Hey! Can I ask what personal shopper you used for the HM sweater? There's still no official date (that I know of) for when the anniversary merch is going to be available on the Disney store site. And I don't even know if it will be everything that's available in the parks.
Oh my gosh I'm really glad you asked me this. I had a video that I was going to publish but I have not had any time this past week to edit it or upload it or anything :(.
Okay, so initially I looked into buying it from a personal shopper, this person in particular has a really good reputation. Even better, she's the go-to person for HM stuff because she's near Disneyland, where all the anniversary merch is popping up. However, she was charging me about $71 for a sweater that only costs around $50. The markup seemed a bit steep so I explored other options. I stumbled across a Disney hotline, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Merchandise Guest Services at 1-877-560-6477. They are based in Orlando, though, so if you want to check if something in Disneyland (Anaheim) is in stock, you have to wait until 12noon EST for that park's hours to start up. With shipping, I only ended up paying about $58 or so for the sweater, which was well-worth it to me since this 45th Anniversary stuff is likely to be limited edition!
Your best bet is to have a clear picture of the item you want, call and describe it to them, and you can find out if it's in stock. However, they warn you even before you give them your card member, it may not ship based on the inventory they have at the time. If it's no longer in stock they will contact you ASAP (usually in a matter of days) and there will be no charge to your card. But if you do luck out and it is in stock, then the charge will show up on your card as soon as it ships. It took about 5 days for the charge to show up on my card, and then another 3-5 days to ship.
If you're worried about whether an item is in stock, or if you're not comfortable with taking the risk with Disney's weird shipping/charging methods, then the Personal Shopper will take care of your request in a matter of days (given that it's in stock, of course). The hotline warned me that my requested item (the Haunted Mansion sweater) was low in stock, so I really lucked out in that sense. With the personal shopper, you're paying a little more, but you're paying more for that guaranteed item. So the choice is yours!
I hope this makes sense!! If you have any questions or if you're confused please feel free to bug me, lol. That goes for anyone who reads this.
