Themiddlebrick

I hear you. I'm also waiting for a Jan 18 order. All because one bracket part was on backorder. I've now called CS about this issue 3 times. The part in question was supposed to be in stock on 3/20. Yesterday they put me on hold for 15 minutes to talk to the billing dept. and "push" the order to the warehouse. It is clear they are dealing with more volume than they can handle. Hopefully they are investing in technology to automate picking the orders because it is kind of a mess. Especially considering their standing as a major multinational (and multibillion) retail corporation. Also a measly 500 points? That isn't much in the way of an apology if you ask me. Sorry if this comes off as entitled, but as someone who has also never had an issue with the long wait of PaB before (I mean wasn't it in 2022 that the wait was around 3-4 months at one point?) TLG has me feeling a bit salty about their quality of service lately.

So I've been looking into the delays in delivery of US standard parts. I have three open orders from Feb 5 - Feb 15 that shipped between 22 and 8 days ago, all way outside of the normal delivery window. This is a separate issue than the backlogs we sometimes see on TLG's end (or orders like my Jan 17 order still held up because of a backordered part). For those who are unaware, standard orders to the US (and most countries) are bulk shipped air freight from Denmark to a single port of entry (in the US this is JFK airport) and clear customs. They are then taken to DHL distribution (in Avenel NJ) where they are broken out into the individual orders and delivered to USPS for delivery (it isn't clear at exactly what point they hand over to USPS, directly from distribution or at a more local level) According to Lego CS, apparently orders placed between Feb 4 and perhaps as late as around Feb 10 have had their bulk shipments held up in customs. This is a known issue with Lego. They are asking for an extra week of grace time before reshipping any orders (21 business days from shipping vs 14 business days). To answer @karrit lego sends the invoice when the order ships (this is because they do not consider the transaction closed until it leaves their possession). So for standard orders when you receive the emailed receipt from legoshop.com that is an accurate indication of the ship date (if you are not receiving these emails you may need to contact CS to make sure they have the correct email address on file, if you ever changed account info this can cause issues with their communications). Also FYI they can track standard orders to the US, CS seems to be more open to this lately, in the past you would really have to press to get them to do it, some reps simply don't know it is possible.

They seem to be having issues with particular parts( especially bardings, but some others as well). I have a Jan 17 standard order that has not shipped and it is because of a 1x2 bracket that is currently backordered. I called twice about it because I have received 2 standard orders that I placed on the same day and two weeks after this one. The first time they told me to wait a week and call back, when I called back at first they told me the same thing, but then the CS rep said hold on, I just looked into this more and see one part is backordered until March 20. So now I have to wait until then and hope the order is picked.I could have asked for the part to be removed, but then they put the order to the end of the line and you have to wait the 28/40 days all over again.

Haha thanks, I wanted something in the background that wasn't too distracting...planet, no too obvious...hmmm what else is there? Meteorite!

Personally I probably would have emailed them about it, specifically stating I don't need a replacement. I think it is important for them to know if there are quality issues and customer reporting is a big part of this

Thanks so much! I've been working hard on improving my photography so that is really nice to hear! Looking forward to see what you have planned! This definitely has me thinking about more SW CS crossovers

Thanks so much! I wish I could take credit. I had to modify the technique a bit to make it work with the parts in 10497 but the original idea is from the excellent LEGO u-wing set.

Not even the Razor Crest, TIE Striker, the Fondor Hauler? To each their own! Thanks so much for the kind words, I had a lot of fun with this one the set is an absolute joy to work with because of the part and color selection!

Thanks so much! It's my first real alternate build so that means a lot. Though to be fair you couldn't ask for a better set, there are so many useful pieces in there it definitely made the job easier!

I wanted to present my alternate build for set 10947 Galaxy Explorer, I call it the UT-928D Galaxy Transporter! I wanted to create something for the Classic Space competition here and ever since I built my copy of 10497 with its dual windscreens I had this idea to make a classic space version of my favorite Star Wars ship the U-Wing. However, once I got started I realized with the size of the canopies staying within the 40 stud limit would be impossible while retaining the sleek proportions of the U-wing. So I changed from the limitations set by the rules of the contest to keeping it an alternate build, using only pieces found in set 10497. With a secondary goal of retaining the most important features of the U-Wing - 4 large aft mounted engines, sweeping wings (or s-foils), a cockpit with full 180 forward visibility (or the ability for pilot to see straight down) and accessible cargo/passenger space. I'm happy to say I was able to meet all these goals, although in order to stabilize the mechanism for opening the cargo bay doors I had to add one 1L axle/pin and two 2L axle/pins each for stability/friction. I justified this by thinking most people will have these in their collection anyways and it was important that the doors actually stay shut! I feel pretty good about how this turned out given the restrictions of the set pieces and the design of the ship. I just managed to pick up a second copy for %50 off though and I'm already thinking about how I could use it to make a "UCS" version! But for now I will let this one take up a place of pride on the shelf and move onto other projects! I hope you have enjoyed looking and thank you for reading this far! Please let me know if you have any questions. And yes instructions are available on rebrickable, you can just search my user name or UT-928D there to find them!

I think it's both. It seems unlikely the capes were ever in stock. However, I know that one person saw the football heads early on. It may be that they sold out, or they could have been removed by TLG. The police training parts likely never were in stock as that is a January set. Really only LEGO knows

Items that go OOS automatically revert to the EU standard warehouse. Thats why OOS wasn't showing up because the EU warehouse was closed. Now that its open again OOS is working. I thought I jumped on the new parts quick but I didn't even see the flags, capes and police dog training parts before they went oos

I think they did eventually but it was a very short time before the set retired. I feel like there was an interim period where they were using the old boxes/manuals with the Dallow figure...but my memory is a bit hazy there

I haven't ordered more than 200 of an element recently so I can't speak from personal experience but I don't believe this is the case since the merger. For instance I know people who successfully purchased 999 nets when the price error was live.

EU/UK/AU standard PAB was shut down as they expand the Poland bestseller warehouse which will go from approx. 1000 elements to over 4000. Once that transition is done the standard PaB will reopen. In the end these regions will have a much more robust bestseller collection to choose from as well as the full selection of Standard parts. August and September parts should be added when Standard re-opens as well followed by the return of the regular schedule for releasing new parts.