Review: WDW Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto Holidays ’17 Tiki Mugs

For today’s review, I wanted to share a closer look at two pieces I recently acquired from Walt Disney World’s Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto, a tiki-themed bar located at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort. Named after the famous Jungle Cruise Headhunter, the bar is known for great laughs, wonderfully themed drinks, and fun collectible drinkware. In addition to it’s normal staple of glasses, including an oversized oyster pearl, the Nautilus, and a shrunken head, occasionally around the holidays there will be a special release (that are normally very popular). For the 2017 Holiday Season, two tiki mugs were released: a red-colored version of the Hitchhiking Ghosts Tiki Mug came out around Halloween, and a Christmas Elephant Tiki Mug came out around Christmas. Let’s take a closer look.

Now, the Hitchhiking Ghosts series of tiki mugs are VERY popular. This design is shared between WDW’s Grog Grotto and the original sister location, Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar, in Disneyland. In 2016 and 2017, each location got a special color: blue or black in 2016 and red or green in 2017. Now, people wait for HOURS to try and obtain one… and my friend Josh was kind enough to brave the crowds during the first week of release to get me one, which I finally picked up from him when I was down in WDW last month. I am so happy he was able to help me out, because this piece is beautiful.

When it was announced that for the Christmas season for 2017, Grog Grotto would be getting a special design featuring two elephants wrapped in Christmas lights. While the design looked fun, I wasn’t needing it enough to get a friend to go get one for me.

However, once I saw the design in person last month (I was shocked it was still in stock when I visited weeks after the holidays ended), I picked it up because it looked great. how cute are those elephants? And I love how the entire mug is wrapped with the lights.

Overall, these two pieces are great additions to my ever growing WDW drinkware collection, currently consisting mainly of the Starbucks “You Are Here” WDW Collection. Slowly the tiki mugs are making an appearance, and i am sure I will be adding more each trip I am there.