Shopping with Children at Ashford Designer Outlet

We have been in our new house now for two weeks but we are still living in a pile of boxes.  We need new furniture or different furniture in some rooms to fill the space better and I am having fun decorating a different home.  I have bought so much online but sometimes I want to go to a real shop instead - I want to see colours up close, feel textures and walk away with my items that day.

Last week we were invited to visit Ashford Designer Outlet and I was interested to see how it had changed and what we could tick off on our 'New house shopping list'.  Last time I visited was a few years ago and I knew there had been lots of changes.

We took all four children with us as it was the very end of the school holidays and their moaning about shopping soon stopped when they discovered the huge playground by the entrance.  It worked as the perfect bribe and meant they happily walked around some shops with us knowing they would get time to run and climb afterwards.

There is a huge selection of shops ranging from high street classics like Marks and Spencers and Gap, sports shops like Nike and higher end designers too.  My favourite of the new additions is the Cath Kidston store and I bought an adorable robots sleepsuit for Cora.  The main thing we wanted to buy on our visit was some new crockery and we had a choice of stores, picking some beautiful blue stoneware from ProCook in the end and saving over 50% off of the RRP.  

Over the summer there were lots of activities on and there was a small pool with water walkers that looked so much fun. Outside Clarks there were a series of beach huts designed for children to get their feet measured in which made the store much easier to navigate inside.  With the back to school rush it seemed like the perfect time to expand outdoors.

Last time I visited there was a selection of fast food choices in the food court, but since then two restaurants have joined the outlet, Wagamama and Pizza Express and we had a delicious meal at Pizza Express with excellent service. Over the summer the outlet is open from 9am - 8pm and 10-6 on Sundays.

The enclosed shopping centre is so well designed with the shops presented in an oval shape and covered by tents with a car park in the middle.  You don't get wet when it rains, but you don't get that stuffy feeling from being inside too long either.  It cost us £1 to park for up to 4 hours and everything was well signposted.  

Thank you to McArthurGlen designer outlet for inviting us to visit, we had a brilliant time and we will definitely be back soon!

This post is in collaboration with McArthurGlen Designer Outlet in Ashford