Thanks for the reply, Phoenix.
I live on Long Island, and the mattress stores we have around here are basically just Bob’s and Sleepy’'s. We liked Bob’s highest end foam mattress, the Bob-O-Pedic MyBob Gel, but it’s $1100 plus shipping, and I’m unsure about its quality. There’s a lot of mattresses at Sleepy’s that we like too, but their prices are all $1200 and up.
I looked at your brand recommendations here. The only brands with well-reviewed mattresses in the price range I’m shooting for are Brooklyn Bedding and Dreamfoam Bedding.
Brooklyn Bedding appears to only sell one bed, and it’s latex instead of memory foam. I’m not sure that I’ve actually tried laying on a latex bed, so I’m hesitant about it. I’ve heard mixed things about latex beds in general, and that particular bed seems to have mixed reviews here on this forum. I know I really like the feel of gel memory foam, and they have the highest customer satisfaction scores, so that’s what I’ve mostly been looking at.
Dreamfoam bedding makes a few gel memory foam beds. The 12" Ultimate Dream Supreme Gel looks good, but it’s only available in “Short Queen” size on Amazon, so I’d have to order through their website, and I have an Amazon gift card balance that I really want to use for this. The 13" Ultimate Dreams Gel looks good too. I’m a side-sleeper, but need back support, so I’m not sure which of those two would be better. Maybe I’ll parse the reviews to try to figure out what Tempur-Pedic mattresses each of them correspond to in terms of firmness and I can try them out in Sleepy’s.
All that being said, I’m a bit disappointed that you dislike both of my original mattress choices. I was hoping that someone here would have some personal experience with them. I guess the research will have to continue.