If you're in Belfast city centre and you're a bit fed up tagging along and carrying bags for the…read moremissus while she shops, and you enjoy the occasional bet, this could be a nice place for you to pass the time (assuming that, for some reason, you can't pass the time in a nearby hostelry). This bookies is spacious and comfortable. It probably has the most screens of any bookies I've been in, ensuring you miss none of the horse-racing or greyhound racing. Screen after screen lists odds, results, special bets, and shows the racing. There's also a good bit of seating in here, with benches and chairs throughout the shop, and no shortage of newspapers for you to make your selections. This bookies is always busy, being positioned in a place where people going into, and leaving, the city centre can easily access it. There's many a punter in here just killing time until they get summonsed to go to meet the missus and carry the bags of shopping that've been accumulated.

Yikes, what a dump! When we used to be allowed to smoke in public places everywhere was so smelly -…read morewell this place still is - it literally smells like an ashtray! don't get me wrong, I generally love a wee flutter of the 7's machines or a spin of the roulette wheel but this place is nothing but depressing! Wall to wall machines with toilets at the back and a free tea making machine pretty much sums this place up. Forget the glamour of Las Vegas, this is just an awful smelly place to spend anytime - yet i'm sure the regulars, who are probably skint and have a wee gambling problem, might disagree. No skill, no fresh air, no allure at all.

Great venue, saw Mrs Brown Boys Live here and the costumer service was AMAZING! Decent sized venue…read moreand cheap drinks!

It really is in a people and disabled unfriendly location. We always opt to walk here now as we…read morerefuse to park in the adjacent car parks as once a concert is over it can take ages to escape. So we park in the city centre and take a 15 minute walk to get here. Once inside the main door and through the bag search we were processed quickly and the staff are always courteous and helpful. Our seats were upstairs and we were quite far back from the stage with a great view. As with most concert venues in this city the seats are barely comfortable, the space between the seats is almost non existent, so you are forced to be very near to total strangers and I'd rather not thanks very much. The food and drink pricing is more akin to airport charging. I noted that the price for a small Coca cola, from a drink dispenser into a paper cup, was £3.10 for an ungenerous portion, or put shortly daylight robbery. If it's comfort and relaxation you want to enjoy a concert I can assure you you're in the wrong place so it's as well Andrea Bocelli and friends were in top form.

Betting is something I have never found myself being particularly skilled at. My distinct lack of…read moreinterest in all things sport may be the reason for my downfall in this regard but on the very rare occasion - after one or two pints of the foaming ale I've opted for a punt. This particular branch of William Hill is more or less identical to the many across the UK and Ireland. I put a bet on a random horse race that was about 10 minutes away from starting when I came in. I tried my best to look as educated in the ways of the betting man but I think I just came across as beleaguered and confused. My whopping £2 bet left me with a £2 hole in my pocket - alas I didn't win a thing, but it was of course the brief, slightly tipsy experience that counted.

I sometimes like to lose money. When I feel like doing that, I do it in a way I know that's almost…read moreguaranteed to leave my pockets lighter than they were before. Betting on Tottenham. This place like many other bookies, has that stench of desperation and old smoke, despite the fact that people couldn't smoke there for years. It looks pretty much the exact same as every other branch of William Hill around the country, they uniformity policy being 2nd to none. The staff are hidden behind their bullet proof glass and think this safe guard gives them leave of their manners and they can be as rude as they like. Thank god I only bet once a blue moon.

For those of you who enjoy a punt, there are only really three or four bookmakers or 'bookies'…read more(known to our U.S. friends as an OTB shop - Off-Track Betting) which dominate the market in Belfast - Paddy Power, Ladbroke's, and Sean Graham's. There are a few others, but these are the main ones. The thing about this bookies, apart from the fact that it's clean, well-laid out, and carpeted, is that they have a special offer on a specific bet - the Lucky 15 (which is a hugely popular bet) has a 20% bonus in this shop. I won't bore non-gamblers with the intricate details of this bet, but for those of you visiting Belfast who enjoy a bet (as you will soon learn to do if you're going to be in pubs in Belfast at the weekend, all of which will be showing racing and football), you simply pick four selections of horses, soccer teams, etc., and choose your stake. 15 is the number of permutations of bets from four selections (four singles, six doubles, four trebles, and a quad). If you're lucky enough to get all four up, this Paddy Power shop will give you a 20% bonus, which is an excellent incentive to bet there, as opposed to Ladbroke's (see my review).

One of the three or four main bookmakers here in Belfast. The disgraceful thing about bookmakers is…read morethat it's not a business that everyone can get into. You can't just decide to open up a betting shop, even if you had the money. There's some ridiculous law that you can only get a licence to be a bookmaker if your grandfather or great-grandfather had a bookmaker's licence (or something very similar to that sort of ludicrous type of restriction). That's why I was glad to see the likes of Betfair starting up - bookmakers have had a licence to print money for years, with aspiring entrepreneurs barred from doing so, no matter what their credentials. What ever happened to competition? Anyway, this is a small bookies with not a lot of seating, but they do occasionally have some attractive incentives for punters who enjoy a bet on the football (soccer). For example, they were doing a good offer on bets to predict the first goalscorer of a football match. If you correctly named the first scorer in a match and they scored again, they'd pay you double the odds, and if they scored a third time, you'd get paid treble the odds. Fair enough, the chance of that happening may not be very likely but, in the same way as doing the Lucky 15 in Paddy Power (see my review), even though it's unlikely you might as well do the bet somewhere that will give you a big bonus if the event occurs. The one thing that's annoying in here is that on the day of the Aintree Grand National, you have to do all bets for that race on a docket that's the same as filling in a lottery ticket. Many punters find this irksome.

We walked through the Botanical Gardens which are located adjacent to the university. As like…read moreeverything else in Ireland, the whole grounds were bright green and full of different plant species and lots and lots of flowers. I particularly liked their greenhouse. The beautiful white medal perfectly balanced the contrast between nature and industrial features while complementing the space and giving these particular plants a specific place to grow, such as succulents. The rose gardens reminded me of something from Alice in Wind with how the grass paths were weaved between the rose bushes and some of the flowers looked fake because they were so healthy and vibrant.  There are two newer greenhouses that were built specifically for tropical plants. Inside of each of these greenhouses, the temperature and humidity was set to stay at the perfect settings for these tropical plants to thrive. They were multiple stories so that the trees could grow tall and the vines could grow long and even go all the way up to the rafters. A great place to see and spend time on a sunny or partly cloudy day!!

Beautiful grounds near Queen's College in Belfast. So peaceful and sprawling. The grounds…read moremeticulously kept. The grounds included some magnificently lush green lawn for taking in the nice weather being experienced during our stay. The Ferris Wheel was well worth the nominal expense. The rose garden was beautifully laid out.

There are plenty of tables/seats in the lobby. One section is adjacent to the restaurant and bar…read more There are then a few other tables around the corner in a separate space with computers and games. We sat down there with food from elsewhere and were told we could not do that. The hospitality does not exist in this hotel. The rooms are very tight. We requested a queen size bed with a sofa bed. We were unable to open our suitcases in the room. There is also no complimentary parking on-site, it's $14 per day. Also, the detail to cleaning is not there. Underneath my bedside table, there was a bug and the dust was collecting on the baseboards. Giving it two stars instead of one because breakfast was complimentary. There was a wide selection of items and the food area was clean.

Stayed at this Hampton by Hilton during a short trip to Belfast. Close to the airport and various…read morerestaurants and bars. Clean room and good breakfast buffet.

I do love a good night out at the flicks, and if you are a fan of film this is the place to be!…read moreBelfast has plenty of options for watching the usual big budget fayre but for the more discerning viewer the QFT always has something on offer. I've cried at cartoons, laughed at documentaries and rocked out at the rockumentaries. You should also keep an eye out for their special events. Last week I saw the new Hockney documentary which included a live link up to the artist's studio in LA and was shown in tandem with 200 cinemas across the UK. It was awesome. I took my Dad who usually falls asleep within 15 mins of anything, and he was on the edge of his extremely comfortable seat! The new bar area is a lovely ,relaxed space, and it makes a nice change to smell culture rather than overpriced sickly popcorn! ;-)

The QFT is one of the few independent cinemas left in Belfast (probably in Northern Ireland…read moreactually). It's the place to see modern, largely independent films. It's also a great place to see films like Coco Before Chanel or La Vie En Rose - pretty well known and successful films, but not mainstream enough for the chain cinemas. You'll get a mix of students, film buffs and Guardian reader types (I mean no offence, I include myself in that group!) here, all enjoying the chance to see something different, challenging, and hopefully more interesting than some of the films available in bigger screenings. The only criticism I have is of the screens themselves. There isn't a lot of leg room (not a problem for me, I'm 5ft3", but anyone over about 5ft6 would have trouble), and only some of the seats are elevated. At a screening of Coco Before Chanel, the only seat I could get was in the third row and as a result, I could see the bottom of the screen. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but when the film is subtitled, it's a pretty fatal flaw. Thankfully, my French isn't terrible, so I was able to fill in some of the blanks, but others weren't so lucky. There are always some great films and talks on at the QFT during the Belfast Film Festival, so whether you're a casual fan or a total film buff, this place is worth checking out.