I've got to go Ikea and it shouldn't be this hard.

[TheQueef]

I like the stuff ...but...
It's like planning an Arctic expedition I even factor in a snack for my old Dad so he doesn't flag half way through.
I only want some shelves and sandwich bags
I want to give them my money, why do they make it so hard?
It's more endurance than Iron Man.
You shouldn't need the ordinance survey map just to grab some drinking glasses.
AIBU, it's too hard isn't it?

Wish me luck, remember me if I fall.

Why would you go to Ikea for sandwich bags?! You could get them in any Co-op two minutes walk from your house, surely.

Ikea is the worst and their customer services team appear to take genuine pleasure in being absolute arseholes. Never ever ever again.

What a shower of grumps you lot are.

Enjoy OP! At least your dad has the right idea

Good grief people are delicate flowers.

We tried buying furniture from some non IKEA shops and the experience was depressingly similar in all the furniture showroom type places we tried: we walked through the doors and were immediately set upon by sales people who wanted to help but got right in our faces then were nowhere to be found when wed got our bearings and wanted to ask them something. Almost all the things we had looked at online were not available to view in the showroom. The suggestion was we should order them sight unseen (at 2-4 times the cost of an IKEA equivalent) and then wait twelve weeks for delivery.....

Appreciate the marvel that is IKEA. (We drove straight there from the fourth furniture showroom and had our items within two hours, with a cafe stop thrown in)

When's the rugby final? That will be a good day to go.

I once went during an England world cup match, it was bliss.

Go on a Tuesday night at 8pm.

When we drive in we like to spot the families who are driving out and obviously rowing about the amount of unneeded crap they’ve bought, cos we know it’ll be us in three hours time.

We hardly ever go since we bought something too big for the car and couldn’t fit the kids in to get home. We’d had some sort of mad moment in the shop and bought a bookcase.

We had to take it back but they tried to make us put it on a lorry for delivery which was going to cost more than the bloody bookcase. I refused and said I wanted a refund. They refused and I had to talk to a manager about exceptional circumstances or something. We had two small children and a baby with us...the situation was not pretty and involved me crying a lot and leaking milk.

It was in 2002 and we only went back for the first time last year.

it's my go to location to entertain the kids on a rainy day. free creche and coffee, and dirt cheap lunch what's not to love.

I love a day out in IKEA. I also buy their sandwich bags. Last time I went with 2 friends and we spent 6 hours there with a 5 hour round trip to get there and back. We had breakfast on the way in a petrol station cafe and then had dinner in IKEA - I didn't have the meatballs though. We bought too much, overspent of course. One bought a storage unit which remains in its flat pack box 2 years later. But that's fine because it was a grand day out. Oh the memories

It's a lighthearted thread people.....it's a common joke at how chaotic a trip to IKEA can be.

I love going to IKEA, even the kids see it as a day out 😂

Wasn’t there plans to get high street shops with all the ‘smaller bits’ IKEA stuff?

...may the odds be ever in your favour, OP.

@WaningGibbous - are you my 17 year old? DD1 is it you?
This is the way we do it without exception with DD1 leading from the forn with a cheery Right! and the three of us trotting along behind - sometimes we end with any extra yellow bag but yes you are spot on

We love IKEA. If my family didn't fancy it I'd leave my kids in the free crèche and my dad in the café with a free coffee, then grab the stuff I wanted on my own.

The pros go in the exit, check out Bargain Corner first, then up the stairs to the market place to straight where they want to go using the shortcuts.

What winds me up about Ikea now is the number of items you can't buy in the old-fashioned Ikea way and you have to track down an invisible member of staff to order it from. Then when you've queued up to pay for it at the normal tills, it takes another 15 minutes minimum to collect it from customer services.

Every single time I’ve ordered flat pack furniture one or more pieces have been damaged. Really annoying when you’ve booked a handyman to come and assemble it. So annoying.

Our IKEA record was exactly 30 minutes from walking in the door to trying to cram large boxes into a small car. We’d found the unit online, checked the size, loaded the boxes onto a trolley that had a mind of its own and headed to the checkout

Ikea sandwich/freezer bags are really good quality. Thick and with a double strip of that "press to fasten" bit.

@mogtheexcellent Reading perchance?? The locals complained that the road changes would lead to chaos, which it didn't. Because everyone was stuck in the car park! I'm scared to go there just in case I can't get out!

My nearest Ikea is the Croydon one. By the time I have been through the horrors of Croydon traffic, Ikea is a piece of piss and feels like a haven of tranquillity.

And I used to live in Croydon, so I know a cunning back way that avoids most of the Purley Way. When I went with a friend, she was so amazed that this was even possible, she didn't stop talking about it for a week. (Mind you, she also didn't realise it was possible to get from Tunbridge Wells to Gatwick without going via Brighton, so she quite possibly went to Croydon via Reading and Milton Keynes.)

They're building an Ikea at Hove sometime soon, so I daresay I'll go more often then.

DP won't go near the place. Just saying the word "Ikea" makes him go pale and shudder ...

@LakieLady if you know of a way to get there that avoids the bloody Lombard roundabout I am all ears.

Depends where you're coming from :)

I’m in China and people here enjoy ikea! There are people relaxing on sofas reading, sleeping in chairs, whole families lying on beds or sitting round in kitchen set ups. The craziest thing I’ve seen was a toddler testing a potty with his mum and grandma!
Make the most of it, it is what you make of it.