karrit

US website now says: "We're sorry but we're unable to place new orders for Pick a Brick Standard parts at the moment. Expected to restart in early January". My 5 items that were still showing earlier have been removed. Guess I better call them about the 3 parts that were missing from two of my orders that I got yesterday.

Yes, 45 day shipping estimate makes it appear so. Noticed earlier that the Quidditch Capes have been removed from the site. And there's been changes to some bestseller parts also. Just checked my running order that earlier had over 270 parts in it and now is only showing 5. Everything else I had is suddenly out of stock. Wonder if it's a glitch or they are pulling everything temporarily again like last year.

Sorry you couldn't get just what you wanted. I hate the pre-built packs because I'm usually not interested in at least one figure or some parts of each one. I was able to build what I wanted at my store. Grabbed a 3 pack of Santas and a 3 pack of the Female one with the hat from the Crook instead of the pink hair and some random accessories of my choosing since I have tons of the Snowflake piece already. So I grabbed a couple of Chickens and another Teddy Bear instead of the snowflake. Those were the best of the available accessories.

@Murdoch17 I finally got an update from USPS today that the Packages have all arrived at the DHL Distribution Center in Denver so hopefully only another day or two before I get them. Depends on when DHL actually turns them over to USPS and how quickly USPS transports them the final 50 or so miles to my local Post Office. I know our informed delivery notices have been quite wonky for the past couple of weeks with them telling me stuff is in the current day's mail that doesn't show up for several more days. And then sometimes telling me something will be delivered that I've already received. Normally I would just blame it on the mail deliverers screwing up but it's been happening way more often lately and I haven't been getting other people's mail like I do when it's the local mail person at fault. Update on Tuesday 12/05: Local Post Office finally has 4 packages and they say they will be delivered tomorrow! The final two have been charged to my credit card so expect they will finally ship out in the next day or two.

OK, the 28 days have come & gone on my 6 standard part orders. The ones from Nov 1 & 2 departed the DHLGM Avenel, NJ facility on Nov 28 but there has been no update I can see on the USPS website other than they are still waiting for the packages. DHL tracking shows the packages left NJ on Tuesday and are currently enroute. Doesn't normally take a week for the USPS to get the packages from DHL but I know there has been bad weather across the country. The DHL tracking shows origin of Packages to be Jamaica, NY which is probably JFK airport so I don't know if that is point of origin for this country or if they normal arrive in NJ & then get sent to NY as I've never actually checked the tracking on the DHL website before. I usually just rely on the USPS updates which only reverence Avenel NJ as the starting point. According to the LEGO website my Nov 3 & 4 orders have been shipped but still waiting on invoices for those two.

Big snore on the Swing build in the Elsa's Frozen Castle set. They seem to like putting these in the Princess sets just to up the part count instead of coming up with more useful side builds. A cute stable/barn for Sven would have been more interesting than yet another useless swing.

I think we normally get those with the Summer wave. Not too impressed with most of these. Looks like Aqua is the new Bright Coral for this year. Interesting part recolors in a few of the sets but none of them are must haves for me even as parts packs.

Majisto GWP seems to have run out in the U.S.

The Galaxy Explorer Black Friday deal through LEGO this year pales in comparison to the deals Walmart ran on it last year. They mostly sold it for $75 from day one and several times offered it for just $50. I snagged a second copy one of the times it was $50 & someone mentioned using the special online ordering for pick-up $10 off coupon so I got it for just $40 + tax. They started selling it for full rrp once the holidays were well over. Often times their good deals are online only so you have to place the order & either have it shipped or go to a store to pick it up. Same with Target, they sometimes have great offers online but not in store on most sets. The Lion Knights Castle deal is the first time it's been offered on discount for us plus it's exclusive to LEGO so that's always a factor. I agree with @Black Falcon that personal preferences are also a big factor on whether or not one considers any particular deal to be good or not. The 3x & 4x points did nothing for me because the sets they were offered on were either something I already own or else not a set I would buy anyway. I remember a number of years back when each day during Black Friday weekend the offers changed and the deals were really good. But it was also frustrating if you were trying to meet GWP thresholds & bought something that went on sale the next day.

Sorry I may have misspoke by saying Europe gets better deals. Having looked at the Black Friday comments for the past two years it looks like Australia was the region with the discounts on some of the big sets that the rest of us didn't get. I can forgive that a bit because I know their prices are crazy higher than the rest of us. Just annoys me a bit when these list come out and they don't specify which region and imply that the discounts and/or GWP's should be worldwide. On the other hand many of the Amazon deals reported by some in other countries similarly rarely are offered to us and whenever someone reports a great Zaavi deal it isn't available here either. For much of the year we are lucky to get the 20% off deals at most on occasion from other retailers. Bigger discounts mostly only occur during clearances or around Black Friday. And don't forget that your prices include VAT. Our taxes are added on after the fact and depending on where range anywhere from 0 to over 10% in some areas. And I do realize that British prices when converted to US Dollars are a bit higher to begin with. But in general Euro to US dollars usually should be fairly similar. I also understand that LEGO likes to discount based upon region to promote sales on sets that aren't selling well in some regions verses the regions that are getting better sales numbers but as an international company the discount disparities by region are annoying to all of us. Even here in the US deals that are reported at other retailers often times vary from region to region as well as from store to store in the same town/city. About 1/2 the sets people have been finding in their Costco warehouse stores have never been seen in any Costco in my region and I've even looked in several diffferent states when traveling. I hope the deals that have been rumored for us do end up being available to everyone around the world because it would be nice if it were fairer to everyone.

It the past sets many larger sets that were offered you at a discount were not offered on sale for us. Sorry I can't recall specific examples to name. The deals vary by region every time and some big ticket items never get discounted for us. I'm shocked at some of what I've set listed as supposedly going to be on sale for us in the US this time. I'll believe it when I actually see the deals posted at LEGO.com on Friday.

As tempting as a second copy on sale would be it seems like we never get the same terrific Black friday deals in the U.S. as they get in Europe. So I'll be very surprised if they offer us that deal. But I doubt I'll buy a second copy even at that discounted price. Too many other expensive upcoming sets I'm interested in.

Woohoo, two of my November 1st orders are now showing as shipped so I expect I will be receiving the e-mail receipt soon. One more November 1 order still in warehouse. So looks like we are back to the 28 day shipping estimate at this point. Another three more orders to go. One each from November 2, 3 & 4.

I'd love some of those skeleton heads also.

Yes, finally was able to check for some of the last few parts I was hoping to order and most all of them are now back but showing OOS. Unfortunately New Elementary also seems to have removed the pictures they had up of the retiring parts so I can't search that way anymore either.

Looks like most of the retiring PAB parts have been removed from the US website. Looks like the ones that are listed as bestsellers are still available for now.

This is what we thought about Harry Potter a few years back but instead we got the reboot.

Since the VIP program has been replaced with the Insiders program there is no reason to continue the VIP pack branding going forward. It would make sense that it should be changed to be called an Insiders pack for future releases. Until there is other news regarding this I'll choose to be cautiously optimistic for a rebrand rather than discontinuation.

Maybe we will still get them just rebranded as Insider add-on packs. No offense to Brick Clicker but his info isn't always 100% accurate.

Have not had a chance to build Eldorado yet but I have to go with Pirates of Barracuda Bay. Brown Docks for me. I do need a big Imperial ship though to do battle with the Barracuda. And I'd like a bit more port buildings of some sort.

Thanks. One of the people in my LUG posted the New Elementary link a few days ago so I've been working off that one. I just click the pictures of the parts I'm interested in & add them to my list that way. A few were already out of stock though. Keep hoping the Spaceman torsos come back. I've been working in batches to place orders that amount to enough to get me the VIP/Insider GWP. I may do one final order with a few leftover parts & add enough to get another Galileo GWP too.

I'm thinking some of these may just be old part numbers that have newer versions. Not surprised though since they usually do remove a lot of parts at the end of the year. I find it very frustrating that Rebrickable posted the photo list with part numbers that don't match LEGO's. It's going to take a while to sort through everything to see what I want to order. Stupidly printed out the spreadsheet before sorting it into numerical order.

Well I have zero interest in 3 out of the 12, gamer & the 2 sports ones. Will be interesting to see reports on which figures are in each of the six pack boxes. I'm guessing the Goatherd will be combined with at least two of the three I don't want and probably the Batlord will be in the other batch. That Harpy creature is ugly but the legs are interesting. I may need to order a full box just to insure I get multiples of the ones I really want.

It varies by part, no set time frame. Sometimes it's a few days or weeks while some could be months. Some of the new animals went out of stock really quick while others stayed in stock for a while. Now some of those parts are out of stock while the others have been restocked. And some have gone out of stock yet again. All I can say is keep a list of what you want & keep checking to see if the parts are in stock. I suggest you make an order when you reach a point that they have enough available to eliminate the service fee and get the free shipping and possibly even a GWP you want or 2x insider points. Also remember that you can combine a parts order with set purchases to get over the free shipping threshold as well as the GWP one. New parts tend to keep going in & out of stock for a while and at some point some of them will likely switch into the best seller category for a time.

Both. You can possibly still place an order for what isn't out of stock but they stop processing orders until the holiday missing parts rush is over. Last year it was about two months if not longer before they replenished and started filling outstanding orders. The list of orderable parts dwindled to just a few thousand early this year before they finally replenished. Someone posted somewhere they heard it might not shutdown this year though.