Best UK Brand store?

[Duq]

On my holiday in August I'll be passing the Brand stores in Manchester, Milton Keynes, Watford and Westfield. Is there any difference between them in terms of stock, particularly PaB? What are the shopping centres like that the stores are in?

In other words: which would be the best of the four to visit?

[Sam892]

Milton Keynes is alright, but it's by no means the best. I've been too a few Stores in the UK and Milton Keynes is by far the smallest I've seen. While that's not a huge issue stock wise ( I've always been able to get what I've wanted), it's a huge problem for the PAB wall.

The PAB at MK is awful, not only is it small but it's also a very poor selection of parts. Around 4 of the buckets are taken up with doors, windows, tires and wheels, and most of what remains is 2x4 bricks. I've never encountered tiles or interesting pieces in those buckets, and a lot of the smaller pieces are all bunged into a single bucket.

That way one bucket contains gems, studs, cylinders, 1x1 plates and flowers.

I will give the PAB wall one credit in that some of the colours are interesting, quite a few of the bright colour bricks from the Friends line and I've seen a fair bit of olive bricks recently. Overall though it needs work.

The store itself is nice and the Staff are awesome, their always willing to help and are very friendly. It's a very neat store aswell, and it's easy to find sets.

Milton Keynes shopping centre is very nice, there's lots of other brand stores in there like HMV, Apple, John Lewis, Disney, Waterstones and Game. John Lewis and waterstones are the only other places that sell LEGO as far as I can remember, and John Lewis sell D2C sets aswell sometimes at a discount. It's a very large shopping centre that has lots of clothes shops, electrical shops, book shops and entertainment shops. Unfortunately most of the Toy shops like Entertainer and Model Zone which both sold LEGO closed a few months back. Funnily enough I'm head to Miltin Keynes tomorrow so I'll post an update on the PAB wall and stuff.

The only other LEGO store I can remember is Westfield in a London, which is my favourite due to it's size. The PAB wall is pretty good at Westfield a nice selection of parts but each bucket is usually doubled up. The stores pretty huge, and the only drawback is how busy it is. Due to it's location and size it's always packed with people, the PAB wall is pretty difficult to navigate due to both the customers and the location of the tills.

Westfield shopping centre is very large and offers most of the same stores as Milton Keynes. Both Shopping Centres have cinemas and Milton Keynes has a Snowboarding and Skiing ramp as well as a sky diving simulator.

Both are pretty good for Shopping and are pretty easy to locate. The Westfield centre is right on top of a tube station so it's very easy to get to.

[Zanki]

What Sam892 said, the Milton Keynes store is the closest to me and it's not very good. If you are in the shopping center, take a look, but the Pick a Brick sucks. I've got some good stuff before, but the London stores are way better. Watford, Westfield and Liverpool are good stores, I haven't been to any others yet.

[CptPJs]

I'll second John Lewis as a useful shop. They don't always mark them out as such with coloured price labels or anything, but sets can be quietly up to half price so check the shelves! (and know your RRPs!)

[Sam892]

Ok so I went to MK yesterday and the PAB wall still sucks.

[Duq]

Thanks for the tips guys, I'll happily drive past Milton Keynes and aim for Westfield instead.

Forgot to ask: what's shopping like in LL Windsor?

[escortmad79]

Forgot to ask: what's shopping like in LL Windsor?

Stick with the stores, LL Windsor is owned by Merlin Group so doesn't have as much variety as Lego stores