Anyone been to IKEA lately?

[JazzaGal]

I need curtain hooks which can't be delivered and I'm not prepared to pay Amazon prices for them.

I'm on the cautious end of the scale because Dsis and her DD have immunity issues. I only see them every few weeks and am always stay 2 metres away and meet outside.

I went last week about 11am and it was fine
Queue of about 5 waiting to get in and a short queue to pay at the end. Car park looked less busy than an average Saturday.

I also went last week about 11 am. No queue to get in. Short queue to pay at the end. Not excessively busy on the way round. About 90% of people wearing masks, but about half of the people not wearing masks weren't socially distancing either, and many of the children there were running around as normal. The restaurant was really well set up for SD and felt very safe. I find it stressful mixing with the maskless though - I am sure some of them don't have genuine reasons given their lack of care in other ways too. If I had a valid reason not to wear a mask I would take more care to avoid other people, not less!
Overall it was fine, especially if you only want a certain thing and so will be in and out quickly.

I tried an IKEA about an hour ago - North East. There must have been about 300 people in the queue to get in. I just drove straight out. Didnt bother parking.

I’ve been a few times recently. Only queued once.
They’d closed the short cuts off though so I had to walk the whole way round through every department which I thought was an odd decision.

Are evenings quiet? I need to go with vulnerable DH (to carry things!) And was wondering when was best.

I went to Milton Keynes on Saturday about 5pm. They had a red/green light system on the door and there were 2 people in front of us, 2 minute wait at most.
Queues were well organised and quick.

Ebay? What type of hooks are you after?

I did Edinburgh at 5 pm on Saturday. Walked in, got what we wanted and out within an hour.

6.30 Saturday night. Mist people wore masks. One of the least stressful visits ever

I went about 6.30 on a Wednesday evening.

There was a queue to get in but it went down quickly. They were letting people in in batches which made it feel okay.

Hand sanitiser everywhere.

Queuing at the tills was better than normal, two big pens, queue in them, one person directs you to where you need to go.

To be honest it was better than a normal trip to Ikea.

Always a queue in ours although it moves fairly quickly (we were advised an hour wait but it was only approx 30 mins)

Wilko are good for curtain hooks/general homeware

Went about 7.30pm on Wednesday last week, no queue and pretty empty inside.

I've been a couple of times and it's been fine.

I knew what I wanted and where to find it. My strategy was just to head to where I needed quickly, with minimal browsing.

The main walkways have people slowly browsing and blocking the way. I just look ahead at the section I'm in and plan the route around it (normally walk close to the walls rather the walkways).

I went on Friday at about 5. It was blissfully quiet

Oh god, it was hell.

I purposely went an hour before closing last week yet there was a massive queue to enter. There were lots of full families (eg 3 adults, 5 children) without masks on. Waited 20 minutes to get in.

Inside there was a complete lack of social distancing. People allowing their kids to run amok. Eg This woman’s son bolted into me then he started dramatically crying on the ground.

There was a ridiculously long queue at the tills. As in twisting around the entire length of the warehouse. We noped out of the queue but I reckon people would have waited for 30-60 minutes. It was like it was opening day.

This was Birmingham, I’m assuming it’s extra busy since the Coventry closure

If you mean the plastic curved hooks that go into the header tape, then thought the curtain ring, they can be found at Dunelm, or find your local freelance curtain maker who might be able to sell you some
Or Robert Dyas

Really?! So instead of paying a bit more, you'd rather go into a huge shop, where I guarantee you'll end up spending on more than just curtain hooks and potentially take hours of your time?

Rather you than me...

We went last Tues. Edinburgh store. We arrived for opening and queued around 15 minutes to get in. The first part was very quiet and socially distanced but the market hall downstairs was absolutely packed and a total free for all, I felt very uncomfortable with it.

We also ate in the restaurant which was awful. Avoid at all costs. You book a time slot on the way in (fine, good idea, save overcrowding), we had 11am, first slot of the day. You need to queue to be shown to your table, so we weren't actually seated until 11:25, 45 min limit on tables though. Then you need to queue to place your order (another 25 minutes queue!) so our time at our table was upand the next group were queuing to come in. Then another 25minutes for food to arrive (not up to much either).
Total shambles, kids were crabby as hell with all the queuing and waiting. I hate to have seen later in the day if we have these long waits and we're first time slot! It wasn't even on eat out to help out either 😤 so we could've gone elsewhere for half the price.

Hooks are £2 in store and £12 on Amazon or eBay. I need 4 packs. Very annoying that they can't be delivered. They are peculiar to IKEA abd no others fit their tape.

Birmingham or Warrington are my nearest stores. I think I'll leave it for now.

Thanks all