Fellow Floridian Transformers fans, I request a moment of your time to walk with me down memory lane for a bit.
Located in the Marketplace area of Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) is a large four-room toy store named Once Upon a Toy. For over a decade, going as far back as at least the Beast Era (at the very least, Beast Machines), this store contained a multitude of Hasbro-owned products for sale within the store's largest room, Transformers among them.
The Transformers section was usually a sight to behold for any young TF fan looking to get something new for his/her Transformers collection (albeit, at Disney's slightly-higher-than-retail prices, but I digress), and was the one mass retail store, to my knowledge, that carried Transformers exclusives belonging to Walmart, Target, Toys'R'Us, KB Toys, Kmart, etc. all in one location.
I myself hav rather fond memories of perusing through and purchasing from Once Upon a Toy's Transformers section, recalling rather vividly memories of seeing items from all of the following toylines in the section over the years:
- Beast Machines
- Robots in Disguise (2001)
- Armada, Heroes of Cybertron, and Commemorative Series
- Energon and Universe (2003)
- Cybertron
- Movie 1
- Animated and Universe (2008)
- Revenge of the Fallen
After this point, me and my family stopped going to the park (and thus, the store) as often as we used to. I do, however, recall visiting the store again at a point when they were selling Age of Extinction toys, but alas, just like all of the normal retail stores, Once Upon a Toy was likewise swamped with virtually nothing but the simplistic, gimmicky AOE toys (i.e. - Power Battlers, 1-Step Changers, etc.) instead of the normal figures.
But to finally get to the point of all my reminiscing about the history of Once Upon a Toy's TF section, I must report some sad news.
Awhile back, this year, I made a trek over to Disney Springs, my first visit in a few years, and saw just how much the whole place had changed since. Entire new areas and attractions had since been constructed, with several renovations having also been made to preexisting attractions (i.e. - the Lego Imagination Center was given a near-complete overhaul in its design). Once Upon a Toy was also one of these renovated attractions, but the store hadn't changed too much in its construction (only one of its four rooms had been turned into a completely different, separate store, while the other three rooms remained intact). Sadly, though, the main room had undergone a different kind of change.
As I mentioned before, this room had historically served as a retail haven for all kinds of Hasbro -made products. Unfortunately, that history is now all in the the past. Gone from this room was not only the Transformers toy section, but EVERYTHING! Save for one solitary remaining toyline: Star Wars. The entirety of the store's main room had become completely overtaken by and devoted to the Star Wars toyline. Wall to wall, shelf by shelf, lines with nothing but Star Wars toys and memorabilia. All despite the fact that Disney Springs also has a completely separate Star Wars store located in its West Side.
For those wondering, since the main room of the store is now nothing but Star Wars, what's in the other two rooms? Well, the first room features, and always has featured, younger-age mainstream Disney character products like plush toys stuff one would typically find at a mall Disney Store. The second room, which is the smallest, now features Marvel stuff.
But in the long run, the store that was once known for its great selection of Transformers toys is no longer in that ballpark. Rest in Peace, Once Upon a Toy's Transformers section. You had a fantastic run, but left us too soon.
