My CYO experience, and what's changed since then

 

My beautiful CYO Alexandria!

Today I'm going to share my experience creating and ordering my CYO. This is Alexandria, my CYO, and I ordered her in 2018 as a birthday present. This was about a year after the CYO line debuted and she took about 4 months to come. This is because something was backordered, although I can't remember what. 

Alexandria is the Jess face mold (C face mold) with grey eyes, freckles and super short pixie-cut blonde hair. She has a hearing aid piercing on her left ear and her ears are pierced for earrings as well. 

For Alexandria, I selected the Let's play meet outfit and Let's create accessories I. I wanted the Let's explore meet outfit but it was out of stock at the time and it didn't come back into stock for a looooong while. I did eventually order that outfit and accessory set separately (which I have a tutorial on how to do here) for a total of $60. Alexandria cost $200, but my mom had $10 of AG rewards, so the total was $190 and it still qualified for free shipping because it was a CYO order and over $100. 

Let's Create Accessories I, now retired

Let's Play Outfit, now retired

I also got a free design-your-own t-shirt code! The shipping on the T-shirt was free too, and I eventually designed the t-shirt you see in the photo of Alexandria that says "Deaf not Dumb" underneath a rainbow logo. The t-shirt is available in the "design" right-hand section of the CYO website and you enter a code at checkout after designing the t-shirt and the it becomes entirely free.

With Alexandria I also got a 6-month subscription to American Girl Magazine. At the time the magazine was still being published, but I already had a subscription to the magazine so I held onto the card for a while hoping to use it when it came time to renew. Well, the magazine was discontinued before that. So, I heard through the AG community that there were two options to still use the offer, either a subscription to National Geographic magazine or a design-by-me book. However, nothing was directly offered to me so I e-mailed AG customer service and asked if anything was available because I had not used my subscription voucher. I got a free design-by-me book shipped to me for free! Now of course you can't do this because the magazine vouchers are no longer distributed, but it was a great example of how good AG customer service is. They didn't do anything to verify that I had actually purchased a CYO so I don't know exactly how many people went and sought out the substitutes for the AG Magazine Subscription. 

I also got a plain blue headband because I selected the "headband" option in the hairstyle section. Make sure to do this because it gets you a free doll headband and it's not super obvious!

I also got the braces stickers which are the same ones that come with the Healthy Smile Set. 

For further information on CYO dolls, here is the American Girl Wikia article

AG never added the dark blue glasses to the CYO, and sadly there are no options for "boy" items like the dark blue glasses or boy face molds and hair, I really hope AG considers adding these in the future. The "girl" glasses that get released are added to the CYO site usually after a few months of being out. 

My doll came with ears pierced but I don't think it comes with the basic stud set.

Is it worth it? This question has varying answers. The doll is $200. A TM doll with the meet outfit accessories, hearing aids, glasses, and pierced ears costs $175 and qualifies for free shipping. Things that don't come with just a TM doll are the free one of a kind t-shirt, braces stickers, and the extra headband with the "headband" hairstyle option. If you want a unique doll that isn't offered through the TM line, it's worth it. If you want a TM designed doll, there isn't necessarily a ton of extra stuff that makes CYO technically have more retail value than a TM doll with all of the add-ons. I think it really depends on what your goal is. Have you never had a TM doll that looks like you at all? Do you want a white Addy mold or a super unique combination AG would never create? Then a CYO doll is worth it, totally. If your CYO doll design looks really similar to a TM, consider getting the TM and then customizing it. Adding freckles with paint is simple, doing an eye swap is more complicated but there are ways to have other people do it for you. In summary, most of what you're paying for in CYO is the unique, one of a kind doll you create. Whether or not it's worth it then is up to you. 

** Side Note** There's an option in the CYO bottom right hand corner for "personality" where you can add your doll's name, fave thing, fave place and pet pal. The place, thing and pet pal don't matter and do absolutely nothing BUT whatever you put as the doll's name will show up as that doll's name when the doll is in your saved creations. I believe it asks you to name your doll when you check out though, so the process isn't necessary, but if you have several doll creations saved it can be nice to be able to "name" them by putting something in the "doll's name" section.