Innovative Film City

At last a place near Bangalore which is just 1 hour drive away and worth spending time and money. I am in Bangalore from 9 years but could never find even a single place for a weekend escape. I knew about this place from a long time and had been there also when it was just inaugurated but the experience wasn't very gratifying because it was still under-developed and wasn't fully functional.

So let me give you a picture of this place and will supply you all critical information which might make your next break here a 100% worth for your cash and time.

Innovative film city is located in a place called Bidadi (Refer the map, starting place is Forum Mall, Kormangala)

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Its approximately 40-45 km from Bangalore depending upon where you stay in Bangalore but If you live near Bannerghatta Road then you might want to consider NICE road because then you will accomplish the distance to Innovative film city within 36 kms.

When I was here first time the parking was done just outside the premises. I read lots of online reviews and everyone mentioned that there were lots of stealing took place from the cars which were parked outside. The good news is that they now have made parking within the site.

On the entrance there are tickets counter, Different charges are,

# Admission, which does not include anything except right of entry to Innovative film city --> 50/-

# Still camera –> 100/- (Believe it or not)

# Handy cam –> 150/- or 200/- I don't remember accurately.

P.S – Mobile phone cameras are permitted and are not charged.

Tip – Don't show your still camera and handy cam, therefore do not purchase any ticket for it. After access to film city you can make use of your camera or handy cam as much as you desire, no one will validate if you have bought camera ticket or not. So please save some hard earned money on something stupid.

The general idea is you buy way in ticket and enter into the film city. Inside film city there are tons of things to do but they have their own price tags.

So let’s take a look what all they have,

 

Attractions	Cost	What’s that!!	My Opinion ?
Indian pottery	50	Hands on Indian pottery on cart wheel	You can try, they will let you take the pot
Mirror Maze	75	Maze of mirror	Very Good
Dino Park	50	Plastic Dinos	Skip it
Fossil Museum	25	Dino Fossils	Don't even think of it
Fossil Hunt	50	Find fossils in dirt	Are you kidding me !!
Aqua Kingdom	150	Artificial beach + ??	Did not try
Cartoon City (4 Rides)	30	No Idea	Did not try
Carousel	50	No Idea	Did not try
Roller Coaster	100	No Idea	Did not try
Miniature City	30	Miniature City	WTF !!!
Shoot Out @ IFC	100	No Idea	Did not try
Dune Buggy	300	No Idea	Did not try
Mini Golf	100	No Idea	Did not try
Wax Museum	75	Celebrity’s Wax statues	Average, can skip
Ripley’s Museum	100	Weird facts and artefacts	Average, can skip
Funplex Games	100	Video games, bowling	Try if you have never played video games
4D-Cinema	100	Short and almost real movie experience	Probably the best thing in the Film City
Roller Skates	100	Roller Skates	Looked awful for 100 bucks
Haunted Mansion	100	Scary house	2nd best thing what we tried
Bungee Jump	50	Miniature Bungee Jump	kids play
Wannado City	50	Mock City set	WTFFFFFFFFFF !!
Wax Hand	100	Wax mould of your hand	Skip it
ATV Dirt Bike	200	No Idea	Did not try
Go Karting	150	No Idea	Did not try
Paint ball	150	Paint ball with paint	Did not try
Aladdin’s Carpet	150	Your 2:30 minute movie DVD where you are flying over the city on Aladdin’s carpet	Pretty crazy & embarrassing stuff to do, do try this, (Checkout the video at the end)

 

Packages offered at the ticket counter,

Package 399

Activity	Original Price	Value for Money
Entry Fee	50	10/10
Dino Park	50	3/10
Haunted mansion	100	8/10
Wax Museum	75	5/10
Wannado City	50	0/10
Mini Golf	100	Did not try
Fossil Museum	25	1/10
Mirror Maze	75	7/10
Miniature City	30	0/10
Fossil Hunt	50	0/10
Ripley’s Museum	100	4/10

Package 699

Activity	Original Price	Value for Money
Entry Fee	50	10/10
Mirror Maze	75	7/10
Dino Park	50	3/10
Fossil Museum	25	1/10
Fossil Hunt	50	0/10
Aqua Kingdom	150	Did not try
Cartoon City	30	Did not try
Carousel	50	Did not try
Roller Coaster	100	Did not try
Miniature City	30	0/10
Innovative Talkies	??	Did not try
Mini Golf	100	Did not try
Wax Museum	75	5/10
Ripley’s Museum	100	4/10
4D-Cinema	100	10/10
Roller Skates	100	5/10
Haunted Mansion	100	8/10
Wannado City	50	0/10
Go Karting	150	Did not try

 

Tip - Don’t pay money for the tickets for activities like Miniature City, Wannado City and Fossil hunt because they were free when we checked them out and trust me, they are not even worth to be checked out for free.

We preferred 399 Combo,

 

 

My wife wanted to get some hands on Indian pottery making,

 

 

She made that Big one without base

 

     

 

Food choices,

They have got 7-8 diverse forms of cuisines from Andhra way to Chinese and Rajasthani but sadly about 50% were closed on Sunday afternoon and remaining 50% were selling only 50% things from their list of options. I may know the explanation why? The reason was totally operational Cafe Coffee day, Barista and ABOVE ALL McDonalds. So you don’t have to be anxious about the food at all.

 

 

Facilities,

I always have an opinion that you can judge any place by its washrooms, which as anticipated isn’t any first-class here. No Soap and sometimes not even water from the tap. So be equipped, carry extra bottles and toilet paper when you be here next time.

And last but not the least we ended up doing this for 150/-, Please don't disown us after seeing this crazy piece,

Aladdin's Carpet Special Effect Movie

Conclusion,

According to me you can easily be here for 5-6 hours on an overcast day. It’s all open and very spacious so you have to stroll a lot. We went on a rainy day, it was breezy and still we were exhausted in about 5 hrs.

You cannot cover all in one day so my recommendation is to pick most excellent things from the catalogue of activities and stick to them. Out of the entire only 25% things are real value for money.

Must Do for me were: - 4D-Movie, Haunted mansion and Mirror maze

Please share your judgment if you have been here.

Egg Factory

I love to watch NDTV Good times and I especially like the TV series “Highway on my plate”. It’s a show about 2 guys, one vegetarian “Mayur” and one non-vegetarian “Rocky”. Their job is to visit any place in India and to taste it’s most eminent shops and their dishes. On the same show they went to Bangalore once and for breakfast they ended up at “Egg factory”.

                                 
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I personally believe that if Maggie and eggs were not there then the humankind would not have survived. I worship egg and was craving to visit this place as soon as possible. We made a plan and 6 of us made it to the place at 9 in the morning. The restaurant ambience is excellent, they have tried to make it like a factory with all kinds of equipments like siren, chalk board etc. It has wooden tables with wooden benches which are reasonably comfortable, it has nice windows because of which it’s kind of a polite place where you and your gang of friends can sit down and chat for hours and no one will come to bother you. And we did the same thing, we had breakfast for around 2:30 hrs, until we called no one came to us to take down the order because it was evident from the menu that it typically takes vvvvveeeerrrrrryyyyyyy looonnnnggggg time to make your mind up for what you would like to eat because they put forward a broad variety of Indian/Chinese/Italian dishes made out of Eggs.

We ordered countless dishes, roughly 10-12 items from the list of options but to our dissatisfaction we found only 2 dishes worth the money they demanded, Akoorie (Spicy scrambled eggs) and Roasted chillies frittata (which is basically a spicy spinach spread spread over a normal omelette), Everything else was just ordinary, as my disappointed wife said, “They served us a 10 rupee omelette for 100 rupees”.

Its always good to reach here in the early hours because this place has many followers and gets over packed in no time. If you are a freakish egg lover then you must go here at least once but price and the food for that price will make you apprehend why you should not go back.

As Mayur and Rocky does,

Price – 3/10

Taste – 5/10

Service – 7/10

Ambience – 8/10

Value for money – 3/10

Will I go back – Probably not

The Beach

The Beach is the restaurant which is located in Indiranagar, Bangalore,

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I have heard a lot about The Beach but never got an opportunity to be there until yesterday when 2 of our friends decided to throw a party for 10 of us . They have actually put sand on the floor to provide a fell of a beach. The place is decent, if you get to sit on “Couch” but if you get small stools you may get annoyed after sometime because they are very uncomfortable. At lunch time we were given 2 selections, 499/- limitless Soft drinks/Mocktails/Beer and 699/- unlimited Vodka inclusive of everything in 499/- batch. With all this you will be supplied with infinite Vegan and non vegan starters . There is no Buffet but you can choose what you want and order, it will be served to you on your table.

Now if I go to a place where I am asked to shell out 500/- I look forward to get at least a decent food and an upright service which were absent constantly. We were not given any menu cards but the server made us aware about what all is offered. We were given choices of 4 vegetarian starters and 4 non vegetarian starters. The food quality was under standards in comparison to what was I being charged for. Also, it was very annoying that every time a starter gets over we have to order over again instead we getting served all the time.

When we were done with the starters and demanded for the main course, the attendant offered us a menu card, trust me if I tell you this that the menu card was nothing but ONE A4 sheet!! The menu had the starters which we ordered and also something which we were not told of. It looked like that they wanted to supply all non-expensive food and saved themselves a tiny fortune. Main course also did not have much of a selection, overall it was a below average experience food wise.

Since we were 10 of us we had a blast and we had loads of fun, mind you that we enjoyed because we were a group. I think we had around 15 rounds of beer and 9 Tequila shots (Which were billed separately) in total with limitless starters for which we were billed around 7,000 rupees which was way beyond what it was worth of.

Verdict:-

My opinion, please skip “The Beach”, it’s not at all worth for what it puts forward (For lunch time, I do have any idea if it’s the same in the late afternoon) until you are intense drinker and can make your money count by unlimited liquor. I would rather advise “Barbeque Nation”, just next to “The Beach”, where you will get AMAZING food and even if you drink as much as we did, you will not cross that 7k mark.