Blow All Your Credit Cards In 1 Place! (Bluewater)

Member Name: andy0304

Product:	Bluewater
Date:	22/10/04 (4377 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free Parking, All the Shops You Want, Plenty Of Leisure Facilities

Disadvantages: Easy to Spend Loads!

I can still remember the day they started building the shopping centre located in Greenhithe in Kent. It was a massive empty chalk quarry which you would look at and think how they are ever going to build the type of centre they were advertising in there. However although it took some time, they managed it and built the best shopping centre in this area.

I have been a massive fan of Bluewater since the day it opened; in fact because I only lived about 10 minutes away also went to be nosey on opening day! How sad is that? Anyway, since that day I always prefer to go there for any shopping needs that I might have.

When you first enter the centre from the car parks you walk into a large Welcome Hall, this is basically a large area with TV screen showing you things about Bluewater including opening times etc. In these areas you will also find toilets including disables access toilets and baby changing facilities. As well as some comfortable seating whether you are waiting for someone or just absolutely knackered from all that shopping. Should you require it there is also some guest lockers that you can use to store bits in while you walk round but be aware Bluewater won’t accept liability if anything happens to your belongings whilst in these lockers.

Each Welcome Hall is colour coded to the same colour of your car park; this can be Yellow, Red, Blue or Green and just aids you when it comes to remembering your cars location.

Bluewater has pretty much all of the shops that you could ever imagine under one roof, ranging from electrical stores, to health and beauty to clothes stores. In fact it has more clothes stores than I have ever seen under one roof. He only thing I do find it lacks is some of the cheaper stores that are always very popular including the likes of Argos and Woolworths, however these were never the style of shops that the management of Bluewater wanted.

As well as the usual range of shops that you would expect to find in a shopping centre there are also banks available including the Woolwich and Abbey. There is also Hair Dressers available including Toni and Guy, various Jewellery stores including your usual high street jeweller H Samuel as well as some of the more expensive jewellers including Fraser Hart and Goldsmiths. Situated around the centre is also a range of what Bluewater like to call Guest Services, this includes the likes of an RAC stand for recovery membership, Shopmobility for the less able shopper and the Learning Shop which includes Bluewater recruitment.

The shopping centre layout of Bluewater is very easy to find your way around. The centre is triangular shaped to make your life easier, unlike Lakeside Thurrock where you have to walk from one end to the other each time. This layout at Bluewater allows you to walk round one level completely and then move to the other level. Depending on where you park will depend on which level you enter the centre on, but next to each car park entrance there is a lift and escalators so you can change floors.

At each triangular point of the centre you have the three main department stores, one at each corner. These are House of Fraser, Marks and Spencer and John Lewis. This, I find, makes it easy for you to remember where you started your tour of the centre. It also allows you to park in your desired area, for example if you wish to shop in Marks and Spencer then you can park right outside their store.

If you find that you are getting lost around the centre then there a maps of the centre placed at various locations around the halls. These maps include all of the lists of stores and services available with the locations of where to find them; you can also pick up leaflets which contain these maps as well. To also aid the shopper and make places easy to locate they have named each of the areas of stores, the 3 sides of the triangle are named as Thames Walk, Rose Gallery and Guild Hall, and the names have the word Upper or Lower added to the beginning of them so you know which floor it applies to. There is also the Winter Garden where there is plenty of seating available and where Santa’s Grotto is at Christmas. There is also the Water Circus where once again there is seating available as well as outside around a large water fountain and access to some of the restaurants near the cinema and an artificial ice rink in the winter.

Bluewater not only has the shopping facilities you could ever want it is full of other facilities as well. It has a food court which contains various types of food outlet including McDonalds, KFC, Harry Ramsdens, Pizza Hut, Shere Khan Express, Singapore Sam Express and Spud U Like. These places are located in a central food court area that is accessible mainly from the ground floor but don’t worry if you are on the first floor there is escalators and a lift right next to it to get you down to the food area.

As well as these places in the main food arena, there is also various other food outlets placed around the centre. Burger King for example can be found in the area they cal the Lower Water Circus. They also have various other places to get snacks etc from including Millies Cookies, Walls Ice Cream stands, Ben and Jerry’s as well as various coffee outlets such as Coffee Republic situated at various different points around the centre.

Although the stores in Bluewater close in the evening the centre stays open for its other leisure facilities that include the Showcase Cinema. Located in the Water Circus contains 13 screens and shows all the latest movies that are released for viewing. Within the cinema you have the option of going into a ‘VIP area’, this area called the Showcase Gallery, although you will pay extra for these tickets than the usual seating area.

Within the area around the cinema you also have various other leisure facilities and restaurants. This includes the likes of TGI Fridays, Nandos, Bitz and Pizza Sports Bar which allows all age groups. Overall you can pretty much go for a night out at Bluewater and as parking is free this can sometimes prove to be a reasonable night out.

Security is high on the agenda at Bluewater and there is always a high presence of Security officers all in a Bleater uniform around the centre. They are all very helpful staff who are always willing to assist you. However you won’t only find them in the centre they are also constantly driving around the complex on their motorcycles ensuring the all car parks are monitored 24 hours a day and have some of the most secure car parks in Europe. Every area of Bluewater is also monitored by CCTV. Bluewater also has its own Police station and Police from the Kent Police are situated there is they are with other Police stations so there is always help about should you require it.

Car parking is easy they have 13000 car parking spaces and they all are situated at various points around the centre, but no more than a five minute walk from a centre entrance and Welcome Hall. Most of them have three 3 floors, one ground floor, one middle floor and one on the roof. Although the roof sections tends to get closed in winter conditions for safety reasons. Each car park has signs directing you to them which have changeable signs showing you whether the car park is full or has spaces.

Each car park has Disables bays as well as parent and child bays. Although it is quite common that as these are the closest bays to the centre they fill up first although they do get monitored by Bluewater staff. During busy periods staff in the car park will direct you to some areas of the car park where spaces are available in order to make parking quicker and easier, this is particularly applicable at Christmas when the centre gets really busy as you would probably expect.

Ok so now you know all about it you want to know how to get there, well it’s easy and can be accessed by everyone.

For those of you that drive or have some one to drive you there Bluewater is situated 1 mile away from the junction 2 of the M25 if you head east from that junction along the A2. For those of you coming from the other direction i.e. the Medway area then Bluewater is only 1 mile in the west direction away from the A2 / M2 interchange and it is now fully signposted from all directions. So where ever you maybe now you can pretty much find your way there with ease.

Coming of the A2 you need to take, the junction now called the Bean Interchange, and this has filter lanes that take you straight into the shopping complex. The actual location of this interchange is situated between Dartford and Gravesend. So for those of you coming round the M25 in search of Bluewater should follow the signs for the Dartford Crossing and you will then find that Bluewater is signposted from there.

So not every one drives! This is not a problem as there is still other ways you can get to Bluewater. The first is by train, the Greenhithe train station is 5 minutes from Bluewater and trains stop there all day every day, and some services have now been added to stop there more frequently due to Bluewater. Greenhithe is situated on the South Eastern (formerly Connex lines) and therefore is directly linked with London and the Medway towns. So although to get to Greenhithe you may have to switch trains you should never have to wait long as services run London bound from Greenhithe on average of every 15 minutes.

Once at the station, you do not want to have to walk to the centre so Bluewater operates a bus service. The bus service you require is number 100 and is purely a shuttle service between Bluewater and Greenhithe station. When buying your train ticket if you ask specifically for a ticket to ‘Greenhithe for Bluewater’ then this ticket will include your shuttle bus to the centre.

If you decide that you are travelling by bus then over 60 buses an hour stop at Bluewater’s bus stand which has space for plenty of buses. This buses all link to the local areas and most of them are operated by Arriva, how ever some other services such as London buses now also stop there. So getting to most places from Bluewater by bus is easy.

But if you are lucky then you will be in one of the area that operates a direct service to Bluewater from where you are. This will be express service coaches that are provided by Arriva and they link directly to Maidstone (route 703), Sevenoaks and Tonbridge (704), Chatham, Gillingham and Rochester (701 and 700).

However these days a lot of coach companies offer day visits to Bluewater and the shopping complex has the facility to hold plenty of coaches.

The opening hours of the centre are;

Monday to Friday 10.00am to 9.00pm
Saturday 9.00am to 8.00pm
Sunday 11.00am to 5.00pm

In December they extend their closing time during the week until 10.00pm to allow that extra shopping time for everyone’s favourite time of the year.

On Bank holidays they tend to open 10.00am to 6.00pm. You are best to check with the individual stores or call Bluewater management though as some stores hours do vary especially with the 3 large department stores that open earlier or close later than the rest of the centre.

Visit their website and you can also subscribe to receive specially selected updates direct from Bluewater by email.

For more information call the appropriate numbers or visit the relevant websites below:

www.bluewater.co.uk
Bluewater Management 0870 777 0252

Bluewater Management,
Upper Thames Walk,
Bluewater,
Greenhithe, Kent,
DA9 9ST

Bluewater coachline 01322 623393

For train information visit www.nationalrail.co.uk

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