Executive Summary: Dealing with the Apple Store for any issues is a complete disaster.
If I could give 0 or negative stars I would. Here is a brief glimpse of what ensued:
On Wednesday we went to the Apple Store waited 1.5hrs to see one of their "techs" so that they could establish that the physical volume button wasn't working. Our Apple Care, that we were suckered into purchasing had expired last months and were told that we needed to call them and tell them our story and they would extend our Apple Care by a month so that they would be able to swap our phone next time we came in.
Apple Care took forever to get through later that evening but they were pleasant and easily without quarrel extended.
On Sunday we showed up and were told 2.5hr wait time, so I asked if they could just swap the phone. They said they needed to assess it again. And that only a technician could swap the phone. Last time I checked, phone carriers send new phones to customers and don't require a tech to be present to swap out the SIM card from their old phone to a new phone.
2.5 hrs later we show up again and they are running behind. So I try and speak to the manager and reason wit her two facts: we were here earlier this week and they established the phone should be replaced and 2) Apple Care extended the timeframe so it is now valid. She then told us that we would still need to wait to see a technician, even though there were 50 red shirts standing around any one of them would have sold me a brand new iPhone, but swapping an old iPhone is of course, only something a technician could do.
So now we continue to wait for our phone to be swapped by an "expert" but buying the same phone new could be done instantly.
Here is another great example of Apple not taking care of their existing customers and letting logic escape the once again in Apple La La land.