The Disney Store in New York City has moved and the new location, in Times Square, will open in the Fall of this year.
It has been said that the store will be unlike any other Disney Store out there right now – with a children’s theater inside and an interactive Disney Princess castle.
There will also be an area in the new location specifically for celebrity appearances.
However, one thing that the Walt Disney Company has not made room for in the new Disney Store is its previous employees.
A source has revealed to DisneyDreaming.com that employees of the old Disney Store location in New York were let go and told that they would not be re-hired when the new Disney Store location opens up.
But why?
The only thing we can think of is perhaps this new Disney Store is going to be so different from other Disney Stores that it would be more cost effective for the Walt Disney Company to train all new employees about the new store and how it should run than to re-train the old employees.
Still…that’s a bit harsh, would you agree?
For one thing…it wasn’t a Disney Store that closed..it was World of Disney which had Disney Parks merch. not Disney Store merch. and all the cast members there were considered Disney World employees. Aside from that, a good amount of those cast members have moved on and transfered to other places in the company.
Essentially what Brian said. It wasn’t a Disney Store (all of the Disney Stores in Manhattan had closed long before, even before TCS took over), so it operated under Disney Parks and Resorts. TDS operates under Disney Consumer Products, so other than the name and conceptual theme, the two have little in common.
But other than that, given that the store closed at the end of December and the new Disney Store won’t be opening until late this year, almost a year later, did you expect Disney to pay everyone full salary for nearly a year to do nothing? Or did you expect the WoD Cast Members to simply do nothing until the new store opens?
Plus the numbers probably won’t match up either given that the new TDS is about 2/3 the size of the WoD. I’m sure if a former WoD Cast Member were to apply for TDS, it wouldn’t be counted against them.