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| - I'm just going to assume this is for people not from Calgary... because if you've been in Calgary for more than about a month and HAVEN'T been to Chinook, I can only assume you've made the conscious choice to avoid it, and thus don't need my review.
This is basically THE mall in Calgary. If there's a major retailer that routinely shows up in malls, there's a pretty good chance it's in Chinook, and it's that kind of "it has everything" mentality that brings me back here again and again and again. It's a well known and accepted fact that most guys aren't mall people, but I'll be the first to admit I'd almost rather go to a store at Chinook rather than a standalone store, cause I know chances are I can kill 3,4 or sometimes 10 birds with one stone here.
To add to that, it's not only nice and close to a C-Train station (about 3 blocks away), but if you're too lazy to walk THAT (and sometimes I am) there's even a FREE shuttle bus that runs from the station to the south end of the mall, right in front of one of my other main reasons to love this mall.... the movie theater!
Sure, these days lots of malls are located right by movie theaters... but there's the catch. This one isn't NEAR the mall, it's ATTACHED to the mall, which (especially in cold Calgary winters) is a very good thing. Add this to the fact that this is, I believe, still the biggest theater in Calgary, the only one with an IMAX screen, and home to one of the cities 2 Ultra AVX auditoriums AND D-Box motion seating, and this is one "best in the city" location attached to another. How do you beat that?
Of course, if you're driving, you should be aware that parking here can get a bit crazy at times, and leave some people pulling their hair out... but given that you're going to the most frequented mall in the city which is built at the intersection of two of the main drags (thus negating the chances of a big lot) that's to be expected, and I think they do a lot better than I would have expected, given the circumstances. (Bit of a tip, if you enter from the west into the area behind, or park in the garage beside the theater, these are probably your best options in terms of finding a spot.)
...and besides, how many times can you say you've been to a food court that practically looks like an amusement park? That alone should win it some cool points there.
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