The Big Shop — Local services in Carlsbad

Okay this review is all about Mary!! My family and I just had a long two days at Legoland and we always finish out the trip by stopping by the Big Shop! I always get something for the people who helped watch my dog at home and my two boys. Right now, my older boy (4) is all about Ninjago, who can blame him? So we go over to the Ninjago section and he says he wants a Lloyd toy (green ninja). We look through and find 2 Lloyd toys, one for $40 and one for $60, both way too complex for my kiddo, aka too many pieces for me to put together for him to break it after 6 minutes. So, as a standard 4 year old, he's sad that he couldn't find a Lloyd lego toy. As a soft hearted dad, I send my wife and boys off to check out the rest of the store while I search for Lloyd. Unable to find anything else in budget and ability, I stumble across the mini figure stand that has hundreds of packages of Ninjago figures! Though it is a mystery as to which one you will get and I wasn't feeling too outrageously lucky! As I start to make my random guess, I am stopped by an associate named Mary who asked me if I was looking for one in particular. I said that I was searching for Lloyd. She said oh he's a popular one, I know someone who can find him for you. This definitely peaked my interest, I didn't care if I had to go to the back alley to buy a Lloyd mini figure from someone's trunk, I wasn't leaving until we got the green ninja! So she leaves and comes back with another associate named Mary R. who is one of the nicest and kind hearted people I've ever met in a customer facing position. She asked who I was looking for, I told her my son really loves the green ninja. She said, "oh it's for your boy over there? Don't you worry, I'll find him". Immediately, she starts picking up the bags of mini figures and she's feeling the bags out of memory of what's inside and after a few seconds, she tells me which figure that was, explains how she knows and tosses it to the side. She did this for about 10 minutes, going through what must have been 100+ figures. The smile never left her face and she was as friendly as could be the entire time. She found a Lloyd and said, "this is just the regular Lloyd, I know he wants the ninja version. Hold onto it just in case we go through ALL of these and can't find one." She goes back at it and I'm amazed at how quickly she's able to determine which figure each one was. Without realizing it, I say wow out loud. She says, I'm determined now, all I ask is that if I find him, I get a nice big smile (looking at my son). After a few more packages, she looks at my son and asks, "which one is your favorite again?" "Lloyd is my favorite", he says. "Lloyd the ?", she asks. "Lloyd the ninja!" he answers excitedly. "I hope you have a smile ready, because here's your Lloyd the ninja!" Anyone else would've stopped after a few bags, said they were out or especially would've stopped after finding the normal Lloyd. But no, she continued, as happy as could be until she made my boys day. Thank you so much Mary R. You singlehandedly made my entire family extremely happy and put the perfect exclamation point on an already...

I am hoping that this review reaches Moses, a current employee at the Big Shop. Recently, this week, my son bought a Ninjago set. Soon after opening, he lost a pretty significant piece and his building came to a pause. I asked around at the LEGOLAND hotel to see if there was a place to order just a part, they said I’d need to purchase a new set.

Later that day, we stopped at the Big Shop while waiting for rope drop at Ninjago land. I asked an employee, Moses, if I could ask a weird question to which he replied, “there’s no such thing as a weird question.” I asked if he knew where I could purchase a single Lego piece to finish our Ninjago set. He asked about the piece I needed. I explained it was a “wrench shaped” piece which acts as a hinge for a door type piece (real Lego builders will understand). He knew right away what I was talking about and went in the back and returned with 2 pieces (similar to the color we needed) and I later learned it came from his personal collection. I asked if I could pay him for them, he declined.

He literally made my son’s day! My son woke up that morning with the missing Lego piece still in his mind and Moses changed the mood for our day and even our trip. Thank...

I can’t knock it too much, but honestly, I was a bit disappointed. I expected so much more selection from this store.

The “exclusive” sets were kinda lame. They did have some “difficult to find” sets, but besides that nothing really that I couldn’t easily find elsewhere, or at another Lego store.

The mini-fig build shop was sad. Very limited selection of accessories.

I was hoping for a lot more out of this shop. More selection, more base sets for creative builds, more variety.

For all the effort to get in on a shopper’s pass (paying for parking, park entry and then having to return for a refund after completing your shopping), it wasn’t worth it to me.

That said, I’ll give it four * because it was clean, the people were nice, and there were some fun sets. It’s really more...