Daytrip to IKEA

sapper

Recently visited an Ikea in the UK and was of course bowled over with the prices and the kit available. Has anyone ever gone over there on the ferry for a daytrip? Would like to rent a van and load up (just bought a new house) but I'm told rental companies generally don't let you take cars/vans out of the country? Anyone ever done this? If so, how?

Borzoi

sapper wrote:

Recently visited an Ikea in the UK and was of course bowled over with the prices and the kit available. Has anyone ever gone over there on the ferry for a daytrip? Would like to rent a van and load up (just bought a new house) but I'm told rental companies generally don't let you take cars/vans out of the country? Anyone ever done this? If so, how?

Take a cheap flight to Glasgow, the IKEA there is all set up for shipping to Ireland, I think it costs about €100 per trolley/pallet load delivered to your door. RIng them to make sure

Victor

sapper wrote:

Would like to rent a van and load up (just bought a new house) but I'm told rental companies generally don't let you take cars/vans out of the country?

Try hiring one up North.

fintan

Is IKEA really that much cheaper? Was there anything in particular that stood out as fantastic value?

sim2

My da hired a van earlier this year to help my brother move back home from Engerland. There was no real problem..try going with an international car/van hire company. All I know is that the place to pick up and drop off the van he hired was somewhere in Tallaght. Sorry can't be of more help!

oneway

I drove to Warrington after I set up shop with a continental bird and she couldn't furnish the gaff without IKEA. This was 2000 or 2001. We drive a loaner estate. 2 - 2.5 hours drive from Holyhead I think. The roads along the north Welsh coast are now nearly motorway standard. IKEA is on our side of the Manchester ring road. You can order a catalog in advance but they were looking for £2.50 in postal orders for postage (you can get Sterling POs at any An Post office). We rang in advance to check on availability for the big stuff. They didn't reserver, but told us there were 50 of the thing in stock. We got a one-day return on the boat for c. €100. Got the Swift ferry back, should have got it over too, but couldn't. We left at 23:00 on Friday, the B&Bs in Holyhead stay open until the boat comes in at 02:30. Hit the road at 08:30 and were in IKEA by 10:30. Home on the Swift by 20:30. If you wait for Jan / Feb you can get good deals on the ferry.

giddyup

oneway gives a good synopsis of a typical Warrington daytrip. I've done the flights to Glasgow and I've done the day trip to Warrington. It's much of a muchness and it depends on how much gear you are bringing back. If you want lots of large bits then probably better value to go in a van as the trolley fees can add up.

Another option if you are just after one or two big items: Edinburgh do a kind of mail order service for Ireland. (http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/IkeaNearYouView?storeId=7&langId=-20&catalogId=10103&StoreName=edinburgh#10) Check the online catalogue, e-mail the order and they will come back with a quote. This is great for things like a Sofa which you cant usually buy on the day. I ordered a sofa and kitchen table during the summer. Including delivery I was easily still beating Dublin prices for similar quality.

Even with exchange and delivery you're getting the same quality as many of the rip-off furniture shops around Dublin for a fraction of the price. I cant wait 'til they open up here - they should turn furniture retailing on it's arse in Dublin.

iguana

fintan wrote:

Is IKEA really that much cheaper? Was there anything in particular that stood out as fantastic value?

It's cheaper for some things. A lot of the furniture is generally the same quality as that from Argos and definitely more expensive than that on average, but you get a bigger range. However Ikea beds are all made to their very own sizes, so mattresses and bed clothes from everywhere else won't fit on them.:(

Where it does stand out is in it's market hall. You can get some very cheap kitchenware such as fabulous Le Creuset-a-like cast iron pots and pans for about a sixth of the price of the originals. And lots of cheap cutlery, plates and glasses which are marginally cheaper than similar in Argos, and a good lot cheaper if you can stomache the sales. And it's useful to be able to buy your crockery individually as well as in sets, so if you break a plate you can replace the one thing you broke instead of replacing the whole set. (But this is only good if you 1. live near an Ikea and 2. care about matching dining sets.)

They also do very cheap art prints, but why you'd buy art that has been mass produced to such a degree is beyond me.

memorex

My 2c... Did the day trip to Glasgow end of Aug this year to furnish newly bought house. Costs worked out well. It was 80 pounds per trolley. You can stack flatpack up to about 1.5 meters high on the trolley. And it's about as long as a medium size wardrobe. I was able to easily fit complete bedroom furniture for two bedrooms (minus the bed) on a trolley. A complete bed (mattress, divan or bedstead) constitutes a whole trolley so watch out there. Also a 3 or 2 person sofa constitutes a whole trolley. So as you shop you just need to add 80 pounds to the cost of sofas and beds.

My take on Ikea is that some stuff is really great and other stuff is pretty average, could be bought in bargain town. I bought a good bit of stuff from their new 'stockholm' range. Personally I really liked the design and am pretty sure that I would pay double for it over here. Most of it was either Oak or Oak finish which is relatively rare at Ikea; it was also a little dearer.

I really recommend their modular wardrobes. You can design it the way you like with drawers, hanging spaces, mirrors etc and you just order the bits you need. Basically designed to fit.

Watch out if you want to buy the bigger ticket items. Some of these fly out the door on a particular day. What we did was about 3/4 complete laps of the circuit. At the end of each lap we paid for what we had and stored it in the massive lockers they have outside (no charge for that). Was also a good time for a cup of tea and some dime-bar cake.

One quirk with their system is that you have to pick the flatpack your self just prior to hitting the check-outs. Some of their stuff is seriously heavy e.g. big solid pine kitchen tables. If you are going on your own and/or not that strong it could be a prob. Personally I was OK, but my sister who was with me would have had a really hard time without my help. There are people around to help, but the place is massive and would really slow things down if you needed to hunt one down half the time.

Another thing is that everything you want delivered has to be picked and paid for on the day. So definitely have a plan B for stuff you really want that turns out not to be in stock. It's a long route back to the showrooms if you discover something not to be in stock. If you are armed with another stock number when in the picking area its really handy.

Went on a Thursday, the whole lot was delivered exactly on time (with ample warning) the following Tuesday. Unbelievable service really. All in all I would say delivery worked out roughly the same price as hiring a big transit, paying for the ferry and maybe a nights B&B. The advantage of flying/delivering perhaps is less of a hassle-factor with regard to ferries etc.

If you have any questions on doing the Glasgow trip, feel free to ask!

Cheers,
-mem

Do-more

If you are going to go by van, be sure and check out ferry prices in advance. The charges for a van can be substantially more than for a car. (a mate of mine was recently charged €400 :eek: to Liverpool return for a VW Caddy, it would have been about €150 for a similar sized car!) If you don't intend filling the van, a large MPV might work out a lot cheaper.

A Dub in Glasgo

The Ikea in Glasgow is open about 5 years, I have been to it twice. Not my cup of tea at all apart from some of their shelves for DVDs. The best thing about it is the free biscuit & chocolate samples near the exit

sapper

Thanks a mill all - I will definitely have to do some more research into that Glasgow option....

fintan wrote:

Is IKEA really that much cheaper? Was there anything in particular that stood out as fantastic value?

Well, I would say that it knocks the furniture in Argos on it's arse for price, and the quality seems to be better (by quite a large margin in some cases). For example, we were looking at one of those butchers block trolley-thingys in Dunnes for EUR240 the other day - the same thing costs GBP90/EUR135 in Ikea. Things like drawers are dirt cheap - we saw one melamine white chest of drawers in Habitat the other day for EUR545, the same thing again for GBP90 in Ikea. We bought a chrome-domed lamp with a touch-activated dimmer for 10.99 - it'd probably set you back EUR50 here.

It's cheap, but it would only be worth going over to the UK if you needed to get lots of stuff, or say the modular shelving stuff they have. But they have lots of cool designs.

When we walked into the Wembley store last week after about 10mins we felt like real goons having spent the money we have spent so far in Arnotts/Argos/Dunnes and all the rest of them. If they bring the same prices over with them, Habitat will be out of business in weeks!

iguana

sapper wrote:

Well, I would say that it knocks the furniture in Argos on it's arse for price, and the quality seems to be better (by quite a large margin in some cases).

It really doesn't. Most stuff in Argos is much cheaper like for like, and the quality is the exact same, except that Argos have better instructions. And at least Argos beds are standard European sizes, so you can buy your mattress and bed linen anywhere. If you buy a bed in Ikea you can only buy the mattress and bed linen from them.

And for some reason Ikea are very expensive for cushions. I got cushions in Zara home for less than half the price of similar in Ikea.

sapper wrote:

If they bring the same prices over with them, Habitat will be out of business in weeks!

Ikea and Habitat are owned by sister companies, they each play to their own well researched market and compliment each other. Remember neither would want to put the other out of business as the same people profit from each company.

Kaskade

I have just gotten back from a trip to IKEA in Glasgow. We rented a Van from Enterprise.com. They charge €100 extra for AA 5 star cover in the UK and other extras to bring the van out of the country. We went to Glasgow because some of the kitchen units we wanted were home delivery only and Glasgow is the only store that delivers to Ireland. We are extremely happy with the quality of the products that we got and the selction was amazing, it was a saturday but there were no queues, it wasn't very stressful, much nicer than shopping here. The only thing is that I would have loved another day. There is a lot of driving involved so you really should take your time and relax.

sapper

If it wasn't for the kitchen units would you have flown and delivered home? Or do you think it's worth it to drive?