Vinylmation Review - Kingdom of Cute

The Kingdom of Cute Vinylmation series was released back in and while it's more Disneyland focused and uses unique molds for each figure, I like it. It's not a favorite series of mine, and I'm not sure that I'll be picking any up because it's based on Disneyland, but I am super happy to see more park themed released. Plus these are super cute designs!

I'm surprised to see 12 figures in this series (plus three variants) because more recently series have included only 8 Vinylmation. I think 12 works here and is the farthest thing from overkill. There are so many great figures here, having 12 I think gives you a better shot at what you want.

Things to love about this series:

• It's retro - I personally love the retro feel of this set. I'm all about anything retro and this works really well in my opinion. There's a feeling of nostalgia here but several of the figures are still current offering at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, such as Space Mountain
• It's cute - The designs are cute juts like the box says! I'm not always a fan of cutesy things but these really work and truly are cute. Who knew you could do that with a gargoyle? 
• Great mix of figures - I love that this set includes attractions (Haunted Mansion, Mad Tea Party), icons (Sleepy Beauty's Castle, the Sword in the Stone) and snacks (Corn Dog, Dole Whip). It's a well balanced collection of many must-have and must-do things at the parks
• New figures - Sometimes repeats of figures are justified, but not all the time. It's great to see figures in this set that haven't been seen in Vinylmation form before, like the Sword in the Stone, Sleeping Beauty's Castle and the Mint Julep, among others
• Fantastic Chaser - The Chaser in this series is perfect! So well designed, and a popular and worthy figure to chase
• The Variants - There are 3 variants in this series (see them here, here and here) so if you're big into collecting variants, you have your work cut out for you! I personally think the last two are unnecessary but I'm not familiar with those attractions at Disneyland so there could be a good reason for those. The Dole Whip variant however makes total sense and is a great idea for a variant! Many people swirl (including me) that it makes a very worthy variant

Things that aren't so great:

• As a veteran of Walt Disney World, I would find this set a lot more appealing if it were geared toward WDW as opposed to Disneyland. There is some overlap for sure: Space Mountain, the Haunted Mansion, Popcorn, Dole Whip and The Jungle Cruise, but that's not enough for me to blind box these figures with only half the set appealing to me. The Mad Tea Party does not look like Magic Kingdom's version, nor does the Skyway, so those are out. 
• The price - at $18.99 a blind box, I have even more reason not to gamble with my money by blind boxing these figures. I know Park Starz are that price but they seem to be much higher quality figures, and they come in fancier presentation boxes. These figures are sold in regular paper boxes like 3" Mickey mold figures. I know the Mickey Cartoon series also retails at $18.99 so perhaps that will always be the Vinylmation price point from here on out, but I think that's steep for both series. The former price of $12.95 per box was much more reasonable.