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.

My route goes under the flyover, round past the car pound/dump/Royal Mail depot and then only a short way on the main road but I'm coming from South Croydon.

I loathe the Lombard roundabout and avoid it whenever I possibly can! Thankfully I rarely have to go out that way.

I take my 5 and 4 year olds and 9 month old baby to Ikea sometimes for fun . We enjoy it

Forget the sandwich bags.

1. You can get them in a billion other places, including Amazon without ever moving your arse
2. There are also plenty of other ways now to bag/box/wrap food that don’t include single use plastic

I went on my own, last saturday, no partner to spend hours flipping cupboard doors open and closed (I'm pretty sure it's part of his OCD), no kids to be a nuisance, no one to tell me I couldn't look at the soft toys...

I didn't want to leave.

@UnfamousPoster

Yep. I loved the fact they had to hire car park assistants for the first 6 months as it is so confusing!

No way, unless I'm going at the crack of dawn and plan a whole day there I order online.

And.....you can't go by bus, where are you going to put all the extra three trolleys of stuff you bought on impulse

There are also plenty of other ways now to bag/box/wrap food that don’t include single use plastic

They sell all those in Ikea too .

I'm going tonight, to buy my socktopus a friend/partner in crime and to look at fitted sheets.

I'll probably drop into the adjacent M&S Simply Food to see if there is anything good on the reduced counter, because I really know how to have a fun Friday night out.

Of course you need the bags. IKEA sandwich bags are made from sugar cane.

For any furniture, look it up online and you will also see the location in self-serve warehouse - if you already know what you want, you can simply go straight there to pick it up.

Yep. I loved the fact they had to hire car park assistants for the first 6 months as it is so confusing

The day our Ikea opened, a lorry was inconsiderate enough to jacknife on the motorway slip road that leads to Ikea. It virtually gridlocked that side of the city for the entire day. People were stuck in traffic for hours.

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.....

We found exactly the same. The only 2 shops that were any better were John Lewis and Laura Ashley. We ended up getting 2 sofas from Laura Ashley, simply because they weren't full of bullshit but seemed to know what they were talking about. And they also let us know, in a totally non-pushy way, that if we took out a store card to pay, we could get another 10% off, so that saved us £234 on a sofa and sofa bed that were already half-price.

At DFS we walked in and out again in despair, the staff were spotty teens in shiny suits who couldn't tell me anything about how their shite was actually made (I used to work for a furniture company, so know how things should be put together).

Furniture Village had sofas we really liked, in the sale, and we were seriously considering buying them. Then smarmy Shiny-Suit gave the worst pretend apology I've ever seen and explained that the offer wasn't on the ones we liked, they were actually nearly twice the price, the sign had been put on them in error, and tried to convince us to get the same sofa in a really inferior leather. I came close to telling him to fuck off.

DP smiled sweetly at Shiny-Suit and said "I think we'll probably leave it, thank you, because if you carry on much longer my partner will be telling you to fuck off".

Barker & Stonehouse was the worst: nasty, cheap shite at not-cheap prices and rude, offhand staff. If they stay in business for more than a couple of years, I'll be gobsmacked.

The new stuff is being delivered on Monday, so this weekend we have the delightful job of getting the old sofas out of the house, breaking them up and getting them to the tip.

I'm praying it outlasts me. I never want to go furniture shopping again.

@gwenneh Only if you're coming from the south. PM me and I'll let you know you how it's done!

Love IKEA. Even the tweens like going there.

@SoupDragon It sounds similar. I go under the flyover, along Mitcham Road and hang a left somewhere north of the Sumner Road lights, then cut through a council estate. It brings me out on Purley Way, just north of Ikea. Bastard council have probably made it all one-ways and dead ends now though, they do that to all my short cuts eventually.

To get from Wing Yip to Ikea took me over 90 minutes the first time I drove up after moving to Sussex. It's not much more than a couple of miles.

Just look online and then go straight to the market place

After the flyover you need to take the left towards the car pound - it's the one after the turning for the Salvation Army Citadel (and after a small flyover bit). Then you take a left when facing the Virgin Media building and follow that road round to Purley Way. It goes past the car pound, the Royal Mail collection depot, several scrap merchants and a width restriction. It's the same council estate you mention but without the one way and dead ends!

Simples 😂😂

Unfortunately I navigate using visual references rather than road names or numbers 😂😂

Factory Lane is the left turn after the flyover.

I just walk through the tills

I don’t get the angst. I love going to Ikea, particularly mid-week and particularly on my own!

I was in and out of Ikea in about twenty minutes - funnily enough buying sandwich bags. I did also grab a bag clip with a pouring spout which is handy for the massive bag of rice.

Just ask staff where the items you want are and head there via the shortcuts.

Our closest here is 45 mins away and what a fuck on it all is. Last time I got something from there I CFered and a lass on Facebook announced she was going so I wired her money and she picked it up for me 😂

It’s horrendous and I can’t even fucking eat there cos of being coeliac so nothing appeals to me!

I only go for the meatballs.. or horse balls if that’s still the case

I'm back!
With sandwich bags (they are reusable )
Shelves (wanted the ones with a basket specifically so I can store bags for life)
Daim obvs
Some silicone kids
Tuckered out old man (feet and knees ok though, and no I don't leave him in the car I spend almost every day with him, I like him)
Some of these cats arse replies, really? I thought I could leave out the lighthearted in the title because the subject was clearly lighthearted, I stand corrected.

Now Ikea.
There wasn't many shoppers but at least five families using the showroom as soft play didn't get chance to have my Free (I'm from Yorkshire, round ere Free means compulsory) coffee because a huge family (at least ten people) were fucking about at the server area, a kid had dropped his food, it was chaos.
The queue massive, and the tension! Honestly the queue felt like a powder keg, we scarpered before it kicked off.
Car park madness, as usual people just being utter knobs and causing obstruction.
we had a right laugh

Silicone lids not kids
They prob do sell silicone kids though.