The A1's premier toddler theme park! (Downtown)

Member Name: yabbadabbadoo

Product:	Downtown
Date:	09/09/09 (287 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You can forget all your worries , forget all your cares

Disadvantages: Normal shopping restrictions apply, you may be required to part with cash

Are you growing tired of the same dreary old standard issue over-priced motorway service station nonsense?

Well allow me to open your eyes to a whole new world of retail possibility. Yes folks, at Downtown, everything really is waiting for you..........

~~~~A welcome break! ~~~~

The Downtown retail park owned by the Oldrids group, has been trading since the year 2000, and is situated directly alongside the A1 at Gonerby Moor, easily accessible in both directions via Grantham services on the outskirts of the town.

Even if you've never yet sampled the Downtown experience, anyone who's ever travelled along that particular section of road running down between Newark and Peterborough, surely can't fail to have noticed the two huge aircraft hanger size scale buildings plastered in the green and blue Downtown logo.

Essentially on one side there's the Downtown superstore (incorporating Boundary Mills) which features all manner of electricals, clothes, home furnishings, kitchen accessories and toys, and opposite there's the Downtown Garden centre.

OK, OK , really doesn't sound all that exciting thus far I grant you, and I'll be honest on my many A1 road trips over the years I'd never even considered taking a look.

However, since we moved down from Leeds last summer to a village just off the A1 only a few miles down the road, my eyes have been opened to a whole new world of pitstop potential to reinvigorate even the weariest of traveller. Let me explain....

~~~~All aboard for toddler wonderland~~~~

Right from our very first visit I knew Downtown was going to be something special. It was coming up to Christmas, and naturally the prospect of being able to get so many things under one (well ok two rooves) was utterly appealing to my disorganised and shopaphobic nature.

Of course the more retail savvy among you would be quick to observe that the pricing in such places does tend to include a considerable amount of mark-up particularly when compared against likes of discount supermarkets and online distributors, but whichever way you look at it, it's a great, easy access place to see things all laid out.

And here's where the magic starts. In our family, playtime Daddy is given free reign to look after little fella (aka our 3 year old pocket dynamo), while Mum and Gran get on with the purchasing logistics.

Firstly let's start with the Garden Centre. Straight away you can see the disabled access has been thought about. Outside there are ramps for every set of stairs, inside there's acres of aisle space. The ground floor has a wide array of pet accessories, leading on to the garden equipment and accessories. Translation to daddy and toddler - look there's one of those sitdown lawn mowers, who wants to pretend to be a tractor driver! Next up there's the garden play accessories, admittedly not that easy to sneak in a slide or trampoline, but there's a basket ball and mini hoop to test out those ball skills.

Then there's a whole second level to explore. Now as this was actually the first time our little then 2 ½ year old had come across an escalator, he was in no rush to move on from the up the magic walkway, down the stairs routine, until I managed to persuade him to take a look at the shiny tinselly flashing lighty stuff.

So basically from September onwards the majority of the second floor retail space is given over to a Christmas shop, packed full of decorative ideas to warm the cockles of even the most die-hard of Bah Humbug aficionados. More importantly as far as our little man was concerned, the enclosed area marked Santa's Express. A few enquiries later and we were booked in for the following weekend.

According to the latest web site details, the "Express" will be running every half an hour during business hours between 28th November and 24th December, at a cost of £5 for a parent and child, plus £4 for every additional child. Alternatively you can purchase a family ticket of up to 4 people , one of which must be an adult for £12.

Without revealing too much of the magic, it's very nicely done, you are greeted by Santa's helpers, you get to ride on a sparkly train, and of course each Baba gets a personal consultation and gift from the big beardy one. Word to the wise for the larger sized folk out there, of which I certainly count myself in both height and width- as these are seats with mini steering wheels attached, you may find it a bit of a squeeze getting aboard. My advice is, don't lead with the feet, lead with the backside and you've got a fighting chance!!

~~~~Daddy's wonderland -tea break time~~~~

But back to that first visit, and after a hardy half hours quality play shopping, it was high time for refreshments in my book. So in my view, here's another huge selling point for Downtown - The Gardeners Rest Café. Loads of seating space, great big half moon semi circular windows, white washed rectangular tables and whicker chairs giving it all a light and airy feel.

It's self-service, the highlights include plenty of pre-prepared salads, sandwiches and mouthwatering cakes to choose from, plus very decent sized jacket potatoes and a wide selection of fillings. Typically costs us around £4-6 a head, which certainly when you compare against the frequently extortionate pricing of your standard service station left-to-stand-forever slop, does compare very favourably. Plus there's the added bonus of those little animal ice-cream filled characters for the excitable little ones -from memory the black penguin is vanilla and the green chicken offers up some chocolate.

We've spent many a happy Saturday lunchtime after his ducklings swimming class watching him tuck in to "cheese and beans and jacket potato" and that extra special ice treat afterwards.

~~~~A Playhouse paradise, after the parking lot...~~~~

Now all these things are very nice, but I doubt I've provided sufficient evidence thus far to even remotely justify me selling this a toddler theme park.
So all aboard for the grand unveiling

Naturally in the vaguely warmer months of the year, there's a different layout up on that second floor, with lots of patio furniture and the like. I've a definite soft-spot for the good old swing chair, and there's one or two fine examples, particularly a fully enclosable canvas tent style version fit to take on whatever the British weather throws at it. This however is merely the playzone warm up...

Take a trip down the stairs, and straight across into a hall full of blooming marvels and plantastic growing thing a majigs and head straight for the outside courtyard.

Keep going in a straight line past the decorative ornamentals and before you know it you are in miniature house kingdom. Virtually any kind of shed or summer house style you can imagine, they've got it here.

As we wander around with little fella gleefully darting in and out from one entrance to another, to the left hand side we spot a little Hansel and Gretel style blue fronted cottage. On further investigation, right next to it, there's an entire pre-built all black foam padded wooden playground complete with climbing frames and slides all waiting to be road tested by willing little ones.

The enclosure is lined with three or four proper kid style wooden playhouses , with mini ladders leading to an extra floor and window, western style saloon doors, all the trimmings. Admittedly one or two of the slides are slightly fenced off, but with a bit of imagination it's a good half-an-hours worth of quality play possibility.

To round things off there are some giant log cabin style buildings perfect for budding writers' retreats, leading perfectly to the final discovery.

Some genius has only come up with giant beach bar style garden huts - ok at £3-4K at time and with our climate, you're never likely to actually buy one, but I promise you the kids will be fascinated and what's more, for five glorious minutes, you get to live the dream.

~~~~The best of the rest~~~~

I realise I've dedicated a fair amount of wordage on the garden centre side of things, but just across the car park via the covered walk way there's an equally sized main store with plenty more to discover. The ground floor starts with electricals and furnishings. Now going back to my earlier comment about pricing, when we recently looked at a new fridge and separate freezer in Downtown and then went away to see if we could get them cheaper elsewhere / online we found some interesting results. Whilst managed to find the fridge £100 cheaper (£288 vs £380 in Downtown), try as we could we couldn't get a better price anywhere on the Freezer. Just goes to show it's not always higher prices in these mega stores.

We also bought our dining room suite here in store, and with free delivery within the local area, we were more than happy with the after purchase care.

The ground floor area could be even considered a mini adult play ground in its own right, that is if like me you are still mesmerised by giant HD-TVs and like to try one of the 4 remote controlled demo massage chairs in store - going back to the preferred motorway service stop scenario - happy days - these chairs cost a quid a time in those rip off zones!!.

But with my escalator fan close at hand, it's never long before we gravitate upstairs to another vast department store array of goodies. Particularly handy is the fact that in the toy section they always have a few demo toys set out on the table for playing with. Why, just last week I successfully managed to perch babzooki side saddle on a rocking horse while we stormed a wooden castle. And yes there is a whole other café on this side - happy days!

I have to confess I've never visited the separate Boundary Mills section on the ground floor, but I constantly hear people singing its praises.

Elsewhere on the site there's a separate Delicatessen called Food and Drink, plus a Conservatory village (what more mini house type things - oh yes!)

~~~~So forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go....~~~~

Well yes there's a Little Chef further up at Markham Moor with a bizarre dual sloping roof that looks like a skateboarding track, and I concede that there really are service stations called "RamJam" and "Wild West Café" on the hallowed stretch of Great North Road, but for my money there's really only one place to go for the ultimate A1 stopover.

Go on give it a try!

Summary: "No finer place" for a break....