Question about the American Girl Place

[ElizK]

I'm planning to take my DD11 to the American Girl Place, and am just wondering what a reasonable amount of time to expect to spend there would be. We'll be having lunch there, but won't be doing the hair salon or the revue.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[ZuZugal]

We went to the Chicago AG store. It is three stories...there is so much to see. Give yourself a few hours including lunch. We spent the whole day there but also watched the performance, which was excellent.

 

[challada]

We just went in January for DD's 6th birthday. Since we were flying across the country for this, I figured we better spend plenty of time seeing and doing EVERYTHING.

We went to the Chicago store and yes, it's three stories, but pretty small on each floor (amazing how much merchandise fits in so little space!). The entry floor has a check in desk (get your AGClub punch card here) and the "library" w/books to buy and the photo studio (DD's pic on a magazine cover, how can you pass it up?). The upper floor has the Cafe and "store" w/doll clothes/girl clothes/Bitty Baby clothes/Coconut clothes. The bottom floor has the theater and the historical dolls display/furniture/clothes, etc.

Here's my tip:
BUY THE PACKAGE. On line AGPlace sells a "day at AGPlace" and it's definitely worth it. It includes money to spend in the store, the photograph, the lunch, etc. We did ala carte and wished we did the package.

RESERVE THEATER TICKETS EARLY. We were meeting other family there and waited to coordinate times until the week before and could not get the first seating.

RESERVE LUNCH/BRUNCH EARLY. Again, we ended up w/first brunch seating instead of lunch by waiting (we reserved this a MONTH out).

PLAN ON BRINGING MORE $$$ THAN YOU THINK. DD got gift cards for her birthday and blew through those really quick. Just buying the merchandise w/AGPlace Chicago on it ran me over $50 (and that was just a tshirt for her and her doll and her dog).

That said, plan on about 3 hours if you are going to do the "place". Funny part of our story: at about 2 hours in the place, while waiting in line for the photo studio, I was at my limit of AG...well, the mom in front of me primping her big-haired Texas girls (she told me they were from Texas), turns to tell the girls, "well, after the photo shoot, we should be done w/AGP...NOW THAT WE'VE BEEN HERE THREE DAYS". She meant IN THE STORE....FOR THREE DAYS! I had a whole new perspective from that!!! (Yes, I laughed out loud when she said THREE DAYS and she said, I know that's crazy).

 

[ElizK]

Thanks for the great advice! We are supposed to go to the Los Angeles store, but the flights are filling up (I work for an airline, so we're flying standby). We'll be flying home the same day. Choice two is the Chicago store. We'll have to use the public transportation, which makes me very nervous because I haven't ever used it.

I so stinkin' excited to be taking her there I could almost fly under my own wing-power!! She's been perusing www.americangirl.com to decide what she wants to buy. I'm so glad she is still into "little" girl things, and hasn't moved onto "teenage" things.

eta: any info on using the El/CTA would be great!