"Mauled" at the Mall. Review on Palm Beach Galleria, Mumbai

This review has been edited and I'll also tell you exactly what part is. The edited part is highlighted in bold. Ambience and decor went up from 2 to 3. Wish I could have given parking half.

3.2.1.blast off. Ahem ahem "Palm Beach Galleria - Vashi is a 2.5 lakh sq. ft. shopping mall conveniently located right off the highway, in between the residential and commercial hub of New Bombay."

• Some paper

"The Palm Beach Galleria is all set to be the next big thing for shoppers in Navi Mumbai. Palm Beach Galleria houses shops of various Indian and international brands with a variety of apparels, accessories, books and much more. In addition."

• Some other paper

duh! Me- a student. I am not in Vashi generally, my parents are and I'm just here for my vacation.(ok can't say more, identity's a secret:P) You see this new mall come up real close to home and well there is this glimmer of hope. you've been parched, deprived. Vashi got its first mall in 2003.and the next in 2007. Let me be frank and come to the point, it’s almost as if we're being taken for a ride. Let's begin from the outside. A supposed plus point is that it is adjacent to the highway. I don't think that is a plus point. I mean guys it’s a frikkin HIGHWAY.

The parking system is in complete shambles. They have underground parking, however most people park outside - ON the highway. The entrance to the mall is directly from the highway many a times, there’s a beeline of cars trying to get inside. The place I tell you - outside - is chaotic to say the least, what with the traffic police slapping arbitrary illegal fines(but that is another issue). Most people are reluctant to park underground because the exit is haphazard.Ofcourse people are also plain lazy and do not want to pay Rs.10 as parking charges. But the second part, I agree with. I mean honeslty! Why should we pay for parking? It's just like an entrance fee.

A nonexistent road leading to nowhere. But, let's somehow get inside. Right at the entrance is a G+1 MCDs.dammit the 3rd in Vashi.but no problemo. enter through this really small . well entrance. and at rush hour people are standing in front of this huge wall for security check. centre one is better at this and there hasn’t been a bomb explosion till date mind you. Nirmal Lifestyles, Mulund on the other hand has done it very well. Inside the mall, even when the place is crowded, there is emptiness, not openness take note, emptiness. **Ok modification, I take back the last point. It looks pretty decent now.

You can see from this "Crossroads" type bridge what I can't really explain in words. The up and down escalators are both adjacent as in parallel. This leads to clotting at both ends. Now it’s not as if I'm some expert, I m just trying to look at it objectively coz it IS happening.

Food Court is a little cramped. I mean all the seating is together. centre one had a completely spaced out seating, so though you may just have to walk more, there isn’t that something called chaos. We also have BRs rite in the centre of seating(who came up with that? its the only sane idea around)

Finally the adlabs. if u think I’ve been critical. well I was saving a lot more for now. The adlabs entrance is on the third floor and the ill-positioned escalators don’t help.

The lift. ya rite! Though the lift service is good. I really wish that the simple stairs had been made more accessible. as in a part of the mall ambiance. I don’t even think they fulfill their purpose as a fire exit. The ticket booking counter is outside the mall, which is a good thing(thankfully). However even at peak booking time there won’t be more than two people attending though the capacity is 4. Now if you think all this was just hypothetical bullshit, here’s something from personal experience. April 29th 2007 - 2245 show.

1. all the snacks are over in the interval(as in beforethe interval)

   
   




2. You may just substitute the soft-drinks with bisleri there’d be no diff.(this is regular)

   
   




3. At 0045 the movie gets over. Escalators shut. Lift shut. No reprieve for senior citizens either(that’s something they campaign about).

   
   

As I mentioned before, the service stairs are inaccessible as in unfurnished and on this particular day the floor was overflowing with paint. It was a disaster waiting to happen, but thankfully it didn’t. But what were most disgusting were the apathy of the guard present and the absence of any person in charge. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was pretty much disappointed.

*Well now almost two months after this experience:

The stairs are "furnished" but they still suck. WHY do the exit-stairs leads you OUT of the mall. As I mentioned before, ideally a staircase should have been a part of the mall ambience n decor and the exit should drop you off at the 3rd floor itself, so you can spend money on the food court rather than the overpriced adlabs snacks, which are just short of being labelled - bio-hazards.

Now the good part: All outlets are good, in fact very good. We have a Levi’s store on the ground floor and there is this huge one called MAX. It reminds you of the kind of stores you’ll see in the US, though not quite there yet(the crowd).

The grocery store has a hygienic frozen meat section and is reasonable though not comparable to DMart. Many shops there actually make sense and you generally see a good collection of items. Vijay Sales is a trusted home appliances distributor. But well the next one’s the chocolate layer of my cake. The Odyssey – a largely book store cum super gift items store. My personal favourite. The only store a long way from Vashi that keeps original Victori Nox(that’s saying something) and the collection of well organized books is simply amazing(complete Calvin n Hobbes yippeeee!), awesome books on science and history, and half the store’s f fiction. The humour category is complete with Wodehouse, loads of parodies, etc. Basically the kind of books you may just want but never get.

The food court is promising… new names… CCD has a gr8 lounge. ok the 4th in Vashi but CCD chalta hai. Ofcourse generally you’ll find the food court a little hard on the pocket… but hey what else you expecting man? My conclusion(umm… verdict doesn’t sound good) is that after the initial hysteria regarding this mall has died down a bit, it could actually come through as a good and complete shopping centre… but mall dunno…. Hope you find this helpful and don’t find me overtly critical about the place. I mean no offense to anyone and to each his own.

(update: Two more coming up adjacent to this one. so what will it be? a further degeneracy or .)

Later….