...
Unfortunately, I have broken every single one of them!
The first for obvious reasons, newly weds and all of that and the second and third time due to the fruits of the afore mentioned reason, by being very pregnant and very fat!
My husband has now just about had enough of getting up ... Read review
Advantages: Helpful staff and swift delivery. Disadvantages: The added extras.
...even threw in a large Dreams branded "mummy bear", free of charge! (Incidentally, my kids have done nothing but fight over it since!)- £3.00.
Total cost - £849
Ok, so this is still not a bad price, but I'm not going to let the assistant know that, and in turn helped myself to a rather large handful of free mints and Dreams badges!
We set up the direct debit for the interest free credit, got out ... ...- We had had a phone call from the bloke we had been served by at the store on the night prior to delivery, just to confirm that he had passed on all the relevant information to the delivery people and that they would ring Saturday morning to confirm the delivery time.
At 8.20 am, the phone call arrived, I have to be honest I did panic a little, more for the fact that they rang the house line and due to the fact we were all still in ... more
Even though I have been living with my husband for near on 10 years now, we have only just really started purchasing "new" things for our home. Many of the pieces of essential furniture we have was either bought very cheaply to cover a need or, in most cases, off my mum! (she buys something new, see's that we need it and can't afford it, then persuades my dad that she now dislikes the afore mentioned purchase, enabling her to buy something else and giving us the original, she's great!)
We, in our entire time together, have owned three beds, all bought for pennies from my mother in laws catalogue. Unfortunately, I have broken every single one of them!
The first for obvious reasons, newly weds and all of that and the second and third time due to the fruits of the afore mentioned reason, by being very pregnant and very fat!
My husband has now just about had enough of getting up from what should be a peaceful nights slumber, to feel like he has gone ten rounds in the boxing ring, so putting his foot down with a firm hand he frog marched me down to our local branch of Dreams.
Now I am no expert in bed buying but was more than aware of the massive sale that is currently taking place there, with most stock having 50% knocked off the original price, but still I feel dubious.
We walked through the massive double automatic door and entered a beautiful, clean and fresh looking establishment, at the time we were the only customers in there and a member of staff came straight over to us, this annoyed my husband immensely but was glad when he realised the staff member just wanted to explain how the pricing sheets worked, then left us alone.
We were faced with 15 different types of double and single beds on the ground floor, picking the base we liked the look of, to realising there were more on the first floor and having our minds changed again!
In the end we chose a delightful "sleigh" design bed, made from antique pine, and after I had suitably embarrassed my husband enough, (I had to check how comfy the beds were!), we now only had the mattress to pick.
The mattress's are graded on a 1 - 5 scale, 1 being the firmest up to 5 the softest. We were on the look out for the television advertised "memory foam" mattress, but after sitting on it, I realised it made me feel motion sick as it keeps moving as it moulds to your body. We decided on a grade 4 pocketed mattress that in fairness is sublime, unfortunately the way the assistant had described the pricing sheets lead us to believe we were getting more of a bargain than we actually were!
All the beds that come separately from the headboard can be purchased as a set price, with the cost of the headboard being added on, which makes the bed seem more than a reasonable price, our bed was a solid base with headboard and foot board, so was not to be priced the same!
We get to the counter and the assistant works out a final price for the bed and mattress -
Lockwood base - £489 Double pocketed spring mattress - £299
Making this bed - £788.
Ok, so this was not too bad a price to my way of thinking, then the dreaded extras started being added! We wanted to take advantage of the 12 months interest free credit, so I was sure to ask if we would incur any penalties for paying the balance in a couple of months time (which I fully intend on doing), he said no, then decided to inform us that as the credit account is through Barclays bank, they do charge a small fee of £19.00, to close the direct debit account down, this by the way has to be set up in case the purchase is not paid in full in the allocated 12 months period. - £19.00
Next was the delivery of our new bed, the assistant told us it was in stock and could be delivered as early as the next day, unfortunately my husband and myself both work during the week, so we asked for a Saturday delivery slot, this bumped the price up by £10.00.Of course we had to agree, as we could see no other way of getting it this side of Christmas! - £10.00
We were then told that standard delivery would be the base in flat pack form along with mattress to the front door only, which was fine with us. - £0
Of course he went on to say, if we were interested they did an "old bed collection" service, that meant someone would go into our bedroom, bring the old bed and base down and then send them to be recycled. He said everything on an old mattress could be recycled, even down to the springs. I f we wanted this service it would cost us £29.00, which I did agree to as it sounded like an easier and possibly more environmental choice for us. A green sack was provided to put the mattress in, I can only assume that is for hygiene reasons. - £29.00
Finally a "goodwill gesture", we were offered a lorry to bedroom delivery of our new bed and mattress due to the fact they were going up there anyway! This would only cost an extra £3.00, rather than the £27.00 charge we would have been facing, by this time my face must have been thunderous, as the assistant even threw in a large Dreams branded "mummy bear", free of charge! (Incidentally, my kids have done nothing but fight over it since!)- £3.00.
Total cost - £849
Ok, so this is still not a bad price, but I'm not going to let the assistant know that, and in turn helped myself to a rather large handful of free mints and Dreams badges!
We set up the direct debit for the interest free credit, got out receipt and awaited Saturdays delivery!
Delivery day - We had had a phone call from the bloke we had been served by at the store on the night prior to delivery, just to confirm that he had passed on all the relevant information to the delivery people and that they would ring Saturday morning to confirm the delivery time.
At 8.20 am, the phone call arrived, I have to be honest I did panic a little, more for the fact that they rang the house line and due to the fact we were all still in bed, rang my husbands mobile straight after, we usually only get phone calls like that when there is a problem!
I managed to get to the phone for the second call and the driver informed me we were due to have our bed delivered that morning between 9 - 11, The bed actually arrived at 8.50, I obviously couldn't help as I was halfway through putting my slap on! The delivery driver and his assistant were very helpful and courteous, they took our old bed base and mattress first then brought our new bed in, which came flat pack, in five different boxes.
Assembly - Ok, so you will just have to take my husbands word for this as Saturday was my day in at work, and in fairness I don't do general DIY while he's off, I cook and clean he should do something to earn his keep! (lol). His exact words were " it was a piece of piss", which I took to mean, "wow, yes it was real easy to assemble my love!"
And trust me if he can do it anyone can!
And that is pretty much it as far as my tale goes, the bed is a complete joy, finally my husband is getting a decent nights sleep, and I feel more rested than I have done in a while.
As we have not had to ring customer services I couldn't comment on there efficiency but if the rest of the service is anything to go by, you are guaranteed an excellent service.
There is a 30 day money back guarantee on the mattress, so even if there is nothing wrong with it and you just decide the mattress is too soft or too firm, you can swop it for a different one.
For more information on all the products available visit - www.dreams.co.uk
Advantages: Good price, good bed Disadvantages: Vigilance required when taking delivery
...see what the consensus regarding Dreams was, which is the nearest place I can buy from. It wasn't good! But then I noticed that the reviews were invariably from disgruntled customers, and that the total number of reviews wasn't enough to form a decent sample size to make any fair conclusion from. Could it be that buying a bed is one of those things that people forget as soon as they're got it safely delivered, but remember if it all goes wrong? I ... ...'''THE SHOP'''
My local Dreams is right at the edge of Guildford town centre, and for the location has quite a big showroom, with room for 20 or so beds. It's quite well laid out into rows, so you can peruse the various options at your leisure, as well as lie on the mattresses to try them out. I found the staff to be helpful but not overbearing, generally leaving you to it with the occasional discrete enquiry as to whether you needed assistance ...
larsbaby 25.02.2009
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Dreams (Shop)
Advantages: Good quality products at low prices Disadvantages: Delivery men let them down
...the road to our local Dreams store to see what they could do for us. Dreams now have over 160 stores all over the UK as well as offering an online store after starting out 23 years ago and claim to be Britain's Leading Bed Specialist (for more information on Dreams visit www.dreams.co.uk). The main reason we decided to go there was because we had been recommended to look at Rest Assured mattresses by my parents and this was the closest stockist to ... ...was half price on the Dreams price and £1000 less than the John Lewis one now. And on top of that we were told that if we bought the mattress and the bed frame we could get another 10% off the combined price. And then to make it even more tempting we were offered a duvet, a set of pillows and a mattress pad. Unfortunately I had only recently bought a new duvet and pillows and I never use a mattress pad so I said that it was very kind but we didn't ...
Suzela 06.11.2008
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Dreams (Shop)
Advantages: None that I can think of - would have been better off going anywhere else! Disadvantages: Terrible customer service, shoddy designed products, organisational nightmare
...year period. Often they would say that they would call us back within half an hour with an answer, only once did that ever happen (out of tens of times), hence all the phone calls being made from our end.
It's a cliche, but DREAMS = NIGHTMARES ! ...
goperryrevs 07.04.2008
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dreams (Shop)
Advantages: Delivery Time met Disadvantages: Poor after sales service
...and bought a bed from Dreams shop after many times of viewing and testing out some beds.
After three weeks of delivery time to wait I received my bed and this was professionally installed in the correct bedroom. Whilst I was happy with the bed mainly speaking in that the bed felt comfortable, it was the lack of after care sales service that really let Dreams down. I asked if I could have a refund or exchange of new bed which they claimed to offer ... ...to pay an extra £500. At this point I felt overawed and outraged having paid £700 for a brand new bed to pay an extra £500 to have an exchange of bed. I felt that the level of customer service in dealing with this problem of mine to be a big let down for the company. The delivery time was stated as three weeks and they did at least turn up on time. The type of bed I ordered was a Lincoln labelled mattress and this seemed ok until I discovered that ...
costas1234 30.11.2009
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dreams (Shop)
...to come, I called up Dreams to nip any potential problems in the bud. The man said that the unit will be made but we would need to put the inside shelves in ourselves which was apparently easily. However, again, the delivery guys came and the wardrobe was completely flat packed and we were not down for assembly. After a very long phone call, which even involved one of Dreams talking with the delivery guy and telling him the wardrobe was built except ... ...were then passed to another Dreams person. The second person was the manager and was very rude and made out like we were making things up! She told us the sales guy who promised assembly was not at that store, and that WE were in the wrong (goodness knows how). Yet in the end, wait for it, shock horror- happy ending coming up, after arguing with them and telling them we would need to pay for a third party to build now, they said they would give us ...
regula_jo 08.10.2009
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dreams (Shop)
Wide range/choice of pr...
Helpfulness of Staff
Delivery time
Repair/Replacement Serv...
Similar reviews »
Reviews which might be of interest for "Dreams (Shop)"
I have recently used Farrow and Ball for the first time in my living room, I was absolutely delighted when I discovered it only needed one coat and the paint went on like a dream. The person in the shop explained to me about the pigments they use to make their colours and it really does make the difference. I have painted some of the house in different, slightly less expensive paints and I really wish I could afford to do my whole house in F&B.
I couldn't be more positive about Farrow and Ball.
Its definitely worth the money and the paint goes a long way. My room has gone from a long and slightly dark room to a large, spacious light and airy lounge.
The difference with other main brand paints is the depth of colour. At different times of the day the colour in the room changes slightly, it gives the room character and makes it look ...
, and the smell lasts long after the candle has gone out, and the smell is so delightful that it is well worth the price of the candles!
My favourite is the Dewberry Dreams candle (Tuscany in some shops), which tends to be one of the most expensive scent and the hardest to get hold of, whilst my least favourite is the spiced apple scent, which I don?t even find makes the room smell as much as the others I also love the Orchid Oasis, which is really fresh!
Value for Money:
As I said earlier, some of the candles are more expensive than others (in Asda), and the least popular scents are much less expensive than the more popular (this of course makes sense!) so look out for the cheaper candles and see if you like them as for £2 they are much better value for money than almost £4. Also, I have seen some packs which have an extra candle for free ...
Advantages: Cheap, good lay-out, a wide variety of things, great staff Disadvantages: Could have more checkouts open on busy days to avoid long queues
shampoo there. It was a £ cheaper than Superdrug!
The staff there are really great. While I was being served my mobile phone rang, it was my friend asking where I was. I told her I would be there soon and cut her off. There was a huge queue behind me, but all the woman did when I apologised was laugh and say 'Its fine. Its happened to me plenty of times!'
The minute I had met up with my friend I dragged her back to my new favourite shop, and I found even more bargains. The shop sold bedding, cookware and cushions too. It really was a dream come true.
That day I arrived home with bags full of items, all from the one shop. My friend did too. And I had only spent £25!! For that I had god an endless list of things including shampoo, conditior, make-up, pens, pencils and stationary for school, a new lamp for my bedroom, some cushions ...
![Impossible Dream/Tomorrow Belongs To Me, The [Remastered] - Sensational Alex Harvey Band (The)](http://imagesa.ciao.com/iuk/images/products/small/530/Impossible_Dream_Tomorrow_Belongs_To_Me_The_Remastered_Sensational_Alex_Harvey_Band__5883530.jpg)
