Surprisingly, you can't buy the in-room robes

July 29, 2007 12:18 PM

Tired after wandering the aisles all day?Want to get a head start on all those shoppers the next morning? An IKEA near Oslo has opened a free, 30-bed in-store dorm. The company says it's also equipped with "a bridal suite, a luxury suite, as well as family and tourist rooms". A company spokesman claimed that "guests stayed awake to watch the night workers refill the shelves", then went on to point out that many of them also stayed awake through sunrise, unsure whether the sun would come up otherwise.
posted by mkultra (24 comments total)

That sounds abysmal. Then again, I spent so much time in a grocery store having worked at one for 6 years, I'm still adjusting to voluntarily entering one for shopping purposes.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 12:25 PM on July 29, 2007

How hideous.

(Unless I just happened to be staying the night the bi-curious college women's cheerleading squad was the only other occupant of the dorms.)
posted by maxwelton at 12:33 PM on July 29, 2007

Dear Aliens: How's that death ray coming? Time is running out. Please hurry.
posted by loquacious at 12:35 PM on July 29, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

I can't wait till WalMart does this.
posted by Item at 12:37 PM on July 29, 2007

I love that they tried it. I love that customers like a company enough to even think about doing that.
posted by empath at 12:45 PM on July 29, 2007

You should have mentioned it was just a limited-time stunt.
posted by smackfu at 1:01 PM on July 29, 2007

This is not surprising. If you define "vacational travel" as a non-work related trip longer than 300 km IKEA is by far the most popular tourist attraction in Scandinavia.

People drive for hours just to go to IKEA so if you're willing to waste basically a whole day on IKEA why not spend the night as well?
posted by uandt at 1:11 PM on July 29, 2007

You should have mentioned it was just a limited-time stunt.

That's what they said about the PATRIOT Act.

/rimshot
posted by mkultra at 1:18 PM on July 29, 2007

Explain to me, please, this bit about the sunrise? I'm pretty sure it's a swipe at IKEA customers and I'm just not smart enough to get it.
posted by Clay201 at 1:19 PM on July 29, 2007

No, nothing to do with IKEA. It's the logic of small children- if I don't see it, it might not actually happen.
posted by mkultra at 1:21 PM on July 29, 2007

I would love to live in an IKEA, and feast on their swedish delights all through the night. Besides, most of western society already lives in an IKEA salesroom (aka their home).
posted by blue_beetle at 2:07 PM on July 29, 2007

I can't wait till WalMart does this.- You can already park your RV overnight in the lot at many Wal-Marts.
posted by MtDewd at 2:33 PM on July 29, 2007

Great news; I've always wanted to have group sex in an IKEA!
posted by LordSludge at 2:33 PM on July 29, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

It's not a hotel or hostel, as these press reports seem to try to slant it, but just a catered sleepover. A one-week publicity stunt. Meh. How come charity sleepovers don't get this kind of press?
posted by rolypolyman at 2:37 PM on July 29, 2007

How's that death ray coming?

What we showed you was just a demo. We're still working on the final version.
posted by Smart Dalek at 2:38 PM on July 29, 2007

There is such a thing as charity sleepovers?? Opens new possibilities for matching contributions.
posted by madamjujujive at 3:12 PM on July 29, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

How's that death ray coming?

We already applied it. You are in hell.
posted by Anything at 3:24 PM on July 29, 2007 [4 favorites has favorites]

I love Ikea product names. Should they call the dorm DEFISYT?
posted by rob511 at 5:53 PM on July 29, 2007

Uh, we have a large grocery store as the foundation of our building. Most of the building's occupants shop there, because it is convenient (duh), even at the expense of dropping a brand they don't like or getting produce a step down from Whole Foods or the local organic markets.

But, we drive a lot less, we don't carry our groceries so far, and there's not much traffic to the store other than our building (actually there are two, about 500 units per each). Ostensibly if this was some granola and dried fruit joint they'd be praised for all the above.

I suspect there are people (gasp) here who've never lived in a San Francisco, or a New York, or Chicago, or DC.

Don't knock it till you try it.

(death rays! ffs!)
posted by avriette at 6:00 PM on July 29, 2007

Påpsi Bläue
posted by ColdChef at 7:37 PM on July 29, 2007

[NOT DEFISYTIST]
posted by davejay at 11:34 PM on July 29, 2007

Gak, IKEA. I HATE IKEA. But a Costco, that I could understand.
posted by etaoin at 6:28 AM on July 30, 2007

If I stayed in an IKEA overnight I would bring an Allen key and before checkout dismantle everything and put it in flat pack boxes, reshelve it and then claim I didn't have to pay since the room doesn't exist.
posted by srboisvert at 7:57 AM on July 30, 2007

A bridal suite?! wow...
posted by Ø at 2:17 AM on August 1, 2007