Today we are not reporting on a hidden gem in Chicago, rather a sort of rite of passage for many girls visiting the Chicago area.
The American Girl Place store and café on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, is a wildly popular tourist destination for young girls, and their parents alike!
I do however, think that it is important to set realistic expectations, perhaps a budget, and make a plan before arriving at the store, or you will be one of the parents lugging out a carry-on luggage size bag full of American girl goodies!
I consider myself one of the lucky ones, because Santa brought a American girl doll that looked almost identical to Buggie for Christmas this year. The style came with a few sets of clothes and the guitar to boot. This made it very easy to set a realistic shopping experience when we entered the store. Buggie was very specific in her wants for her doll, and was searching for a backpack or a lunchbox for her doll.
As luck would have it, when visiting on New Year’s Day, be prepared for the launch of “The Girl of the Year.” The whole store was celebrating this launch with complimentary cupcakes, photo booths, drinks, and a take home craft project for each shopper.
This year’s girl of the year is Joss. She is a surfer, and cheerleader, among other interests. Luckily for Buggie, her cheerleading ensemble requires a glittery backpack to hold all of her cheer bows and uniforms. Silly me, I thought we might get out of the store with just the glittery backpack… Until Buggie informed me that it was a cheerleading backpack, so her new American girl doll would most definitely need a cheer outfit to go with it. Judging by the other monstrous bags that other parents were carrying, we still made it out of there with a very reasonable budget.
This was not our first visit to the American Girl Place store. Our first visit was for Buggie’s fifth birthday, where she received a bitty baby doll and accessories. Unfortunately on that trip, she came down with some sort of flu just prior to arrival, and was pretty miserable the entire time.
This was sort of our opportunity for redemption. So we invited her cousin and aunt to join us for afternoon tea at the American Girl Café.
Last time we visited, I made our Café reservations months in advance! I was so excited! Then, when we actually arrived there were hardly any other people in the café besides ourselves. This, caused me to be a little more relaxed with making reservations for this trip. Let me tell you, that was almost a disastrous backfire!
Since this trip was sort of a last-minute effort to take our kids on a short trip during winter break, it was about four days in advance when I tried to make dining reservations for any time during our stay in Chicago. At first, there were no reservations to be had for any meal during our five day stay. Talk about getting the cold sweats! Luckily, I am a pretty persistent person. On New Year’s Eve, I checked one more time to see if any reservations had opened up, and was very happy to see that there was a reservation for four people for afternoon tea on New Year’s Day. My advice to you, is if you want a reservation for the café, make it as soon as possible! You would rather feel silly being the only ones eating, then having to tell your child that they will not be able to eat there with her doll!
Also noteworthy is that if you happen to be in Chicago, and you do not have your doll with you, or maybe you haven’t adopted a doll yet, you are welcome to borrow a doll and a high chair so that you can enjoy a tea with a doll.
The same is true if you want a salon appointment for your girl and or doll. Since I knew Buggie would be expecting to eat at the café, I always like to throw in a little element of surprise to keep things interesting. On this trip I wanted to add a little extra magic by allowing Buggie to get a girl and doll makeover.
I will tell you that the biggest objection on my part from getting the traditional American Girl dolls was, hands down, the hair maintenance issue! While we were at the American Girl Place store, we did purchase a metal hairbrush to assist us with further hairstyling.
Buggie and her new 18 inch American Girl doll both received the ultimate hairdo, complete with braids, ribbons, and a tiara. Buggie’s Wellie Wisher, Willa was in desperate need of a hair restyle, and we just had her hair reset to its original two pigtails with the big curls.
When I tell you that I learned a lot about American Girl doll hair on this trip, that is no joke! When you see all of the dolls in the store, you would swear that they must have some sort of lotion or product in their hair to make it all shiny and look nice. The stylist assured me that is not true, and that you should never use anything other than water on your American girl doll hair! 
If you are scheduling a salon appointment, for makeover for a girl, make sure to allot plenty of extra time in your schedule for them to be potentially running behind. Buggie had a 4:30 hair appointment, and she did not sit down in the chair until 5:30. It seemed like if you wanted just a doll makeover those were a little bit easier to come by as a walk-in appointment. Girl hair and nail appointments however were being scheduled for a day or two in advance, and they were not taking any walk up appointments, which was causing some tears of sadness from both girls and adults.
The salon also has an ear piercing station, this is for both girls and dolls. You can also make prior appointments for this, but it seemed as if they were possibly taking walk ups for the service the day of. I am pretty sure Daddy would have been a tad bit upset had we come back rocking two new holes in our head, so we will save that for another occasion.
In the end, the American Girl Place lived up to our expectations. The food and drink at the Tea were tiny, and cute. They were able to accommodate two different food allergies from two different people, and brought them out on separate plates so that there was no cross-contamination.
Going in ahead of time with a game plan on what Buggie wanted to buy from the retail store helped with the possible overwhelm from all of the choices.
Having an advanced salon reservation kept away the potential for disappointment when there were no walk-up appointments available.
Our dolls left looking new again, which in all honesty I was shocked by. Along with their makeover, I brought home a new knowledge of how to brush and curl American girl doll hair! A skill that I feel will come in handy many times over in the future.
It all boils down to planning. You can order a free print catalog to be sent to your house by visiting this LINK. That will help you plan a realistic shopping budget for your new 18 inch pal.
If you are looking to add additional stops in the Chicago Area here are a few additional posts you might be interested in:
Adler Planetarium
Field Museum
