could be there when the website opened at 2am my time - now that's dedication! Even from the beginning, I could tell that it would be a pretty painful experience. I must have refreshed the page hundreds and hundreds of times, mostly getting error messages. At last I got through to the doll page, and managed to put a Jasmine and Aurora in my basket. From there though, I was kicked out of the site for around 45 minutes. I nearly gave up several times (in the meantime Aurora had sold out), but finally made it to my checkout cart...got a little further and entered my payment information...clicked the 'finalize payment' button....and....got kicked off again. Just when I was finally about to log off my computer, through some miracle I was able to put my order through! I nearly jumped for joy when I received my receipt for Jasmine! And crazily, no more than 2 minutes after my purchase went through, the Disney Store tweeted that Jasmine was completely sold out. I kept expecting the dreaded email to say that I hadn't secured the doll after all, but it's been nearly 5 days now and my status on the website still says 'active'. Of course, I won't really breathe a sigh of relief until it is shipped, but my last Disney Store purchase took a week to ship.  

In the meantime, I've been checking the eBay listings every day, and am pleased to see that prices are already starting to drop considerably. And today, I won my first eBay auction! I found Mulan for quite a reasonable price (ended up paying $148 including postage), and now she's all bought and paid for. I know I wasn't quite sold on her at the beginning, but she really did grow on me. Also, I've decided that I'd like to collect all 10 one day, so having 2 is a good start! Last week, I didn't expect to even have any!

So, that has been my Designer Princess adventure so far. I really need to restrain myself a bit and not buy too many dolls, because we're going to Disneyland/Walt Disney World in less than 2 months...which is exciting in itself!

- Belle