What is BuildABear Workshop? AKA BABW?
For those new to BuildABear, like us, this is a whole new world to introduce you, I mean your kids, to! As you step into the store, there are so many choices. You get to pick an unstuffed bear or other animal. Next, you name it and get its birth certificate. After, get in line to get it stuffed and you can add sounds, voices, scents and hearts inside the bear. Then, the fun stuff happens. You go shopping and dress up your bear. There are tons of options dresses, sports outfits, shoes, head gear, accessories, pajamas, costumes. You name it, there’s a bear version of it. That’s BuildABear in a nutshell. We are from Florida and have several locations near us. Our frequent stop is at the Florida Mall. Check out the video here:    • Big sister goes birthday shopping at ...  . We were super excited to visit the Rockefeller Plaza location during our road trip!

Have you heard of the Pay Your Age Bear?
We were celebrating birthday girl's sixth birthday on this particular trip. BuildABear was a surprise for the girls, just in case we ran out of time and didn’t make it. We bought the girls each a $50 gift card to use as they wanted. All of us were excited to visit the FAO Schwarz location at Rockefeller Plaza. I mean, how can toy shopping get any better? Since it was during a birthday month, she could choose one of the birthday bears and buy it for six dollars! She could get this deal any time during her birthday month. We let her know this option in case she wanted to do so. Just a heads up, there have been only two bears that we have seen for this birthday deal. The birthday girl didn’t get this particular bear again, although still a great deal and option for those on a tight budget and still wanting to enjoy this experience for their child!

Are there ways to get discounts on gift cards?
The girls quickly picked out all three of the Honey Girls from this collection. We have seen these before but this is the first trip we’ve actually bought full price options. We discovered BuildABear about a year ago and each girl got the birthday bear during their birthday months. The Honey Girls are $36, which left some money for accessories. On our last trip, we bought $30 in gift cards. For every $25 you spend at BuildABear you can purchase a $10 gift card for $5 to use on your next visit. With this being a special trip to NYC, our family members also gave the girls some spending money to use either here or on the following day at American Girl. Check the video out here:    • American Girl Birthday Party Hair Sal...   They are learning real world math because they were keeping track of the $50 they had, plus whatever other money they chose to use from their gifts. Side note, be sure to join the BuildABear rewards program to get the full benefits of what they have to offer.

Is the merchandise different in New York City?
Once they picked their Honey Girls, the store associate allowed the girls to help step on the pedal to fill the bears with the fluff, and then they made wishes from their hearts and minds for their bears. They named their Honey Girls, got their birth certificates, birthday stickers and hats, and then started shopping! As the girls shopped, each picked out an outfit for their Honey Girls. The girls picked out Honey Girl accessories and some New York accessories. The birthday girl got to pick out an extra outfit and got one that said, “New York”. The store had New York options that I hadn’t seen in the Florida stores.

Did you know there are two locations in New York City?
I will say the Rockefeller location is super crowded and very hard to move around in, especially if you have multiple kids with you. If you have to see this store to say you’ve been here, or because it’s the only location you have time for, okay. But if you have the time, go to the 34th street location. Everyone at the store was extremely helpful and nice and kept everything moving along quickly. It’s just there are THAT many people in there all at once in such a small space. Depending on your temperament, a fun shopping trip may not end up being so fun after all. It almost got ruined for us as we went to check out. We put all of our merchandise on the counter, only to find out that this particular location can’t accept the BuildABear gift cards!!! So off we went to the 34th street location. Once we got to the other location, there were so many more options! We found Mirabelle’s dress from Encanto! Like I wrote earlier, if you have the time, and are a big BuildABear fan, this location is a must see on your New York trip. It has a huge selection of New York outfits, a large variety of stuffed animals, outfits and accessories. It’s close to Macy’s too!