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I took my Pal Mickey back to the Walt Disney World Resort this autumn to see if he would still function correctly. I bought the 3.0 version of the toy in February 2008 and had a great time wandering the four parks looking for places where Mickey would interact with us. I have seen some of the discussion boards where people say that Pal Mickey is annoying and not helpful, but I found him to be a fun extra.

I read in Disney’s Pal Mickey discontinuation notice and on the discussion boards that Pal Mickeys still work in the parks, so I packed mine up in my carry-on on our 2009 trip to the Animal Kingdom Lodge.

I didn’t find any new places where Pal Mickey worked, he didn’t seem to have anything to say at the AKL, he didn’t contribute to our shopping in Downtown. He did work as before in the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Animal Kingdom. We didn’t go to Hollywood Studios this trip and I’ve never taken him to the water parks. I imagine all he would do at Blizzard Beach is worry about getting wet, much in the same way he does near Splash Mountain.

I was surprised to hear him tell new jokes after going into the Magic Kingdom. In February ‘08 he was stuck on the camping themed jokes (Hot Dog and Sleeping Bag) but this trip he had a few new ones. Perhaps we hadn’t heard them before, but that’s unlikely since he’s been hugged and squeezed by me and my three kids thousands of times.

He spent a long time resting after leaving Epcot and I had to reset him (power off, count to 10, power on) a couple of times in the Magic Kingdom. I don’t recall having to reboot Mickey the first time we used him in the parks. Apart from the occasional reset, he worked as well as he did on our first trip. I was quite glad to have him along, telling trivia about the windows on Main Street and complaining that the pirates had called him a bilge rat.

There are no accessories for him in any of the stores anywhere in the Walt Disney World Resort. I asked on Main Street and at World of Disney and no one had anything left. Some cast members commented on him saying things like, “put him away, he’s a collector’s item now“ and ”wow a Pal Mickey, those are so cool!“

I’m not sure if I will put him away or take him with me on the next trip. I’d like to see if he is really learning new jokes or if he’s just holding back things until he gets a signal from some computer at the resort.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 11:43 AM and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.