parking at the odyssey

smilermckeyler

I'm going to high school musical in odyssey arena tomorrow(friday) for the 7.30 show:j . I heard that the queues into the car park today were terrible and so I was going to go early tomorrow. Are there any offers for the imax cinema or w5 that I could avail of while we wait? also how much would I expect to pay from 4pm to 9.30pm in car parking fees?
Many thanks in advance.

dmxdave

Odyssey website states

The current tariff is £0.70 per hour or part thereof. Exit with in 30 minutes is free (tickets must be validated at pay station before exit). After parking in the car park and before entering the Arena, visitors can pre-pay £2.50 allowing up to 6 hours of parking. Please follow the pre-pay instructions, which are displayed on all pay stations. Payment can be made at the pay stations located in the car park and around the complex.

smilermckeyler

thanks dmxdave for those details, I couldnt find it for all my looking.
Guess its a visit to specsavers for me.
Any ideas about offers either in imax or w5(or anywhere else) while we wait?

dmxdave

IMO I have noticed the car park to be quite busy during week days when no big shows are on. Could it be that they are selling the car park during the day for commuters? leading to to-days problems.

This is just a theory as there have been bigger things on at the Odyssey than High School Musical in the evening with no problems so to cut a long story short you should not need to wait! DONT QUOTE ME ON THAT lol

dan2002

hi dont park at the odyssey ,you will spend all your time trying to get in to the car park ,if you do get in,then you will spend about an hour trying to get out again.I was dropping someone of at the odyssey at 9.45pm tonight ,what a nightmare.If I were you I would park in the carpark when you go over the Queen Elizabeth Bridge,its on the right (this is the bridge as you come pass Donegal quay) and just walk it to odyssey ,about 5 mins walk.

smilermckeyler

I guess I'll need lots of patience(both for show & for queues to get in and out). Thanks for your reply although I need to park quite close for ease of mobility.

Dazza

My wife took our two boys to the 12.00 performance of the High School Musical, I had the misfortune of agreeing to drop them over, the organisation was a disgrace. Took over an hour and we only live in North Belfast (usually takes us 10 minutes getting to w5). My advice is park somewhere in town and walk over to the show.

marksimpson

The problem is obvious.

The car park has 1500 spaces. Events in the arena can hold 10000, not including people who're going to the restaurants and W5. Staff need to park too.

On top of this, the events of yesterday were on a normal working day. The Odyssey has previously offered decent rates for all day parking, so people who work in the city centre would be occupying some spaces too. That's fine when there's nothing else on, but I'm guessing that before the day's events at the Odyssey have begun, a good number of spaces would already be taken.

A guy from the Odyssey was on Radio Ulster this morning saying his advice was to arrive early or to use city centre car parking. Neither of these solve the problem. If people arrive early then it just means the problem arises earlier, and on a normal working day it is not always easy to get a car parking space in Belfast City Centre.

D.A.

Might be nice if Translink would bother to run some kind of bus service to the Odyssey too...

smilermckeyler

Many thanks for your help and tips over past 2 days. I arrived early at odyssey and prepaid my ticket( thanks dmxdave). The show was brilliant, as disney always is, and apart from queues on the way out(only to be expected), everything went smoothly. I hope the arena learn from the traffic issues and put measures in place to avoid this happening in future. Well worth seeing though! Six very happy kids!:j

pc10

Could someone tell me where an alternative car park is for the Odyssey please? I'd be approaching it from either M1 or M2.

How far is it to walk from eg Ann Street to Odyssey?

As you can tell I don't know the area too well!

Thanks:D