I'm something of a shirt fiend!

I love t-shirts. Always have. If I had a uniform, it would be a loose t-shirt and jeans. It started when I was a young kid. I especially loved tees with cartoon characters or funny slogans. My Miami Mice tee was a particular hit when I was 8. And I always had to get a t-shirt commemorating wherever we happened to visit when we went on trips.

And as you can well imagine, when I get to Walt Disney World I immediately start drooling over every t-shirt I see. If I had the extra scratch, I could drop a couple hundo per trip easily, just on t-shirts. It took Herculean restraint to only buy one t-shirt on my last trip, especially considering I was alone and had no wallet monitor watching. (yes, I did buy a sweatshirt that cost almost twice what a tee would have, but shh! That was out of necessity! It got COLD!)

The problem I have in more recent years is that, well, I'm something of a man of stature. Or, to put it more succinctly, I'm kind of a fat ass. And most of the gift shops on property seem to have only a minimal selection of XXL and almost no XXXL. I tend to land somewhere right in the middle, size-wise. It's worse with Disney Park shirts because, surprise, they shrink like ya read about. I don't care if you wash them in ice water and hang them to dry in a vacuum sealed room. So while I can easily throw on a 2X the day of purchase, come the first wash, that baby's gonna be doll clothing. (Disney Merchandising, please take note.) Okay, so maybe that's a little extreme. But there's a good chance after just a couple wears, my tummy's gonna show like Winnie the Pooh. I might as well buy all my shirts in red.
Point is, I'm much more comfortable with the 3X given the coin I'm dropping. And they are hard to find.
Although a friend did tip me off to a piece of advice I hadn't considered. If you're looking for bigger sizes, try to gift shop in the Grand Floridian. It caters to the richer (and fatter) guests! Brilliant!

So I had to share this little blurb from the Disney Parks Blog that caught my eye. There are new shirts popping up around Epcot, and they all look awesome!!!

"We wanted to add an element of fun to the World Showcase shirt assortment,” said Sylvie Brumbaugh, product developer for World Showcase. When you see these new tees, I think you'll agree . . . mission accomplished! This new line features World Showcase at Epcot. Some are funny and feature characters or recognizable park icons. Others are more classic and artistic.

Check out a few . . .



You can read the full story and see a few other here:
http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2011/12/shirts-showcase-the-world-at-epcot/

I better start saving now and get an extra suitcase to take along on my next visit, just for new t-shirts.