darkSpyro

So, I bought some Skylanders today...



My Skylanders Giants adventure actually started awhile ago when Toys R Us put the new Battle Pack (Chop Chop, Shroomboom and the Cannon battle piece) up for order on their website... then shipped the order! I've had it for awhile now, but nothing to do with it.

As for today... It was a fun day. I got up super early so I could get showed and dressed and make the hour drive to get to Toys R Us before they opened. And my awesome wife went with me - I had a special mission for her.

In spite of previous dealings with Toys R Us, I chose them because A) My local-ish TRU actually rocks and They had Buy One, Get One 40% off *and* they tempted me by mailing me a coupon for an additional 25% off my entire purchase. Oh, and I had a $5 rewards coupon.

We pulled onto the lot at about 7 o'clock. Some employee cars were there along with one other vehicle with someone in it. My wife wanted something to snack on, so I drove over to the Panera Bread, then came back. The occupants of the other vehicle had now moved to the door - turns out it was a guy and his son who were also there for a previous Skylanders release (I believe it was the Zook assortment). At about 7:30, I was still in my car with my wife and we were the only ones there... I went ahead and sent my wife on to Target to complete her mission - Picking me up a Granite Crusher. I armed her with a copy of the Target flyer so she'd know what she was looking for.

I went up to the door and made some small talk with the other guy - by the time the store opened at 8, there was a crowd of about 15-20 people. We made our way to the huge Skylanders Giants display towards the front of the store. Although I was second in line, my politeness ended up with several people between me and the loot - I managed to grab a Legendary Bouncer and a Flashwing.... Grabbed that one because I didn't even know it was out yet. Weird.

I stepped away and realized... I bet they have some of these over by the video games too... and NO ONE was going that way. So, I made my way over there, where I was given free roam of the entire counter. At this point, I noticed they had an additional Giant, an additional Light Core and several singles - all of which I didn't know was out yet. By the time I had mostly finished picking through the figures, the guy I was waiting with and a few others had made their way over into my space... and I had no cart! Curse me and my lack of foresight! Lucky for me, other guy had a cart and allowed me to use the top basket in his cart while I went and got my own. Then, the two of us started the process of comparing figures to make sure we both got everything.

Total, I had:
Giants
Swarm
Crusher
Hot Head
Bouncer
Legendary Bouncer

Light Cores
Prism Break
Drobot
Jet-Vac
Euptorr

3-Packs
Pop Fizz, Whirlwind, Trigger Happy
Ignitor, Chill, Zook

Singles
Sonic Boom
Gill Grunt
Flameslinger
Flashwing
Hex
Sprocket
Bash
Drill Sergeant
Double Trouble
Stump Smash

Also, I grabbed two of the Legendary 3-Packs - but this is where the issue came up. A few weeks ago, TRU had a thing where you could put a deposit down and "Pre-order" items from their "Hot Toy List" - I put two of these on pre-order, one for me, one for a co-worker. When I got to the counter, I mentioned it and the lady said they hadn't put any aside (ick), but that I could just get those... however, she wouldn't be able to ring them up with everything else - so I wouldn't get the extra 25% off on them. Oh well, no biggie. But then, she couldn't get the system to give me my 40% off the second figure because it was a pre-order. After trying a few things, I suggested we just ring everything up together and I go up front to get a refund on the pre-order. That was fine. I checked out, saved something like $150, then went back to the service desk to get my $10... which, between me and the customer in front of me (who was having a similar problem with her pre-order on the games), was just a giant nightmare that took us up until 9:30 to resolve. Fun times.

(cont)

By this time, my wife had returned, wondered what the hold up was and came in to make sure I didn't get trampled or something. She was successful in her mission with no issues. If only I could say the same... about Toys R Us or the rest of my day.

Speaking of the games, you'll notice I haven't yet purchased them. Knowing that Walmart had the superior version of the bundle (with cool glow-in-the-dark figures packed in), I went there. First, I looked at their figures... because I *knew* Toys R Us was missing some. Sure enough, I found the new Slam Bamn and Fright Rider. Grabbed those off the shelf, then got someone to open the cases and get me the Wii and 3DS versions out. As we got to the check out, I explained that Toys R Us had the two bundles in their ad for $74.99 *and* Buy One, Get One 40% off and that I wanted to price match. Cashier said "No, we don't price match percents off." "You do if the original price is shown in the ad." "No, we don't." "Manager Please".

Waited for a manager. She came. Told her I wanted to price match. "No, We don't price match percents off."

::face palm::

Let me assure you, as long as the original price is shown in the ad, Walmart policy is to price match percents off. This lady wouldn't budge. So, I thanked her and made a phone call. Mystery person on the other end of the phone suggested I pull up Walmart's price match policy directly from their website...

http://corporate.walmart.com/ad-match-guarantee

Now, here's the thing... the policy doesn't specify that we'd match something that's BOGO 40% off. But it does say:

Quote:

We gladly match the price in the following types of ads:* Buy one, get one free ads with a specified price

[li]Example: Buy one for $2.49, get one free (BOGO)[/li]

Which is what I was saying all along. So I asked them to call that manager back over... She came over, looked at my phone, then said that I was reading the ad wrong and that the games weren't BOGO 40% off. I explained that they were and showed her the part of the ad that said *all* video games. She still insisted that they weren't. I suggested she call them.

She snatched the ad off the counter and walked away.... only to come back shortly later and instruct the employee to do the price match. Man, it's awesome to know how things are supposed to work. Had I not been worried about my own store selling out before I got back into town, I would have just gave up and bought it at home... but we didn't get a lot of copies in, so I didn't want to risk it.

Anyway, as I was *finally* checking out, the cashier started to ring up my figures with the second one being 40% off. Being the good guy I am, I mentioned that I wasn't allowed to price match that because the figures did not have specific prices in the ad (although they're all virtually the same price everywhere anyway). If I was trying to be a jerk, I wouldn't have clarified that, but I'm a nice guy.

Then, it was on to eat some real breakfast. It was tasty, but they messed up my order and sent me out biscuits instead of sourdough toast. Easy fix though.

Next, to Best Buy. There was a CD my wife wanted and I figured I'd look to see if they had anything different. They did have the new Terrafin, so I grabbed him and the strategy guide. We went to check out... and the figure wouldn't ring up. The register was refusing to sell it! Serious!

Cashier rang up the guide and the CD and sent us back to the game center where they were going to take care of it. Four associates later, they finally just scanned a different figure and called it a day. We where joking around the entire time and at the end, the manager who was there apologized. I said "That's fine, but can I have one of those pre-order kits for my trouble?" in a joking manner. He looked to one of the other associates who said they weren't in the inventory, so he grabbed one and tossed it to me. Yay!

Then, one final stop... GameStop. I had pre-ordered their exclusive version of the Battle Pack the week it opened for pre-orders. I paid the full price down. I just *knew* I wasn't going to have any issues here, right?

Well... Went in and started looking at the figures. Guy asked if I needed help. I mentioned that I had a pre-order to pick up. He looked up my account and saw it was the Battle Pack. "Why didn't you pre-order the game here?" "Eh, I wanted the exclusive Walmart version." "Oh, all because the figure is painted a little different." umm... Yeah?

He asked if there were any other figures I needed - I looked and said that I had already gotten them all this morning. "Really? Because I was told by several customers we had more than even Toys R Us had." "That's probably because Toys R Us was wiped out first thing this morning..." "Yeah, that's because they're keeping 80 boxes in the back that they're not putting out until tomorrow because they're a toy store, not a game store."

Yeah... just give me my stuff so I can go. It's funny, last year when Skylanders came out, I went into this same store to see if they had anything exclusive - they didn't, but I got grilled there about where I bought stuff. I mentioned I got most of it at Toys R Us because they were doing a Buy-Two, Get-One Free then. The guy (probably a different guy, I don't remember much) claimed they were doing that to clear out their stock because they weren't going to sell video games anymore.

Anyway, so what should have been a simple "Take my money" transaction turned into entire on-going morning of fun and excitement.

And I haven't even opened the games yet!

Wow! Cool story! All I did was walk in, Go to the electronics section, check out the cool display, grab Bouncer and leave!

Quote: UncleBob

So, I bought some Skylanders today...



My Skylanders Giants adventure actually started awhile ago when Toys R Us put the new Battle Pack (Chop Chop, Shroomboom and the Cannon battle piece) up for order on their website... then shipped the order! I've had it for awhile now, but nothing to do with it.

As for today... It was a fun day. I got up super early so I could get showed and dressed and make the hour drive to get to Toys R Us before they opened. And my awesome wife went with me - I had a special mission for her.

In spite of previous dealings with Toys R Us, I chose them because A) My local-ish TRU actually rocks and They had Buy One, Get One 40% off *and* they tempted me by mailing me a coupon for an additional 25% off my entire purchase. Oh, and I had a $5 rewards coupon.

We pulled onto the lot at about 7 o'clock. Some employee cars were there along with one other vehicle with someone in it. My wife wanted something to snack on, so I drove over to the Panera Bread, then came back. The occupants of the other vehicle had now moved to the door - turns out it was a guy and his son who were also there for a previous Skylanders release (I believe it was the Zook assortment). At about 7:30, I was still in my car with my wife and we were the only ones there... I went ahead and sent my wife on to Target to complete her mission - Picking me up a Granite Crusher. I armed her with a copy of the Target flyer so she'd know what she was looking for.

I went up to the door and made some small talk with the other guy - by the time the store opened at 8, there was a crowd of about 15-20 people. We made our way to the huge Skylanders Giants display towards the front of the store. Although I was second in line, my politeness ended up with several people between me and the loot - I managed to grab a Legendary Bouncer and a Flashwing.... Grabbed that one because I didn't even know it was out yet. Weird.

I stepped away and realized... I bet they have some of these over by the video games too... and NO ONE was going that way. So, I made my way over there, where I was given free roam of the entire counter. At this point, I noticed they had an additional Giant, an additional Light Core and several singles - all of which I didn't know was out yet. By the time I had mostly finished picking through the figures, the guy I was waiting with and a few others had made their way over into my space... and I had no cart! Curse me and my lack of foresight! Lucky for me, other guy had a cart and allowed me to use the top basket in his cart while I went and got my own. Then, the two of us started the process of comparing figures to make sure we both got everything.

Total, I had:
Giants
Swarm
Crusher
Hot Head
Bouncer
Legendary Bouncer

Light Cores
Prism Break
Drobot
Jet-Vac
Euptorr

3-Packs
Pop Fizz, Whirlwind, Trigger Happy
Ignitor, Chill, Zook

Singles
Sonic Boom
Gill Grunt
Flameslinger
Flashwing
Hex
Sprocket
Bash
Drill Sergeant
Double Trouble
Stump Smash

Also, I grabbed two of the Legendary 3-Packs - but this is where the issue came up. A few weeks ago, TRU had a thing where you could put a deposit down and "Pre-order" items from their "Hot Toy List" - I put two of these on pre-order, one for me, one for a co-worker. When I got to the counter, I mentioned it and the lady said they hadn't put any aside (ick), but that I could just get those... however, she wouldn't be able to ring them up with everything else - so I wouldn't get the extra 25% off on them. Oh well, no biggie. But then, she couldn't get the system to give me my 40% off the second figure because it was a pre-order. After trying a few things, I suggested we just ring everything up together and I go up front to get a refund on the pre-order. That was fine. I checked out, saved something like $150, then went back to the service desk to get my $10... which, between me and the customer in front of me (who was having a similar problem with her pre-order on the games), was just a giant nightmare that took us up until 9:30 to resolve. Fun times.

(cont)

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!

Thank you for your report, I really enjoyed reading it.

Quote: UncleBob

So, I bought some Skylanders today...



My Skylanders Giants adventure actually started awhile ago when Toys R Us put the new Battle Pack (Chop Chop, Shroomboom and the Cannon battle piece) up for order on their website... then shipped the order! I've had it for awhile now, but nothing to do with it.

As for today... It was a fun day. I got up super early so I could get showed and dressed and make the hour drive to get to Toys R Us before they opened. And my awesome wife went with me - I had a special mission for her.

In spite of previous dealings with Toys R Us, I chose them because A) My local-ish TRU actually rocks and They had Buy One, Get One 40% off *and* they tempted me by mailing me a coupon for an additional 25% off my entire purchase. Oh, and I had a $5 rewards coupon.

We pulled onto the lot at about 7 o'clock. Some employee cars were there along with one other vehicle with someone in it. My wife wanted something to snack on, so I drove over to the Panera Bread, then came back. The occupants of the other vehicle had now moved to the door - turns out it was a guy and his son who were also there for a previous Skylanders release (I believe it was the Zook assortment). At about 7:30, I was still in my car with my wife and we were the only ones there... I went ahead and sent my wife on to Target to complete her mission - Picking me up a Granite Crusher. I armed her with a copy of the Target flyer so she'd know what she was looking for.

I went up to the door and made some small talk with the other guy - by the time the store opened at 8, there was a crowd of about 15-20 people. We made our way to the huge Skylanders Giants display towards the front of the store. Although I was second in line, my politeness ended up with several people between me and the loot - I managed to grab a Legendary Bouncer and a Flashwing.... Grabbed that one because I didn't even know it was out yet. Weird.

I stepped away and realized... I bet they have some of these over by the video games too... and NO ONE was going that way. So, I made my way over there, where I was given free roam of the entire counter. At this point, I noticed they had an additional Giant, an additional Light Core and several singles - all of which I didn't know was out yet. By the time I had mostly finished picking through the figures, the guy I was waiting with and a few others had made their way over into my space... and I had no cart! Curse me and my lack of foresight! Lucky for me, other guy had a cart and allowed me to use the top basket in his cart while I went and got my own. Then, the two of us started the process of comparing figures to make sure we both got everything.

Total, I had:
Giants
Swarm
Crusher
Hot Head
Bouncer
Legendary Bouncer

Light Cores
Prism Break
Drobot
Jet-Vac
Euptorr

3-Packs
Pop Fizz, Whirlwind, Trigger Happy
Ignitor, Chill, Zook

Singles
Sonic Boom
Gill Grunt
Flameslinger
Flashwing
Hex
Sprocket
Bash
Drill Sergeant
Double Trouble
Stump Smash

Also, I grabbed two of the Legendary 3-Packs - but this is where the issue came up. A few weeks ago, TRU had a thing where you could put a deposit down and "Pre-order" items from their "Hot Toy List" - I put two of these on pre-order, one for me, one for a co-worker. When I got to the counter, I mentioned it and the lady said they hadn't put any aside (ick), but that I could just get those... however, she wouldn't be able to ring them up with everything else - so I wouldn't get the extra 25% off on them. Oh well, no biggie. But then, she couldn't get the system to give me my 40% off the second figure because it was a pre-order. After trying a few things, I suggested we just ring everything up together and I go up front to get a refund on the pre-order. That was fine. I checked out, saved something like $150, then went back to the service desk to get my $10... which, between me and the customer in front of me (who was having a similar problem with her pre-order on the games), was just a giant nightmare that took us up until 9:30 to resolve. Fun times.

(cont)

I'm sorry, but i'm so jealous I hate you right now...

How did you get Granite Crusher? You are so freaking lucky. But I did have fun reading your story!

WHAT A HAUL, LOOOK AT THAT!!!!11

YOU LUCKY GUY NOW YOU CAN SIT HOME ALL DAY WITH YOUR WIFE AND PLAY SKYLANDERS GIANT, AND JUST ORDER THEM TACOS AT TACO BELL. AWESOME!!

LETS GET THEM TACOS KAPPA!

HELL YAH!!!1

WE GOT THE TAKKOS WITH THE KAPPA

Well this sounds like a good place to tell my experience. I'm dying to tell. i will say I have an epic win between sunday and today. I hd a game plan all set up for Sunday. This is how it went down. I woke up at 5am. Meant to get up at 6 but couldn't get back to sleep. So I decided to let my hubby sleep for the extra hour while playing Lego Batman 2. Good game BTW. Anyways. 6 rolls around. I make coffee and we are out the door by 6:30. Got to Target at about a quarter to 7. Sat there for an hour waiting going into Day-After Thankgiving mode. I only see one older couple with their granddaughter so we made small talk 5 minutes before the store opened. So we get in and this is what throws me. There were only maybe 10 granite crushers and about 5 or so each of bouncer, crusher and swarm. So I grabbed my granite crusher and a swarm figuring swarm would've been one of the hardest ones to find later. But no small figures at all. Oh well no big. So we trotted over to the TRU. And they had a huge display with figures to spare. I only wanted a select few so I came out with he Legendary 3-pk, the pop fizz whirlwind and trigger happy pack, LC prism break, and chill. THEN, we traveled to the mall before storehours to get it since the store would be open early, but not the mall which always confused me but anyways, and go through the staff entrance to get in. We called it the resident evil hallway or narnia hallway. lol. Due to special luck the weekend before, we traded in some games toward Giants so we paid off the game and got it for free. Hopped skip and jumped to another gamestop by my house and got the exclusive cannon pack and got that for free with the left over money on our trade-in card.

And today, after finding out that flashwing, sprocket, and hot head would be out today, i went back to TRU to get them. Only found flashwing and sprocket. I don't think they had Hot Head at all. i guess it was only select locations at first or they just didn't receive him yet. But I got a series two Flameslinger for my hubby since he is his fav. Dudes, for all those Flashwing haters, all I can say is don't knock it until you see it. The pics do no justice. She is beautiful. At least to me just is and I hope the emerald flashwing is real and will be made because that would be awesome. So I feel it was a big WIN this weekend.

I hate you for getting a Flashwing! *flip table*

No hard feelings. Just so sad... But I did get some wave 2's!

My son (yes he is only 6)... Absolutely LOVES Flashwing! I do too. She is so unique. Her tail fights like a scorpion. That makes her a little more masculine doesn't it? LOL. Toy's R Us had Hot Head(he's awesome too), Flashwing and Sprocket today they just have learned the hard way and didn't put them all out at once. I went back several times and a few more would show up and then disappear repeatedly.

Your son plays video games at age six?

I played and conquered Pokemon Yellow at four.

I got Mystery Dungeon when I was eight. When I very first started playing video games was when I was... six. Oh yeah, I remember now! I used to play original GameBoy tossing bowling balls at the other team's animals! Good times...