Spires Retail Park is an open air stretch of shops located on the Moy Road just outside central…read moreArmagh. It's easily accessible for both car drivers and pedestrians. A clean, tidy, well maintained retail park which is small with a good range of shops including Lidl, Marks & Spencer Simply Food, Heatons, Iceland, Argos, Sports Direct, Poundland and Peacocks. A Costa Coffee has recently opened too. There's free car parking but Spires is extremely popular so it can sometimes be difficult to get a parking space. I would advise visiting outside of peak times so you're best to go either early morning or late evening. I really like Spires and always find everything I need in it. Not a shopping centre I would travel a large distance from elsewhere to visit but for locals and tourists already in Armagh it's excellent.

This is a fairly small retail park, with quite a bit of variety. The M&S store is very small but…read moreit has all of the basic goods. There's also a costa coffee, if you need to take a break during your shopping. The only significant problem with this location is parking. The car park is too small and the haphazard parking of some drivers only compounds this problem.

Hotch potch of an indoor shopping mall. It has a store called the Range that incorporates an…read moreIceland food store. The Range sells an array of stuff from office to household furniture items, kitchen, bathroom furniture to garden plants. A lot of it made in China rubbish exorbitantly priced by the time it reaches here. There's also a large Tesco store and a Mc Donald's situated in the car park. There are other stores in here too but, like the Mc Donald's, they are all locked down until who knows when. I was in the Tesco first for a look around as I don't much trust them and so rarely buy anything here; I buy most of my food in M&S as I trust the company. I saw the vegetable/plant food I needed for my fruit bushes and herb pots but decided I'd get the liquid plant food in the Range. Imagine my surprise to find the plant food was much more expensive here for the exact same product. So I priced around a number of products only to realise that this place was well overpriced, so I left. I really dislike being ripped off. On return to my home town I went to Boyds stores, a small local independent, and got what I needed at half the price I'd have to pay in the Range.

This is an outlet centre which is genuinely full of bargains. Not in the same league as the crazy…read morereductions you find in US designer outlets, but well worth a visit nonetheless. There are a couple of high end outlets - Armani and Luella which is where the biggest reductions are to be found. On my last visit I saw mouth watering Luella handbags for £250, and I had seen them elsewhere at closer to £600, albeit the season before. Sadly the husband was with me and gave me The Look. The Look which says 'no more handbags.' The Armani shop had beautiful tops and dresses which I must admit I don't really need for the school run, also at less than half the original price. Outlet branches of high street favourites Warehouse and Jaeger are also good for a look around but just keeping mind that you won't find the latest must have pieces there. Basics and classics are what you're looking for here and you'll find them at about 50% off. The Jaeger shop also sells mens wear - the husband found a fab linen shirt for £30 which was a total steal. The whole environment at the Outlet is really pleasant, beautifully landscaped 'streets' and lots of open space, very much in the style of my beloved US outlet malls. There are plenty of places to bolster your energy reserves for round two of shopping - Costa Coffee, Starbucks and Simply Deans , which does a mean chicken caesar salad.

For Gods sake don't go when its raining, and we all know THAT never happens in this country…read more... NO shelter in between shops, we were scuttling about like rats up a drainpipe when the showers came on, this place is so badly designed its not funny, I don't give a pigs ass about mothers and babies, but I feel really sorry for elderly people and people with dogs who would find it hard to escape the wet weather. Half of the shops are closed down and the ones that remain are OK, but really not that many bargains to be had, some shops offer decent sale prices, but others offer little more than 10 - 20% off retail. The M&S is a complete shambles, selling nothing but the bottom of the barrel stuff they couldn't shift anywhere else. Go in summer if its a nice day but don't expect any bargains. The upside is that there is loads of carparking (because there are hardly any shoppers)

A miniature mall which customers mainly frequent to shop in Sainsbury's supermarket. There's plenty…read moreof car parking (small multi-story), an ATM, and a few other retailers including a jewellery shop, chemist and clothes shops etc. Previously there have been a couple of cafes/ sit-in eateries but on my most recent visit during August 2017, these looked to have closed down. However, there are takeaway pizza and chip shops on-site (outside on the lower level). With such a central location in Armagh, right beside The Mall (a beautiful green park), this is a really convenient spot. You'll not spend very long in it because it's so petite, but you'll find most things you need.

For me, Ards Shopping Centre isn't the kind of shopping centre you go to for a premium shopping…read moreexperience - it's more of a Bon Marche and Claire's Accessories kind of place. There are a couple of redeeming shops - River Island and McGees Butchers are worth a visit as is Belleek Living which is upmarket and a little out of place. Looks like it's showing off a bit with its luxury ceramics. I am also a bit of a Primark bargain hunter and while the branch in Ards is small, it seems to have some of the better bits you find in the bigger stores, particularly PJs. For a Primark raid, park behind the centre rather than in the car park and nip in the back door. If you do, you'll pass a line of cafes which are dated and forlorn but seem to do good business nonetheless. There are a couple of nicer places to grab a sandwich like Esquires coffee shop and the juice bar next door. There is a really big branch of Asda which does a good range of ladies and kids clothes and I've picked up a couple of good bits and piece for the kids there. All in all, Ards is somewhere for a functional shopping trip rather than a leisurely browse. You'll get your groceries and maybe pick up something in River Island or Primark. Or a fancy ceramic vase in Belleek Living.

About time I updated my review for Ards Shopping Centre from 2010 - so, what's changed? Much like…read moreother shopping centre's this one has a whole load of vacant/closed shops which is always sad to see. But let's focus on the positives. Ards has a good amount of big brand stores - River Island, Asda, Primark and a Boots store. One class addition to this centre is a soft, FREE children's play area - a perfect place to leave the kids or appease them after shopping. One thing Ards has abundance is parking - you won't struggle to find a space. There's also a Burger King and a Movieland cinema on the grounds so if you want to make a day of it you can. I'm taking a star off Ards for the amount of empty stores - perhaps give the empty units to independent retailers - it would definitely take the bad look off the place.

Bloomfield shopping centre is one of those places that I don't choose to go to .I only come here if…read moreI have too. I just feel that it is either quite a dead place to visit or it is so busy that the experience of shopping here can be quite traumatic! In honesty the place has improved over the last year and there have been quite a few new business opened up and some of the original ones have restructured but there still is something about the place that unlike other shopping centres doesn't entice me to want to stay and browse . In its defence there are a lot of new business opening which might improve the complex but I don't think anything would make me want to give up my precious time and come here for a days shopping .

Lots of decent shops. And growing…read more Can be very busy with people. Good that there is a food court. It doesn't have loads of seating though.

The M&S is ok and it is likely they are their so called flagship anchor but I'm not a fan of having…read moreto pay to car park just to be able to shop. There are the usual suspects in terms of tenants H&M, EE, Boots, etc but what I have come to dislike immensely is that like others places they charge disabled persons to park. It often takes these folks longer to get in/out of their vehicles and slower at shopping so they are being financially penalised because of their disabilities - this ain't my type of society and reflects an insatiable greed I find really distasteful. I won't return to subsidise greedy bastards.

This is the more upmarket shopping centre in Ballymena. It has bigger and more upmarket anchor…read morestores and stores in general eg Marks and Spencer's and Tommy Hilfiger respectively. It's well laid out and has a distinct style and look about it, which I must say I like very much. It's got a food court upstairs and overall is a lovely centre!!

I have a predisposition against shopping centres that charge me to park my car just to go shop or…read moreeat but won't give me a couple of hours parking credit for, say, stopping long enough for a Starbucks coffee or other food. So I'm predisposed to disliking this shopping centre for this reason. The wonderful Lowry Outlet in Manchester, an altogether nicer place, allows for free generous parking up to four hours if you go for a coffee or have something in their food-court. I'm predisposed to dislike Sainsbury's too, it's one of the 'flagship' stores in this place. I rarely go there. There's really no logic to this at all, nor any sense about it I just much prefer M&S. There's a recently opened Eddie Rockets in the centre. It has a barrier outside for crowd control. Dear help us, crowd control for a fast food joint. No thanks this business model relies on mostly industrially made food, they pay staff minimum wages with few employment rights, this chain also relies on freezers, microwave ovens and deep fat friers and they are at their most imaginative when it comes to maximising shareholder/franchise profit from pricing mass produced food. I'd say if they knocked 50% off the menu prices that would be realistic and I might go but I certainly wouldn't queue. So I'm not so opposed to this type of business model that I'd never go and I have twice gone to the subway outlet in this centre but only because the price better reflects the industrial pre (factory) made food on offer. The Subway coffee is awful and I'd only pay more and go here more if staff were paid living wages, after all we all have to live. So the chances of Eddie Rockets halving their prices are as realistic as my going to eat there. There's a Starbucks here and I walk to it quite often for good coffee, parking free elsewhere. There's a cinema in this centre too again I go occasionally - it reinvested in comfy seating and is pretty good cinema experience but again their food prices like popcorn and ice cream are just outrageous. This centre also has the usual suspects Debenhams, Boots, Car Phone Warehouse, a Pound Shop, a juice bar on the concourse (so no seating) a BurgerKing, Deli - Lites and so on, lots of places I haven't the remotest interest in ever visiting. The centre is kept clean the toilets are in the central part of the shopping centre although the two flagship stores at either end also have toilet facilities.