Wednesday 1 January 2014

Santaland at Myer, Melbourne 2013


On the Sunday before Xmas we ventured into the city to go to the Myers Christmas attractions and see what all this hype was about.
The windows - this year I heard and saw that they have done their story time with shutters so you listen to a part of the story and then the shutters close and you move onto the next one which I think is awesome! Although we just looked on as we walked past I loves the colors and realness to the windows this year.
But the main reason we went down was to get a Santa photo as I've heard good things... Well I must say mine was the opposite for a FIRST ever experience to a Myers Santa and a FIRST family experience with miss N whose 4 months - although she's too young to understand what's going on, this is a special one to us as it's a first family Christmas photo we could enjoy but I was really annoyed with how the outcome came after traveling an hour, paying $15 for parking, waiting an hour in the line to get a photo with the heaters being up full ball in the early morning, the ignorance of some of the staff, photo rooms, photo quality and photo packages!! 

Let me take you through from the start each point listed above.. We traveled an hour to go to the best for our FIRST family photo and parked in the closest parking we could find to Myer for $15 flat. 
We then had to wait an hour to be seen by Santa - as I approached the queue to see Santa, I saw a sign saying you could book online and be seen right on your appointment slot. I don't think there was much advertising of this so the public knew. There was barely anyone in the prebooked photos with Santa queues which I'm assuming had it been marketed out better that they would of had a very good queue there.
The line was big which I didn't expect at all at 9am in the morning! There was about 30 people in front of us in the line - the day wasn't really a cold one, was a little drizzly outside but the store had the heaters up really high - shortly after it changed but gosh standing there in the heat was horrible!

Whilst the line was big I decided to go and feed Niahbella so she would be happy in photo - did you know Myer only have parents rooms on the 3rd floor where the kids floor is? I thought that was a bit silly! It wasn't properly displayed that only 3rd floor had the parents rooms so here I was pushing around a pram and holding Niahbella going back and forth on the 6th floor trying to find somewhere... I was about to just park myself in the little ottoman/couches they have with the TV's and give a show to everyone breastfeeding because I couldn't find anywhere!
When I was out of the line breastfeeding, Dan was holding our spot in line for the 20 minutes we were out in the parents room and during that time there was Santa's helpers coming down the line giving out little Santa paper beards to decorate - Dan was a little annoyed that the Santa's helper completely ignored him and skipped him in the queue to give him a handout. Okay we probably didn't want one anyway but it's nice to ask. I thought maybe it was because he didn't have kids with him but yet the people in-front who were holding queue and behind us with a baby were given/asked if they wanted one. 


My gosh the photo rooms were teeny tiny and very hot. The rooms weren't family photo friendly at all - Santa is in a corner and you could have to have all the kids on 1 side of Santa instead of spread out on both sides which looks nicer. We got a family photo done as well and I was standing in the small space on one side and Dan was kneeling down on the other side. 

The quality of the photos weren't up to standard as well - in our photos you can see a glossy shine to Santa & us... well it was more like sweat that shone through from the hot heated rooms!
The photo packages were ridiculously high priced but I guess thats everywhere. 

Something I really like in Santa photos and think is a must, is that they list where the photo was taken and the year. Santaland had the year but no Santaland Myer in the photo.


I'm pretty disappointed with Myer and I think next year we might try David Jones - can anyone recommend good places? Did you go to Myer... what were your thoughts?

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