Cairo Festival City Mall: opening hours, parking and what's inside

Cairo Festival City Mall in New Cairo opens at 10am every day. Shops, fashion stores and IKEA close at 11pm from Saturday to Wednesday and at midnight on Thursday, Friday and public holidays. The cinema, the entertainment and the food court stay open until 1am every night, and Carrefour, The Village and the restaurants and cafés inside the mall open earlier, at 8:30am, and also close at 1am.

Opening hours

The mall publishes its hours in four groups, and the time you can visit depends on what you are going for.

Fashion, retail shops and IKEA: 10am to 11pm from Saturday to Wednesday, and 10am to midnight on Thursday, Friday and public holidays.

Entertainment, cinema and food court: 10am to 1am every day, public holidays included.

The Village, the restaurants and cafés inside the mall, and Carrefour hypermarket: 8:30am to 1am every day, public holidays included.

El-Ezaby Pharmacy: 10am to 1am every day, public holidays included.

The mall does not publish separate Ramadan or Eid timings on its website, so check its home page, which shows whether the mall is open at that moment, before a late visit on a special day.

Where it is and how to get there

The mall sits at the heart of Cairo Festival City, the mixed-use district built by Al-Futtaim at the entrance to New Cairo, on the east side of Cairo's Ring Road. The district covers more than 3 million square metres and also holds homes, offices, hotels and schools.

The mall's contact page has a "How to arrive" map that plans your route from wherever you are, by car or by bus. If you drive, the developer says the mall is served by more than 6,500 parking spaces, and there is a valet service at the parking lots; the mall says the details are given at its customer service desks. Parking fees are not published on the mall's website, and neither are bus routes or numbers.

What's inside

The mall says it has more than 300 stores and 95 restaurants and cafés. Its anchors include Egypt's only IKEA, a Carrefour hypermarket and the department store Marks & Spencer.

Shops are grouped on the mall's website by type: women's, men's and children's fashion, shoes and handbags, accessories, jewellery, watches, eyewear, health and beauty, electronics and computers, home furnishing, sporting goods, stationery, gifts and books, toys and hobbies, lingerie and swimwear, kiosks and general services. Dining is split into cafés and bakeries, restaurants, speciality food and sweets, and the food court. The full store directory, with the level of each shop, is on the mall's website.

The Village and the Dancing Fountain

The Village is the mall's outdoor side: about 50 cafés and restaurants set around the Dancing Fountain and an open-air theatre. Cairo Festival City describes it as two outdoor levels with terraces over the fountain, which plays with water jets, music and coloured lights, and a curved amphitheatre. Show times for the fountain are not published on either website.

For children and families

KidZania Cairo is the mall's role-play city for children. Cairo Festival City says it has more than 100 activities over nearly 9,000 square metres, where children role-play jobs in a small city with a hospital, a fire station, a salon and a bank. Its number is 16593.

Magic Planet, a family entertainment centre with rides, games and attractions, is on Level 3 (16002). Leap offers play and learning for children from walking age to 12, and Wiggly Jungle is a safe play area for children. For older children and adults there are Bounce Inc (free jumping), Grip n Climb, and Trapped, which the mall sells as a test of brainpower. Scene Cinema is on Level 3 (+20 2 2616 8241), with a Book Ticket link on the mall's website.

Ticket prices for KidZania, Magic Planet, the other play areas and the cinema are not published on the mall's website.

Services

The mall offers free WiFi, baby strollers, child identification bracelets (free), hands-free shopping (it keeps your bags while you carry on), a mothers' room, separate prayer rooms for men and women, lost and found, power banks to rent, and shopping carts rented at the information desks. Prices for the rented items are not published.

Best time to go

Go by the hours. For an early start, Carrefour and The Village open at 8:30am, an hour and a half before the shops. For late shopping, Thursday and Friday are the days when shops stay open until midnight; from Saturday to Wednesday they close at 11pm. After the shops close, the cinema, the food court and The Village carry on until 1am. The mall does not publish figures on its busiest times.

Contact

The mall's information line is 16367 and its customer service email is cfcm.customerservice@alfuttaim.ae. Cairo Festival City's hotline is 16761 (inside Egypt) or +20 2 2618 6000, Sunday to Thursday from 9am to 5pm.