Welcome friends
We are Luis & Nicole, the owners and the ONLY Disney personal shoppers for @shopminniemart. @shopminniemart started as a service for only family and friends in 2020. In January 2021, thanks to the support of our growing Disney community on Instagram, @shopminniemart became a registered LLC business in the state of Florida.
Our Story
In July 2020, shortly after our wedding in Long Island, New York, we moved from Houston, Texas to be closer to the Most Magical Place on Earth (really close, only 15 minutes away). Unfortunately, we moved at the worst possible time. At that time, Walt Disney World Annual Passes were not being sold, and so we got creative… we toured Walt Disney World for FREE. I bet you didn’t know that was even possible! Well, it is! We wouldn’t be able to get into the parks for free of course, but we would site see and window shop all the stores in Disney Springs, and travel (using Disney transportation!) to visit all the 15+ resorts on Disney World property. Did you know Disney World is the size of San Francisco? There is plenty of exploring you can do, without spending a dime. Each resort is uniquely themed and offers a lot, not only for its overnight guests, but for all its visitors (day guests included!).
During this time, we enjoyed trying the different cuisines available to us at the handful of sit down restaurants that were slowly reopening on property (due to the COVID-19 shutdown). We deemed Friday evenings as “Disney date night” and would explore a new Disney dining experience each Friday. Did we mention we love desserts… especially the ones from Disney? If we weren’t eating dinner at Walt Disney World, we would be trying a new sweet treat from a quick service restaurant. We quickly learned how to navigate and do Disney World the “local” way!
In October 2020, a friend of ours in New York pointed her Disney-loving friend in our direction. That friend couldn’t make it to Walt Disney World, and wanted to know if we could help pick up and ship some items to her. We did not disappoint, and quickly made a shopping list of all the items she wanted (today this shopping list is known by our customers as a “wishlist”). We then headed over to Disney Springs, and a few Disney resort gift shops, and picked up all the items on her list. We didn’t really know what to charge her, as she was our very first customer. Once we figured out a fair price for our time spent shopping, packing and shipping supplies, etc., we sent her an invoice. We eagerly waited, refreshing our phone, until we received a notification that we received a payment. How did we celebrate that evening? By officially creating a Facebook and an Instagram. That evening in October marked the birth of @shopminniemart.
The idea
We lived in Houston, Texas for 5 years before moving to the magic. During our time there, scrolling around Facebook, I came across a pair of Mickey overalls (pictured above) that I NEEDED. I hopped on shopdisney.com to search for them, and I could not find them. I then headed over to a Facebook Disney group, and asked if anyone knew how I could purchase those overalls that were currently on property (but not featured on shopDisney) and someone commented “hire a Disney personal shopper.” At that very moment, it sent me down a deep, dark, rabbit hole researching online “what is a Disney personal shopper?” I was so intrigued about this topic, that I couldn’t stop. At this moment, becoming a Disney personal shopper became an idea for a dream job… that I quickly snapped myself back into reality from, because that was never going to happen… right?! So, did I hire a Disney personal shopper to get me the overalls? No, there were a number of articles, forums, reviews, and comment sections of “Disney personal shoppers” that I read, that really turned me off the idea of hiring one. I knew if I ever landed my dream job, and became a personal shopper, that I would take all the research I did that day, and all the “negative” feedback from it, and provide THE MOST MAGICAL SHOPPING EXPERIENCE ON EARTH.