Pattaya Central Festival Shopping Mall
The new addition of the brilliant Central Festival Shopping Center at the Pattaya Beach area heralds a new era of shopping for this developing city.
Central Festival Pattaya is the premier shopping mall of Pattaya and the Eastern Seaboard in Thailand.
It opened on the 23rd January 2009 and is the largest beachfront shopping complex in Asia.
With over 200 retail outlets and taking up 111 metres of the Beach Road, Central Festival has 240,000 square meters of interior space within its seven-story building.
To make the shopping experience a little easier, you will find that each floor has its own shopping theme. All the banks for instance are situated on the same floor.
We simply mention the banks, for you are going shopping in the most exciting shopping mall in Pattaya.
Central Festival Mall Pattaya is a beautifully-designed modern shopping and entertainment complex, with many upmarket brands, such as Armani Exchange, Ripcurl, Camel, Lacoste, Adidas, Nike, Giordano, Swarovski and Jaspal, to name a few.
Central Festival is THE place to go for shoppers and visitor alike, when visiting Pattaya.
At the time of our visit, Central Festival Mall was hosting the Pattaya Motor Show - INSIDE - with seemingly no inconvenience to the 'other shoppers, who maybe did not want to spend a few million baht on any of the dozens of cars and motorbikes being displayed.
Central Festival Cinema Complex
On the upper sixth floor, there is a ten-screen cinema that offers a choice of comfortable seating with 3D viewing - of course - and a smaller 4D cinema. Next to this is a sixteen lane bowling alley.
Walking along the upper floors and moving towards the Beach Road end of Central Festival and you will have a breathtaking view of Pattaya bay. This view can be seen while sitting inside some of the restaurants and cafes, or better still, walk out on to one of the verandas and the view is even better.
Most of the restaurants are on the two upper floors, offering Thai, other Asian cuisine and food from almost all parts of the world. International fare at it's best. The quality of the food from all the outlets is of a good standard and many of them are large branded companies that we are all familiar with.
There is a five-floor central department store that incorporates a supermarket on the ground floor. This is located at the second road entrance of Central Festival.
Adjoining Central Festival is a multi-story car park with parking for approximately 2000 cars and ample parking for motorcycles as you would expect in this motor cycle crazy city.
The Hilton Hotel at Central Festival
Central Festival is home to it's own Hilton Hotel - 300 rooms of sheer luxury. It is serviced by it's own entrance on the sixth floor. So if you come for a holiday and you don’t wish to go outdoors you never really need to leave the complex as nearly all your needs can be catered for inside the shopping mall.
Let's Tour Pattaya Central Festival Shopping Center
Walking into Central festival Shopping mall from Beach Road, go down the steps to the ground floor you will have beautiful fountains either side of you.
At night the fountains are lit up with a spectrum of changing lights.
Reaching the large courtyard at the front of Central Festival there are more lights embedded in the floor that change colour at regular intervals.
The courtyard itself hosts several events throughout the year and many of these events are shown on local and indeed national TV stations.
This in itself shows that Central Festival is a place of recognition and is used by many third parties to promote their interests and causes.
Central Festival has all the usual amenities associated with large shopping malls, Concierge, ATM’s, toilets on every floor, baby changing rooms and a prayer room.
For the family with younger children, there is quite a large child’s play area and crèche located on the fourth floor. This has many activities to keep the kids busy whilst you enjoy your retail therapy. Contrasting to that, on the sixth floor there are two children’s game areas with some arcade machines. No adult supervision in this area, so be careful if you are thinking of entrusting your cash card to the kids.
Far better to keep your card and use it in the authentic Asian bazaar. It is on the ground floor and takes up most of the first section upon entering the Central Festival. Adjoining this to the left, are a handful of Thai and International jewellery shops. There are two lifts that go from the ground floor to the sixth floor.
As you progress further through the ground floor you will enter the busy, busy Food Court area. This has about 20 or so small food outlets selling a range of Thai dishes and international cuisine at very reasonable prices. Simply buy a top-up card for the amount you want (150 Baht per person should be plenty) from one of the kiosks and then you simply hand the card to the vendor.
They will deduct the amount from the card corresponding to the value of the food you have chosen. The food prices start from around 40 Baht for Thai food and 100 Baht for international food. On the other side of the food court there are some international fast food chains, Mac Donald’s, Burger king, KFC, etc.
Floor by Floor
First Floor
Going up one of the many escalators to the first floor reveals a larger area that is periodically rented and partially rented to various businesses.
This space is let to shops already in Central Festival or companies from outside wanting to promote their business. Part of the floor area is used by companies to host promotional events, and local interest groups also use it.
There are many other shops here too mostly ladies and men’s fashion, shoes, bags and accessories.
Second Floor
Eyewear, Fashion, Cafes, Shoes, Bags Accessories Sports and Outdoor.
Third Floor
Electric, I.T & Telecom, Eyewear, Fashion, Personal care, Beauty & Spa, Cafes, Shoes Bags and Accessories.
Fourth Floor
Banks, Eyewear, Hair Salons, Kids Toys, Personal care and Beauty, Cafes.
Fifth Floor
Restaurants - Japanese aplenty -and Cafes.
Sixth Floor
Restaurants and Cafes, Children’s amusement area, Karaoke.
Upper Sixth Floor
Cinemas, Bowling and Cafe.
Central Festival is located on the Beach Road next to Soi 9 and Pattaya Central Police Station. It is open from 11am to 11pm. Getting there is very easy on one of the baht buses. These run virtually all the main routes in the city for just 10 Baht.
Once laden with goodies, there is taxi rank on the second road entrance that has both private taxis and motorcycle taxis. There are also the many Baht buses that frequent second road and they stop right outside Pattaya Central Festival Shopping Mall.