On Saturday we decided to goto Mantri Square which is India's largest mall. The thing to be noted is that it is definitely a great mall with lots of shops and lots of options. The flip side is reaching Mantri mall is extremely difficult and usually during evening times there is lot of traffic jam due to thousands of mall visitors.
They have a huge parking lot, and it worth seeing how they stack up cars one on top of each other. I have never seen such a system even in USA. But parking itself took us 10 mins since no one can guide on which is the free space. When someone is pulling out, you park there and it usually blocks the entire traffic in parking lot.
The mall would take atleast 3 - 4 hours to see all the shops , food court etc and do some window shopping. You can leave your kids in the fenced play area on 3rd level they charge rs 125 for 45 mins. There is ameoba bowling alley and also scary house and Demon Jungle and few fun things on same level. There is also a carousal for kids. However we found everything to be expensive compared to other malls. Probably they have huge overheads and cannot afford for cheaper. A 500 ml water would cost you Rs 20 inside the mall.
The timing of the day when you would visit the mall is also important. If you can go during weekdays or early morning / afternoon on weekends I would believe it would not be that crowded and you can enjoy.
Stores :
- Howards Storage World is something worth mentioning. It has great solutions for home organizing but an answer to almost every home organizing and storage problem. Most items are imported and very expensive, but I think if you need it they its worth the money.
- Apple's store always has huges visitors , people playing around with iPad2 , its great experience, something which people wish they have but most cannot afford them.
- Lifestyle, Shopper's stop, Spar and Home centre along with Reliance trends are all in same mall. So for serious shoppers nothing can come close to the experirence of having almost everything in one place.
- There are many exotic shops with unique products. Good to just look around.
The mall also has touchscreen on all floors where the shoppers can have a glimpse of entire mall on touch screen.
In summary, I think if you can spend 4-5 hours here, and are prepared to spend lot of money the mall would provide a great weekend break / outing. Be prepared for long delays in parking, one way confusing streets etc.