Take me to the seventh level of Hell and call it shopping (The Mall at Cribbs Causeway)

Member Name: Emma1973

Product:	The Mall at Cribbs Causeway
Date:	30/12/01 (351 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Saves money

Disadvantages: Always buy things you dont want, Queues, queues, queues

Well I did the unthinkable, I went to the sales on their opening day at The Mall in Cribbs Causewau in Bristol, worse still I took along my boyfriend and 10yr old. Now my boyfriend hates shopping at the best of times and this did absolutely nothing to improve his view of it!!

For those who are unfamiliar with the Mall, it is a large out of city American style mall, it has 60+ shops, including a huge John Lewis, Marks and Spencers, and most of the usual like HMV, Virgin, New Look, Next , Wax Lyrical, Body Shop, etc, the Mall itsself is surrounded by massive stores such as Toys R Us, B&Q and the most massive ASDA ever seen. On the other side is Warner Village cinema, and a number of restaurants including TGI Fridays, Bella Pasta, etc.

So I managed to encourage the others to come along as we had piles of vouchers and Virgin was holding their huge sales. Alan (the other half) was already having misgivings when we were about half a mile away and there were already queues, eventually it took us about 20mins to get to the Mall from the main road, then the parking!!!!!! We had to leave the main car park and go to the rear one, finally found one after going round about 10 times, there were cars parked everywhere, on the verges, in the trolley parks, everywhere, this of course would make problems worse later.
Inside the Mall it wasnt too bad, the shops were obviously prepared with extra staff, of course there were queues when we were there (about 11.30) but it wasnt that bad, certainly not as bad as Christmas. The exception had to be Next, where security staff were operating on a 1 in, 1 out basis.
But it was typically good-natured and we saved an absolute fortunes on cd's, videos and DVDs in HMV and Virgin.
The Food Halls were packed with people sitting on the floor and against the windows, but again the Mall staff were prepared for this and the place was clean and tidy.
So at approx 2.00pm my partner finally persuaded me to leave, when
we gt outside we were greeted by the sight of lines of static cars, we got into ours hoping it wouldnt be too long, little did we know, we needed a big space to reverse into due to the twat in the Peugeot parking on the verge. We sat there for 30mins with the traffice behind us not even moving, so we did the sensible thing, we got back out again and went shopping. We trotted across to Toys R Us, who's sales isnt even worth mentioning, or ASDA or B & Q's, still got me nicotine patches though.
We wandered back through the Mall, popping into Next where most of the shelves were now empty, but I still managed to pick up a few bargains for the kiddies.

It was now about 5, so we tried to leave again and it was much easier, only took us around 30 mins to get to the main road, usually 2-3mins, apparently though, it was taking 2hrs to get out of the Mall at the time we attempted to leave the first time!

So we finally got home, pennies later, hours later, and my boyfriend insisting that he was never going shopping the day after Boxing Day ever, ever, again, until next year of course when hopefully he has forgotten the experience and takes me again!!

Anyway must go, have to see if that hideous coloured, size too small, top fits, well it was half price!!

Summary: