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Our visit to ThinkGeek’s first bricks-and-mortar store in Orlando (with 77 photos taken by Yours Truly)

01 thinkgeek store exterior with joey

The Missus and I had already scheduled a trip to to catch the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival (a.k.a. “Drinking Around the World”) and the three-hour Wild Africa Trek at Animal Kingdom when we heard that the opening of the very first bricks-and-mortar ThinkGeek store would be opening in nearby Orlando that same weekend. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity, so we made a little detour on the way home to check it out.

magic kingdom to thinkgeek store

Click the image to get the Google Maps directions from the Magic Kingdom to the ThinkGeek Store.

The ThinkGeek Store is in Orlando’s Florida Mall, right next door to the JCPenny anchor store. After she got my picture in front of the Promised Land, I took this one of Anitra:

02 thinkgeek store exterior with anitra

The store had its grand opening on Thursday night, and we showed up Sunday evening, expecting the place to have been picked clean…

thinkgeek store - opening night

Opening night at the ThinkGeek Store (photo from Orlando’s MyNews 13).

…but there was geeky stuff aplenty when we showed up.

03 thinkgeek store exterior - anitra and rocket

We also had to get shots of ourselves with Rocket Raccoon (his official name in the comics; he’s just “Rocket” in the movies)…

04 thinkgeek store exterior - joey and rocket

Visitors to the store will be greeted by a lot of metal. First, by the Terminator:

05 thinkgeek store - terminator genisys head

06 thinkgeek store - terminator genisys body

…and then by the Iron Man Mark 43 armor from The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

07 thinkgeek store from front with iron man

This little decorative piece can be yours for the low, low price of $10,000!

08 thinkgeek store - anitra and iron man

09 thinkgeek store - joey and iron man

Here’s what the store looks like once you get past the displays at the front:

10 thinkgeek store - from front

…and here’s the view from the back, looking towards the entrance.

11 thinkgeek store - from back

The cashier is located in the center of the store:

12 thinkgeek store - from middle

Here’s Anitra checking out all the geeky goodness:

13 thinkgeek store - from middle

There’s a wall of stuff just for the Star Wars fans:

14 thinkgeek store - star wars wall

…with a fair bit of stuff in a closed display case:

15 thinkgeek store - star wars display case

…and a whole lotta cheaper stuff that you can get your nerdy little mitts on immediately:

15 thinkgeek store - star wars wall

I’m told that they’re not lunchboxes, they’re collectors’ cases:

16 thinkgeek store - star wars lunchboxes and mugs

I love the mugs featuring characters and themes from the upcoming movie. I’d have gotten the BB-8 one if I didn’t already have too many mugs:

17 thinkgeek store - bb8 and first order mugs

No bar is complete without one of these:

18 thinkgeek store - star wars bottle openers

I love this self-stirring mug. Why stir your mug with a spoon like a chump when you can use THE FORCE?

19 thinkgeek store - force mug

There’s all manner of decorative Star Wars goodies from the immediately recognizable:

20 thinkgeek store - stormtrooper helmet

…to those that might be obscure to the casual movie-watcher (that’s not just a Wampa head, but an entire rug):

21 thinkgeek store - wampa rug

And of course, there are plenty of posters:

22 thinkgeek store - boba fett poster

They have a pile of the new BB-8 droids by Sphero. It sells for $150:

23 thinkgeek store - sphero bb-8

Or, if you’d rather spend that $150 on something else, how about new bad guy Kylo Ren’s lightsaber?

24 thinkgeek store - kylo ren lightsaber

I used to work at Microsoft, so I know what it feels like to have the Dark Side flow through me:

25 thinkgeek store - joey and kylo ren lightsaber

The back right wall is dedicated to videogame trinkets and memorabilia:

26 thinkgeek store - video games wall

27 thinkgeek store - video games wall 2

I’ve played many of the Call of Duty games, but had no idea that there were toys — er, action figures — for the franchise:

28 thinkgeek store - call of duty

My nephews would be all over the Minecraft section of the store:

29 thinkgeek store - minecraft

The back wall is dedicated to t-shirts and hats:

30 thinkgeek store - t-shirts and hats wall

The hat’s cute, but I get the feeling that if I wore this while passing too close to a school zone, I’d find myself in the back of a police car in very short order:

31 thinkgeek store - joey in pikachu hat

Cosplay meets roleplay meets mental images you’ll never cleanse in the lingerie section:

32 thinkgeek store - lingerie wall

Who knew there was this much geek underwear?

33 thinkgeek store - underwear rack

For the man who likes both lounging and Mortal Kombat, I give you the Scorpion bathrobe:

34 thinkgeek store - scorpion bathrobe

Ironic Hallowee’n costume, or cry for help?It’s your call with these adult-size Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles footy pajamas:

35 thinkgeek store - tmnt footy pajamas

You can pamper your feet at home with these adorable unicorn slippers…

36 thinkgeek store - unicorn slippers

…or if you’re more of a Walking Dead fan, these zombie slippers:

37 thinkgeek store - zombie slippers

For all you sexy bronies (a contradiction in terms, I think), here are the DJ Pone-3 glow-in-the-dark boxers:

38 thinkgeek store - dj pon-e boxers

There’s lots of stuff for the TV show fans as well…

39 thinkgeek store - tv wall

…including a whole shelf devoted to Adventure Time:

40 thinkgeek store - adventure time

The middle left wall is devoted to posters and paintings:

41 thinkgeek store - poster wall

…and the back left wall is taken up by a lot — and I mean a lot — of Pop! Vinyl figures:

42 thinkgeek store - vinyl figure wall

The front right wall is for the comics fans:

43 thinkgeek store - comic wall

No fan shop is complete without figurines:

44 thinkgeek store - figurine wall

Lots and lots and lots of figurines:

45 thinkgeek store - figurines

46 thinkgeek store - figurines

47 thinkgeek store - figurines

48 thinkgeek store - figurines

And don’t worry, card games and traders, you haven’t been left out:

49 thinkgeek store - trading card wall

50 thinkgeek store - pokemon cards

There’s a shelf for belts, suspenders, lanyards, and even guitar straps. Where was the Captain America guitar strap when I was an active keytar player?

51 thinkgeek store - belts straps and lanyards

Geeks carry lots of stuff, and stuff calls for bags. Luckily, the ThinkGeek store has plenty of them!

52 thinkgeek store - bags

ThinkGeek’s own Bag of Holding looks like it’ll hold most laptops and tablets, or gaming accessories.The fuzzy front is designed to accommodate all sorts of velcro badges:

53 thinkgeek store - bag of holding

Marvel fans will appreciate the Captain America and Rocket Raccoon knapsacks:

54 thinkgeek store - rocket and captain america bags

Are you old school? How about this Nintendo Game Boy-themed pack?

55 thinkgeek store - game boy bag

Are you really old school? Then this Star Trek-themed one’s for you:

56 thinkgeek store - enterprise bag

Are you new school? Then you want a Minecraft creeper bag:

57 thinkgeek store - creeper bag

And for you styling ladies, this 8-bit purse might be just what you’re looking for:

58 thinkgeek store - 8-bit purse

There’s a shelf for your bronies:

59 thinkgeek store - brony shelf

The Missus informs me that becoming a brony is grounds for divorce:

60 thinkgeek store - brony monopoly

Sci-fi and Asian food practically go hand-in-hand, hence these Darth Vader lightsaber chopsticks:

61 thinkgeek store - star wars chopsticks

If Star Trek is more your thing, how about this U.S.S. enterprise sushi set, with the saucer section acting as the soy sauce dish?

62 thinkgeek store - uss enterprise sushi set

Of course there are replica props! Here’s a great phaser from Star Trek: The Original Series:

63 thinkgeek store - phaser replica

…and for the Whovians, a sonic screwdriver, with integrated sound generator and lights:

64 thinkgeek store - sonic screwdriver

I want this bad boy: a “Han Solo frozen in carbonite” fridge!

65 thinkgeek store - han solo fridge

Again, for the Trek fans, a Borg cube fridge:

66 thinkgeek store - borg cube fridge

For the Assassin’s Creed fans, the “stabby gauntlet” !

67 thinkgeek store - joey and assassins creed gauntlet

Here’s Anitra and store guy Kenneth demonstrating why the “stabby gauntlet” should be used only for killing and not for giving out high-fives:

68 thinkgeek store - anitra and assassins creed gauntlet

There’s lots of quick-gifty stuff on the shelves near the front:

69 thinkgeek store - shelf near front

This one’s one of my favorite impulse buy items:

70 thinkgeek store - shark laser pointer

Saturday was Batman day, and the ThinkGeek Store has Batman paraphernalia aplenty, from the batarang…

71 thinkgeek store - batarang

…to the Batman tie…

72 thinkgeek store - batman tie

…to the leather utility belt. Whether you’re a Batman fan or wanted to live in Rob Liefield’s World of Pouches, if you have three hundred bucks burning a hole in your pocket, this one’s for you!

73 thinkgeek store - batman utility belt

Here’s another one of my favorite impulse buy items:

74 thinkgeek store - unicorn meat

And of course, there are stickers:

75 thinkgeek store - stickers

Let’s hope the ThinkGeek Store does exactly this:

76 thinkgeek store - live long and prosper sticker

For me, the ThinkGeek store is perfectly situated: close enough that I can get there by driving, but not so close that I’d be there all the time:

carrollwood to thinkgeek store

Click the image to get the Google Maps directions from my neck of the woods to the ThinkGeek Store.

If the photos above aren’t enough, here’s a video that the people at Attractions Magazine shot of the store last week:

4 replies on “Our visit to ThinkGeek’s first bricks-and-mortar store in Orlando (with 77 photos taken by Yours Truly)”

One caveat: Sphero had nothing to do with creating BB-8 other than making the toy version and selling a big pile of PR BS that they had something to do with the model used in the movies. BB-8 (the one in the movies) was solely the creation of the creature shop for the movie. Sphero just happened to partner up with Disney, got a sneak peak, and realized how they could take their ball-bot and turn it into a reasonable BB-8 toy in time for the Xmas shopping season.

[…] to the city next door, where I’ve honeymooned, Disneyed, taken my sweetie for her birthday, geeked out, and done fun stuff in the place that’s all about doing fun […]

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