An all-girl weekend in 2008 and oh… one guy. There were supposed to be two guys, but unfortunately, the other one of our group dropped out at last-minute.
When you’ve lived abroad and missed UK shopping this is certainly the place for you. It’s an easy city to navigate, short journey from the airport to the city-centre and all the shops you could want in short walking distance. It has pocket areas no matter what your fashion sense, from the designer, independent fashion labels, vintage, high street stores and budget fashion.
The trip was much cheaper to travel from the Mediterranean to Manchester than it was to stay for the weekend in London. The airport is a short taxi ride away and the hotels were very reasonably priced for group sharing.
No sooner had to set our bags down at the hotel, we all headed out to hit the stores – our first start to a 3-day shopping extravaganza no minutes could be wasted on sitting down in the hotel. The hotel was a mere few minutes’ walk from the main shopping district. I set off to find the specialist sports shop where I had reserved some items, whilst the rest of our group headed to Primark. Two hours later we met back at the hotel, they each had no less than four bags loaded with Primark clothes. We then headed out for a group dinner and then to bed, we needed to rest for a full days shop the following day.
There is apparently always something happening at the Arndale Centre, we came across a Model competition during our shopping spree.
Day two, I headed to one of the shopping outlets dotted around Manchester. The great thing about Manchester was that as a group we were never that far away from each other. By the time the day had come to a close we were all back at the hotel with an array of goodies; clothes, shoes, bag, books and toys.
Day three I went to a retail park near Manchester United football club and finally got to see the world-famous Old Trafford up close and personal, alth. In the afternoon I made my back to the Arndale Centre area and back to TK Maxx to buy some early Christmas presents, whilst the others made their way to Primark again. Believe it or not, my group of ladies still came back with tons of shopping bags.
The good thing about going away with a group is that you can share space in your luggage. Luckily none of us had to pay excess luggage on the EasyJet flight which in itself was a miracle if you’d seen the number of items we purchased.
Most of the trip centered around daytime activities, I wasn’t fussed about experiencing the nightlife in the town centre. One evening we went to a bar with a dancefloor a few feet away from the hotel, but for me it didn’t have the same relaxed vibe as I was used to so I left the others there and made my way back to the hotel.
VERDICT
Manchester was a really good option to choose for a group shopping trip. We saved loads of money by combining the travel to and from the airport. We booked early to the plane tickets were dirt cheap on EasyJet. The hotel was a really good rate so all-round excellent getaway with friends.