Well, apparently in a couple hours Virgin Megastore Orlando will close its doors for good. For those unaware earlier this year all the remaining Virgin Megastores in the US are scheduled to be closed before the end of summer. Initially slated to close at the end of May, due to strict regulations from Disney and a declining amount of foot traffic at some point early closure was decided upon. I entered the store today on a whim, while waiting for the next showing of Star Trek, and was surprised to hear about the early closure. Initially excited I continued to discover that there were no real bargains in the store; another side effect of Disney’s strict regulations. I saw some clearance signs in the store, but the deals were imaginary.



For example, the iPods were marked at 5% off. The iPod shuffle, regularly priced $49.99, was priced at $59.99. This trend continued into the other various departments. As for the amount of inventory in the store according to a number of the remaining employees the majority was shipped out via truck. A liquidation failure in my opinion.

As I was beginning to exit the store it began to hail. Yes, I said hail. Here is my photographic proof. Resolution isn’t too great since it was taken on my cell phone.





As I waited for the hail, and afterwards rain, to subside I thought briefly on the history of this particular store. My first visit to Virgin Megastore Orlando was back in the late 90’s and I was quite amazed with the setup. I was much younger at the time, but a 49,000 square foot store with a large selection of CD’s, VHS tapes, DVD’s, and video games was in a word: amazing. One could find pretty much all their entertainment needs there, or even just a nice place to hang out until their movie started at the adjacent AMC theatre. This description held even when I returned to the store many years later to take a seasonal job, which led to couple years of employment there. The concept of the store I think was phenomenal. Basically I one stop shop where you could find something to entertain yourself regardless of whether it was a CD, book, movie, video game or even clothing. However, there were some big fallacies that could not be overcome; the biggest being in my opinion price. Except for their long running $10 sale the majority of things were just overpriced. $18.99 for a CD? Unless it is something extremely difficult to find then your better off heading to Wal-Mart, Best Buy, or purchasing it online through Amazon on iTunes. Its a shame such a cool store had to close, but it is way past its prime. I guess the next time I go see a movie at Downtown Disney I'll have be sure to bring my or .