I am Bristol born and bred and live within a 10 minute drive of Cabot Circus shopping centre but I am not yet convinced or impressed by it.

Previous to building Cabot Circus, bristols shopping areas consisted of the galleries and broadmead area which housed the usual high street names such as debenhams, house of frazer, primark, new look, topshop etc. Or The Mall at Cribbs Causeway which is a large mall building with all the stores under one roof.

Cabot Circus was built as a series of shop buildings under a glass roof which links them together. There is no specific entrance or exit but just pavements and walkways that lead from the other stores of the old broadmead into this new area where you are suddenly under this large glass roof.
One design flaw that I find really annoying is that there is no fluidity to the shops, you start in one place then go through the the center then end up walking back through the central point again to get to the other shops, sort of like a star shape so you have to keep coming back to the same stores again and again. I have been there on several occassions and end up either getting lost or bored of walking the same bits and end up leaving early.
The buildings and walkways are on three floors but you'll struggle to find the lifts and escalators.

The actual shops that are in Cabots Circus are great though. There is a huge Harvey Nics, a large House of Frazer, a Henleys store, Next, The Entertainer etc. There is also a whole level dedicated to food, housing a Nandos (yummy portugese chicken at a great price), Yo Sushi, Girraffe, Cafe Rouge and Brasserie Blanc (Raymond Blanc's restaurant)

There is also a huge cinema complex on the top level with has it's own bar and restaurant as well as the general food counters. It is very expensive though with 2 tickets booked in advance costing me £17.45. The screens themselves are no differnt than any other large cinema complex.

One good thing is there are lots of car parking spaces and a bridge linking the car park with the shopping centre. I have only ever used the car park at night where it cost £2.50 for the whole night but I have heard it is expensive in the day so I use the galleries carpark and walk across instead.