Great alternative to Hanley (Festival Park (Stoke-on-Trent))

Member Name: heynonnynonny

Product:	Festival Park (Stoke-on-Trent)
Date:	24/10/09 (449 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Better than the city centre

Disadvantages: Nothing really

Festival Park is a retail and leisure complex situated within a mile or so of Stoke on Trents city centre of Hanley. It has been developed for just over 20 years having used to be a hub of heavy industry within the Potteries, once housing Wedgwood, Shelton Steel works and various coal mines were also on the site. It was developed by St Modwens following a massive garden festival which encouraged regeneration to North Staffordshire and bought massive amounts of visitors to the area.

Nowadays it is an excellent port of call and is a rather large site encompassing shops, leisure faciliies and eating places. It has over a million visitors a year.

Retail facilities=
I can think of the following,
Large Morrisons supermarket
Large Toys R Us
B and Q
Mothercare
Argos Extra
Next
Large Boots
Brantanos
Large and very nice New Look
Pets at home
Couple of electrical shops
Halfords
PC World

Amongst a couple of others. Good mix of shops to be found often saving you having to go elsewhere. Bonus!

Leisure facilities=
10 pin bowling, which is great fun, and hold glow in the dark nights which are ace!!
Dry ski slope, used about 7 years ago for snowboarding, was very expensive. Shabby and old, surprised it is still going...
Waterworld, excellent, the whole family will love it, half a million visitors a year one of the best waterparks going.
Odeon cinema, quite old now, it's ok but much prefer Vue, cleaner and better seats. It's not bad though.
Hotshots snooker and pool. good to while away a few hours, enjoyable.
Fitness centre, not ised.

Restaurants=
Pizza Hut, large friendly and clean, recommended.
Frankie and Benny's
Drive thru McDonalds
Burger King
China Gardens, big chain pub carvery, lovely food.

Hotel=
The moat house Best Western is in the heart of the complex.

It is also expanding as a trade park and houses a number of businesses, including banks like HSBC and Nat West, The Hanley building society, Beth Johnson Housing Association, architects Hulme Upright, IT recruitment firm Omnium and bookmakers Bet 365.

Advantages=
All your needs pretty much in one place. Anyone in Stoke knows the advantages of this instead of having to go up to Hanley! Free parking. Convenient location in the middle of Stoke on Trent. All the leisure facilites are good so there really is something for the whole family.

Disadvantages=
Can get very busy and can be a problem for parking spaces. Boy racers like to use the site in the evenings but this is usually limited to parking up by the closed gateway to shops in Corsas, not exactly threatening. That is it. Nothing bad to really say about the place!

Interesting fact! The Toys R Us was the first ever shop on the site in 1988!

Festival Way, ST1 5PU for the sat nav :)

Summary: Worth visiting