This $7.49 Disneyland item is so popular sales are restricted to 5 per person — but clever tourists are finding loopholes
A seasonal Disneyland treat? They’re all ears.
Fans of the Magic Kingdom in California arrive in droves to get their mitts on a Micky Mouse gingerbread cookie, one of the most coveted desserts at Disneyland during the holidays.
“It’s literally Christmas in a cookie,” Tiffany Calderon, who goes home with 20 Mickey gingerbread cookies to freeze after her annual holiday visit, told SFGATE.
“It feels like home,” she continued. “Just cuddling up on a couch, watching some Christmas movies, getting a gingerbread cookie out and just — small bites, make it last. Make it linger.”
Fans in a frenzy for the Mickey-shaped treats flock to Disneyland every year to purchase the infamous cookies, prompting the park to limit the number guests can order at one time.
According to SFGATE, visitors can only buy five cookies per transaction. Clever customers, however, attempt to place orders at multiple locations across the theme park to collect as many as possible.
Meanwhile, online orders are often paused for the gingerbread sweets to stop the cookies from selling out so fast.
The gingerbread cookies cost $7.49 at various storefronts across the park or $10 at a pop-up snack cart in the lobby of the Grand Californian hotel.
SFGATE also reported that the cookies are usually available late into the day despite their popularity, although the line at the aforementioned hotel is often out the door.
“I grew up hating gingerbread,” Calderon explained.
That is, until “about four years ago,” when she tasted the gingerbread cookies from Disney.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll give it a try.’ And it was like no gingerbread that I’ve ever had before,” she said.
The cookie craze is similar to that of the theme park’s seasonal candy canes, which cost $22 for just one of the handmade, 18-inch confections.
The gingerbread mania has also inspired a similar cookie offered at the Harbour Galley, an eatery inside the park. The kitchen now serves warmed gingerbread cookies at its walk-up window — six for $7.29 or 13 for $13.29 — with a choice of additional gingerbread-flavored whip.
But Jennifer Walker, who hails from Hayward, Calif., said that Mickey-shaped gingerbread cookie holds a special place in her heart.
“This is how Christmas started,” Walker, who grew up eating the cookies with her parents on their trips to Disneyland, told SFGATE.
This year, she scored 35 cookies — 24 of which she brought back in one trip — and made sure her parents still got their fill.
“One of them went to my parents’ gravesite,” said Walker, who also has gifted the treats to other people. “So my mom still gets her Mickey gingerbread.”
