Monday, January 9, 2012

Quick Trip to Chicago:
Our Pics of the American Girl Store!

So this weekend we hitched up the horses, jumped in our wagon, and headed to Chicago for one night in the Park Hyatt by Water Tower Place - yep, our destination was the American Girl Place Chicago!

We went intending to buy a good deal of loot - which we will share pics of with you soon. Our purchases include "something" that will allow us to start up the next big Photo Contest with a doll as a first prize. Woot! So stay tuned for that. :-)

But first we start with pics of the store -- our fastest Facebook friends responded to our inquiry that they wanted to see store pics first. So here we go!

Brief thoughts on our hotel for those of you thinking about going to Chitown: We really loved the Park Hyatt - it was very close to where we wanted to go and very posh. It is not inexpensive though and we didn't really see families there - just one, with older kids. But it was nice and we would recommend it to anyone wanting to stay right in the middle of the action on the Magnificent Mile.


AGPC was easy to find .. it was just across the plaza and to the left from our hotel. It is located in this building pictured below.... where AG and Macy's are the two anchor stores. Water Tower Place has seven floors of shops, cool elevators, and even a LEGO store. ;-)


Front of the AG Store... It has two floors, and while compact, the store does have a lot of space.



We buzzed through the store taking pics of everything we could, while trying to avoid taking too many shots of peoples. Haha. There were a good amount of people there this weekend -- not crazy crowded -- it was nice to see people enjoying the store. At AGPLA and AGPNY we usually have the store to ourselves for some weird reason, so this was a big difference.

Here are three Youtube slideshows of the store and the displays. We didn't take pics of everything but we tried to get as much as we could. And they aren't all fantastic photos, haha. We tried to use flash at first, but then we'd get a lot of glare and we were blinding people since our flash is so bright. So we went sans flash and many of the pics are a little yellowy from the overhead lighting. Then we wrestled with them in Photoshop, but we didn't always win. Oh well. We tried. We tried.

First part of first floor of store...





Second part of first floor of the store...





Second floor of store...






(Two of them you might have to watch through the Youtube link because I like to use music Youtube doesn't want me to use. :-P)

Also, a BIG shout-out to Ingrid Argueta - Personal Shopper at the AGPC. We didn't make an appointment with her since we didn't know if/when we'd actually be going to Chicago. But she stopped us while we were on the floor picking out dolls and asked us if we wanted her help.

We probably looked like we were having problems carrying all of our loot in the shopping bag by ourselves (haha) - so she invited us back to the Personal Shopping room and helped us figure out what we still needed to find. Then she went out to the floor and picked up the things we needed. And as special frosting to the cake she gave us a bunch of extra goodies! She was totally awesome!!!

We were like - "We thought we needed an appointment to work with PS." She was like, "No you can just walk in here and find us if you need help." Which is also awesome!

So if you are going to the AGPC and want help, ask for Ingrid Argueta. And if you want to make a PS appointment before going there, ask for Ingrid Argueta. If you are there and just want to meet her, ask for Ingrid Argueta. Or if you want to talk to a PS over the phone, call 312-288-2816 and ask for Ingrid Argueta. :-)

It was very nice to be helped and get extra goodies even though we hadn't made a PS appointment -- Thank you Ingrid!!!

Have questions about the store or the products or anything? 

Let us know in the comments below!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really didn't like Marie Grace's face mold at first, but after a couple of months it somehow grew on me, and now she is happily living in my house, minus her pink-plaid-polyester-nightmare:) Do let us know if you eventually decide you like her! Enjoyed your slideshows, and giggled at the captions:)
-Lauren

Gomunk said...

I have heard nothing but absolute praise for Ingrid. I've only had to use a personal shopper once (to track down Molly's Embroidered Boots when they were retiring), and the lady I got at the LA store was pretty helpful. The only AG store I've been to has been the one in Atlanta the year it opened (2007), and they didn't have personal shoppers there (I'm not sure if they do now or not).
Glad to see the pics of the store. Now I can't wait to see pics of your loot. :)

Anne-Marie said...

We can top the pathetic Sugar in your video with a far more pathetic version! I enjoyed seeing the Chicago pictures--we haven't been there in a few years. It's fun to see the differences between the displays there and at our local store (DC).

jschuricht said...

I agree, Ingrid is the BEST personal shopper. I've used her before on a visit to Chicago and she was wonderful. I've even ordered form her over the phone and she's great!!

Anonymous said...

I really enjoyed the videos. Nice music too. You must put a lot of work into them.

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