Build Your Dream Bear! Build-A-Bear Reveals New Experiences Coming to ICON Park

There is something rather special about building your first Build-A-Bear.

Choosing your new furry friend is only the beginning. There is the stuffing, the Heart Ceremony, picking out the perfect outfit and, eventually, walking out carrying that unmistakable Cub Condo with a new friend tucked safely inside.

But what if you could actually design the bear too?

Build-A-Bear Workshop is taking its signature experience to an entirely new level this November with the opening of its largest and most ambitious location yet at ICON Park in Orlando. Spanning three stories, the new Workshop will introduce several concepts that can’t be found at other Build-A-Bear locations, including the first-ever Build-A-Bear Design Studio, an interactive Bakeshop and even more ways to personalize furry friends.

And suddenly our next trip to Orlando just became a little more cuddly.

The biggest addition might be the Build-A-Bear Design Studio, a first-of-its-kind, appointment-only experience that essentially lets guests become plush designers themselves.

Rather than beginning with a finished plush skin, guests will work one-on-one with a Design Consultant to create their own furry friend. An exclusive selection of premium fabrics, textures and materials will be available inside the studio, with guests choosing everything from the type of animal they want to create to its fur, color, eyes, paws and other details.

Interactive digital tools will even allow budding designers to see their creation and make changes before anything is actually sewn together.

Then comes what might be the coolest part.

Once the design is complete, guests will be able to watch one of Build-A-Bear’s seamstresses personally create their new friend before the finished plush is revealed.

The experience still keeps the traditions that have made Build-A-Bear special for generations of kids and families. The new creation gets its own Heart Ceremony, birth certificate and an exclusive Design Studio Cub Condo, bringing this much more elaborate experience back to the little ritual at the center of Build-A-Bear since the beginning.

Of course, designing a completely original furry friend isn’t the only new experience waiting inside.

The Build-A-Bear Bakeshop is adding something considerably sweeter to a day at the Workshop.

Rather than operating as a traditional café where families simply order a treat and sit down, the Bakeshop keeps Build-A-Bear’s hands-on philosophy going. Guests will be able to decorate their own cupcakes and cookies, making the food itself another part of the experience.

Considering how many Build-A-Bear trips are already tied to birthdays, celebrations and special days out, giving families another activity to create together feels like a particularly natural addition.

Then there is “Personalize Me,” which takes the familiar fun of dressing your new furry friend considerably further.

Guests can customize T-shirts and hoodies with embroidered names, initials, numbers and more, while patches and selected screen-printed designs provide even more options. Certain furry friends can even have their ears embroidered.

So if choosing the right outfit wasn’t already serious business, now you can make sure nobody else’s bear is wearing quite the same thing.

Together, the three experiences turn this new location into something much closer to an attraction than a traditional store.

That distinction feels especially important in Orlando.

ICON Park already sits within one of the country’s biggest family tourism destinations, and Build-A-Bear is clearly designing this location as somewhere families intentionally make part of their day rather than somewhere they simply stop to shop.

You can design a character, watch it come to life, complete the Heart Ceremony, customize its wardrobe and decorate a treat before heading back out into Orlando with something that quite literally didn’t exist before you walked through the doors.

For a brand built around the idea that the experience of making the bear matters just as much as the bear itself, it’s a pretty fitting evolution.

And Build-A-Bear isn’t finished revealing what’s inside.

The Design Studio, Bakeshop and “Personalize Me” station are only the first of several experiences planned for the three-story location, with additional features and grand-opening details set to be announced ahead of its November debut.

Build-A-Bear has spent nearly 30 years asking kids one very important question: which furry friend are you bringing home?

At ICON Park, that question is about to become considerably more interesting.

Because now the answer could be one you designed yourself.