When Minnie Mouse announced to the world that she would be spending 2020 DisneyBounding as a series of Magic Kingdom attractions, I couldn’t have been more excited! On the third Saturday of every month, our favorite mouse selects one ride or show and invites her special friends to meet her there! She calls this tour “Minnie Mouse: The Main Attraction” and it has been oh-so-popular with her fans. We all know that she is truly the Magic Kingdom’s main attraction!
So far, her tour has stopped at Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Mad Tea Party, and It’s a Small World. Minnie wears a custom gown and she makes sure that the Cast Members at the Disney Parks, Disney Stores, and on shopdisney.com have some special ears, bags, pins and mugs so that her friends can join in on the DisneyBounding fun.
This May, I was excited to meet up with Minnie at the Enchanted Tiki Room, an attraction that was beloved by Walt Disney himself and which has been entertaining FashionEarstas of all ages for over fifty years.
Because the Disney Parks were closed for the month of May, we couldn’t go to the Tiki Room itself, and I was worried that we would miss out on the magic!
Fortunately, Minnie organized a star-studded virtual shindig featuring José, Michael, Pierre, Fritz, and the rest of the show’s famous avian cast members. Pre-show, rumors swirled, and I hoped that the birds, flowers, and tikis would perform a new song, perhaps about how all the birds sing words and the flowers groom to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
When I logged on and entered the Electronic Tiki Room, Minnie looked fantastic (of course), dressed head-to-tail in tropical finery. However, she looked like her feathers had been ruffled, and her headpiece was almost bent out of shape!
When I DMed her to ask if everything was ok, Minnie replied that Rosita, a showgirl bird, was missing from her virtual perch on the Bird Mobile. Of course, Rosita always seems to be missing from the show, and has to be tracked down to the Tropical Hideaway restaurant in Disneyland, where she chirps with the guests and indulges in Dole Whip.
But today Rosita wasn’t tempted away by tropical treats, she was being tormented with a terrible Internet connection! She couldn’t log on to zoom, and the cast of the Enchanted Tiki Room was worried that the second act of this very special show would be ruined without one of its stars.
Fortunately, the Cast Members were handy with a solution: they had Enchanted Tiki Room ears from ShopDisney.com on hand for the guests to wear! With their regal plumage and vivid colors, those of us who were lucky enough to get a pair felt like part of the avian spectacular! When it came time for the showgirl number, all the guests tore themselves away from their Dole Whip and sang along to the song. With our plumed ears and our off-key warbling, we were pretty much indistinguishable from the real thing!
While I don’t think I’ll be warbling along with Jose and the cast of the Enchanted Tiki Room long-term (this voice can’t be caged) I enjoyed banding together to make some magic in an unconventional way. Minnie is currently taking some time off from her Main Attraction tour before the US release of the next collection, Peter Pan’s Flight, though I hear that she’s been spotted sporting that look in the UK and Hong Kong. We can’t wait to have her back in the US to coordinate more magical attraction-based looks, hopefully with a little less hooplah!
EAR REVIEW
Get yourself a pair of
Minnie’s Main Attraction ears here!
What We Loved
Stitching/Gluing:
Excellent. You can tell that these are not handmade, because there is no trace of visible craftsmanship. The seams on the ears themselves are completely covered by “bamboo” trim, and other stitching is camouflaged by the burlap material of the headband.
Unique Theme/Style:
Good. There is no denying that these are tiki-themed, with the vibrant colors and bamboo trim making their theme very evident. The feathers add a nice touch, differentiating their bird theme from a generic island or tropical pair of ears
Turnaround Time:
Excellent. Despite the site’s shipping delay disclaimer, these ears were on my doorstep within two weeks.
Shipping/Packaging:
The packaging of ShopDisney ears will vary widely, but this pair came in an enormous box (about five times larger than the ears themselves!) They were well-padded with bubble packaging and inside a cellophane bag. I also loved the surreal look of a single piece of Disney’s patterned tissue paper just sitting in the bottom of the box.
Pricing: Excellent. If you were lucky enough to snag a pair of these ears directly from ShopDisney.com, they are some of the best-priced ears out there. There are benefits to mass production, it seems! Of course, if you purchase them from a reseller or on eBay they are much more costly. $$
Who would love these?
Realistically, I think that these ears appeal more to collectors rather than actual park-goers. They are simply too easily damaged and could not survive being put in a bag or pouch during a ride on Thunder Mountain or a Florida afternoon shower. But for Main Attraction afficionados or those who love the Enchanted Tiki Room, these would look great on the wall. Also, my kitten loves these ears, especially the feathers.
What Needs Work
Ear Shape/Size:
While the bamboo-style trim on the outside of the ears is creative, it warps the ears’ shape, leaving them looking bumpy and even pointy in places. The ear size is proportional.
Bow:
One of the most disappointing ear bows of my collection, unfortunately. The green bow is only one layer of ribbon and looks very two-dimensional. It has been layered with a plastic flower and two long ombre feathers, but all of them are low quality. The feathers on the bow are extremely easy to bend and damage, and we’ve heard many reports of them arriving mangled from transit. Sadly, I’ve seen DIY versions of this bow that looked much higher in quality.
Materials:
The fabrics of these ears and bow are unusually shiny, which gives it an inexpensive appearance. And while the trim on the ears looks like bamboo from a distance, it is just rolled fabric.
Headband:
The headband on my pair of ears is a bit twisted: the green lining material spirals around and is visible on the outside of the headband on one side.
Wearability:
Like many ShopDisney ears, these run tight and have the tendency to pinch after about an hour of continuous wear. Their tag is also excessively long and needs to be cut off if you plan to actually wear them, which leaves a ragged white line behind that is visible on the headband. They are very light, though.
Where should future FashionEarstas be seen in these ears?
I personally wouldn’t venture to the parks in these ears for fear that they’d get wet or bent, but FashionEarstas would look lovely at Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto (at both the Polynesian Resort in Walt Disney World or at the Disneyland Hotel), where they would match the décor and stay indoors!
Overall Score: 
(2/5)
I am a huge fan of the Minnie Mouse: The Main Attraction series and have been collecting all the ears. But for the amount of time and effort that it took to overcome ShopDisney’s crashing, glitching website (4 hours!) I hoped for higher-quality ears. Fortunately, the other ears in this series are spectacular enough to make up for this one!
These ears sold out very quickly, but you can see future ears in the Minnie Mouse: The Main Attraction series here!
It’s time to go plan my next Disney soiree! Hopefully Minnie Mouse returns from vacation soon and we can enjoy our next DisneyBounding party together in the parks!
I hope that you found this review helpful! I’d love to hear what you think of this review, these ears, Minnie’s Main Attraction, shopDisney, or just other magical things you have to share in the comments! Make sure you check us out on Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram, chances are you will see our ears in action!
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