One of the Disney Character Warehouse clearance centers, which is an outlet store where Walt Disney World and DCL ship unsold merchandise to unload it at deep discounts, is going out of business soon. Here are details about the permanent closure of the Sunrise, Florida store located at the Sawgrass Mills Outlet Mall.
As basic background, there are three Disney Character Warehouse shops in Florida. Two of these are a short Uber or Lyft ride from Walt Disney World. One is on International Drive (4951 International Drive Suite 95, Orlando, FL 32819) and the other is on Vineland (8200 Vineland Avenue Suite 1252, Orlando, FL 32821). The Vineland location is closer to Walt Disney World, whereas the I-Drive location is closer to Universal Orlando Resort.
The third and final Florida Disney Character Warehouse is in Sunrise, Florida (12801 W. Sunrise Blvd., Sunrise, FL 33323) at the Sawgrass Mills Outlet Mall. This one is in South Florida, near Miami and Fort Lauderdale. You’ll need to take the Brightline from Orlando International Airport to access it from Central Florida (or drive, obviously). It’s even closer to the Port Everglades Disney Cruise Line terminal.
We were right there for a recent cruise aboard the Disney Destiny (and even had a rental car!), but honestly, I totally forgot at the time that Disney Character Warehouse had a location in Sunrise. Now I’m regretting that, as reports have emerged that the Sawgrass Mills location is permanently closing. I’ve never been, and have always been curious about how it differs from the two Central Florida stores.
Anyway, regular customers and Cast Members are both sharing reports that the Disney Character Warehouse in Sunrise will permanently close in two months. Here’s the latest…
According to Cast Member chatter, Disney has elected not to renew their lease with Simon at the Sawgrass Mills Outlet Mall. Per these Cast Members, the Disney Character Warehouse in Sunrise, Florida will close on April 15, 2026.
There’s a lot of speculation about the reasons for this online, but we’ll start with the most likely explanation, in our view.
Money. This is obvious, right? But we’re seeing a lot of speculation about the closure that, oddly, focuses on other things. Sometimes even pointing to things that are basically the opposite of money to explain the closure.
The bottom line, though, is that commercial leases are expensive and many companies have made the business decision to close brick & mortar locations. Even relatively high-performing ones. It could be a matter of Simon increasing rent, Disney not wanting to be locked into that location for another X years, realizing that they don’t need outlets outside of Central Florida, or even not wanting physical storefronts at all in the future.
Here, there’s the unique wrinkle that Saks Global Enterprises, the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, announced that it will now close its many of its outlet stores amid its Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Saks say they made the “strategic decision” to close the majority of Saks OFF 5TH retail locations and all remaining Neiman Marcus Last Call stores.
One such Neiman Marcus Last Call is one of the anchor tenants right by Disney Character Warehouse in Sawgrass Mills. So right away, that’s a major loss of foot traffic to the store, which is already tucked away on a far end of the outlet.
Other alleged reasons for the Disney Character Warehouse closure include an influx of resellers, personal shoppers, live streamers, and the distance from Walt Disney World.
This is where the supposed “explanations” for the closure lose me. Don’t get me wrong, I hate eBay piracy just as much as anyone. But this sounds very much like projection. People really need to get better about conflating “this thing I don’t like sucks” with “this thing I don’t like is objectively bad for business.” They are not the same statement.
If you’ve never experienced the eBay pirates pillaging and plundering at Disney Character Warehouse, how unpleasant it is cannot be overstated. I’d rather watch back to back showings of Beauty and the Beast: Sing-Along than visit the outlet on the mornings (it’s always the mornings) when these buccaneers are battling for booty. These eBay pirates are rude, aggressive, act entitled, and seemingly love to embrace their role as villains. It’s easy to see why so many fans hate them. I hate them!
However, as we’ve discussed previously, Disney tolerates eBay pirates precisely because they are good for business. Disney’s end game with Character Warehouse is unloading unsold merchandise. They don’t care how. Liquidating thousands of dollars worth of junk to an eBay pirate in a single transaction is more efficient than someone like me perusing the aisles for 30 minutes before buying $40 worth of heirlooms.
It’s a similar story in the parks with “collectible” popcorn buckets or whatever. The company could tighten up policies if they viewed resellers as a legitimate problem. For the most part, they don’t…so they haven’t.
There have been a few exceptions to this, such as when supply chain shortages were causing issues with empty shelves. Or when there was a crackdown on resellers using their AP discount to buy product in bulk.
To this point, the Disney Character Warehouse retail stores just instituted a stricter new return policy as to deter resellers.
As of February 2026, all sales at Disney Character Warehouse and Cast Connection are final, meaning nothing can be returned for refunds or exchanged. All sales are final and as-is, with no exceptions.
This new return policy actually is the direct result of resellers, who would exploit the previous policy by purchasing stuff speculatively, relisting it on eBay, and then returning unsold inventory to the outlet. This was savvy of the swashbucklers, as it reduced their risk. It also created extra work for Disney in processing the returns, managing inventory, etc.
And that is why the policy changed; because eBayers stopped being an efficient means for liquidating merchandise. Not because Disney suddenly hates pirates and is cracking down on them. The relationship is still very much a symbiotic one, Disney just wants to dictate the terms so it stays that way.
Honestly, I’m surprised the Disney Character Warehouse clearance centers still exist at all. It seems like the writing is on the wall, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the two Walt Disney World area locations close whenever their leases end.
For starters, there’s the bigger picture about brick and mortar shopping. Although malls are seeing a renaissance, this isn’t across the board. Outlets have struggled to recover in the last couple of years, and I’d assume this has worsened recently due to a drop in international travel.
At the same time, inbound visitor numbers for Orlando are booming, so I’m not sure whether this applies to those two outlet malls. It doesn’t really matter either way, though, as Disney doesn’t need Character Warehouse even if sales are strong.
This is because there’s the reality that Disney could cut out the middleman, reduce overhead, and have its own online outlet. As a certified dealhound, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought something on eBay that is via a company’s official outlet or a sanctioned third-party liquidator. On deal forums, this dynamic is well-documented, and users know precisely which (seemingly random) stores are the legit.
Even if Disney Character Warehouse is still getting plenty of foot traffic (and based on my experiences, it very much is), online outlets are cheaper and more efficient. There’s no lease for a storefront, staffing and other expenses are lower, and the global customer-base is exponentially larger than the Central Florida one. This is precisely why eBay pirates are able to achieve their markup–because they are reaching a wider audience, selling for actual free market rates.
I’d also add that the optics of eBay pirates are bad for Disney. Even if they’re good for business, I’ve been somewhat surprised that Disney hasn’t cracked down more on pirates. Photos of pirates inevitably make waves on social media whenever a new collectible is released, and there’s always outrage among fans. I guess Disney sees that most fans blame the pirates instead of the company for condoning it, so it’s allowed to persist. But the bottom line is that Disney could put an end to eBay piracy overnight.
On a positive note, Disney Character Warehouse does not have the same issue as other “factory stores” that actually sell lower-quality items that are made specifically for the outlets. This has become a common practice in the last decade or so, and is another reason we dislike the outlet mall experience.
As more outlet stores have been built, it’s simply not possible for them all to carry overstock or past-season items. Instead, they’ve adopted the lower-quality factory store strategy to offer illusory discounts. In reality, you are paying less, but you’re also getting less. We share this here because many people may be unfamiliar with this paradigm shift at outlets, and as a blog heavily focused on saving money and getting deals, we think it’s pertinent.
This is to say that something you buy from the Banana Republic Factory Store, for example, was never sold in a retail Banana Republic, and is more like Old Navy-quality. Most stores, from fast fashion to luxury designers, are all playing this same game. If you’re buying for the status symbol or having a label emblazoned on something, outlets are fine (I guess?), but if you’re buying for quality, they’re generally awful.
Ultimately, that’s why we haven’t been to the Disney Character Warehouse outlet in a while. We used to go at least monthly, and weekly for a while back when we first lived in Florida. I even wrote monthly outlet reports! But it just stopped being fun thanks to the proliferation of eBay pirates and livestreamers. Selection became more hit or miss, and the store itself was more of a hassle.
Disney Character Warehouse is just unpleasant and not worth it much of the time. I’d happily pay ~20% more via an online outlet operated or sanctioned by Disney. (I have not, and will not, support pirates on principle.) It would be worth the premium pricing just to save the time and expense of visiting the Orlando outlet malls. It would also give more fans a chance at purchasing unsold inventory without the excessive markup. Feels like the everyone wins outcome, except for the pirates, but I assume we’re all fine with that.
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Your Thoughts
What do you think of the permanent closure of Disney Character Warehouse at the Sawgrass Mills Outlet Mall? Have you ever gone to the one of these clearance centers? What have your experiences been with eBayers, lines, virtual queue wait times, or souvenir selection at the stores? Find anything good, or did you think it was a waste of time? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
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