I believe two years is enough time to build a shopping center most especially since the entire structure was already done two years ago. However, construction at the Manila Ocean Park is incredibly slow. The retail section of the park is quite frankly a big mess. A lot of the stalls are empty and it seemed that management was desperate to get stall owners to move in that they could just get anyone who would give them money. This led to the degradation of the retail area at the ground floor of the Manila Ocean Park. The funny thing is, it would seem that the management forces visitors to go through the retail are by blocking the direct access to the upper levels by cordoning off the path to the escalators.
As a result, vistors need to navigate through a series of crowded and tacky retail shops that were not interesting at all. It would seem like you were suddenly transported to Divisoria, the Philippines premiere marketplace for budget conscious people. Being a premiere tourist spot, the Manila Ocean Park could have at least professionalized this area especially if visitors were being forced to walk through it. It would seem that the blockade itself was artificial since most people would normally bypass the retail area and just go upstairs. Whether this was a result of a monumental blunder of designing the building will never be known. Who knows, maybe after two additional years they could get their act together somehow and this will become a much more pleasant place.
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