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By David Swann, Star-Bulletin

Bathrooms play a big role
during holiday power shopping.
Here's a heads up on the best
in and out of the big malls

Cues come from customers

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By Betty Shimabukuro
Star-Bulletin

AS Super Mom (or Dad), you can handle trolling for parking, negotiating a stroller through crowded aisles, juggling packages along with diaper bags. Christmas shopping with little kids is more stressful than the average shared family experience, by an increment of about 10 billion. But when you must, you must, and you are Super Parent, so you plunge right in.

Once the car is parked and a few items have successfully been purchased, you will think you have everything under control. But this is when fate will reach out and smack you. This is when the kid will issue the frantic cry of the recently housebroken: "Mommy! I gotta go! I gotta go NOW!!!"

This is when you want to yank the eyeballs out of your head. Because you forgot to scout the potties. And now you are in the middle of a large store in the middle of a crowded mall, with an explosion about to happen.

By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Stefani Wan checks herself in the nearly full-length
mirror of the third floor ladies room in Neiman Marcus
department store at Ala Moana on Sunday.

No. 1 rule for shopping with kids: Know the restrooms. Even when dealing with infants, it pays to memorize the location of spacious and clean restrooms, especially the ones with changing tables. Few things are as logistically difficult as changing a poopy baby on the floor.

And so, in our continuing effort to enlighten and inform, today we present Oahu's Good Restrooms. The most family-friendly de-watering holes in the busiest shopping centers.

The criteria: Clean, accessible, large enough to accommodate a stroller. A changing table is essential. In women's restrooms, a chair for a nursing mom is a plus, as well as a purse hook inside stalls.

Here is our guide to deluxe lua, islandwide:

Ala Moana Shopping Center

Hands-down grand champion of all the bathrooms in all the malls is Neiman Marcus, where men's and women's rooms on all three floors are appointed in elegance. Art work on the walls, even. Seriously, even if nature is not calling, you should visit these rooms, just to have a look.

Bathrooms are in the back right corner of each floor; on the mall level they're near the hats. The cushy diaper-changing station is a separate room between the men's and women's rooms. Handicapped stalls are huge, great for handling kids who need help with the details. Women's rooms have separate sitting areas with comfortable chairs and couches.

Neiman Marcus is just about in the center of Ala Moana on the mall level, making it extremely handy. Commit this location to memory.

By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
The wash basins of the ladies room in
Neiman Marcus department store

Also worth mentioning is the third-floor women's room at Liberty House, near the Pineapple Room. Comfortable sitting area. Nice, padded changing table. For men, California Pizza Kitchen on the third floor has an exceptionally clean bathroom with changing table, four chairs and low urinal for little boys.

Final tip: The Ala Moana Center map, available free at the directory stations, lists every public restroom, even the ones inside stores. The general mall restrooms, by the way, are quite nice and well-appointed, given the high traffic. Find them at street level in Makai Market (in the corner by Patti's Chinese Kitchen) and behind Centerstage next to Waldenbooks.

Pearlridge

Uptown mall restrooms are exceptional, on the first and second floors just outside Liberty House. Family restrooms are on both floors, with padded changing tables and diaper dispensers (for four quarters you get a large diaper, plastic bag, wipe and disposable changing pad). They also have padded benches, suitable for resting and nursing. Regular men's and women's restrooms are also well-appointed. The downstairs women's room has an additional unique feature: A Keiki Toilet, low-to-the-floor.

By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
The spacious waiting area of a ladies room in
Neiman Marcus department store at Ala Moana

If you're at the other end of the mall, JC Penney offers a decent women's room, on the first floor (follow signs to the elevator and you'll find it). It has a pull-down changing table and two wooden chairs.

The Downtown situation is as the name implies. The main mall restroom, down a corridor next to Pretzelmaker, is crowded and messy. A family restroom next door does have a padded changing table, but be prepared to stand in line. Better bets are the third-floor men's and women's rooms at Sears (near the bedspreads). They have changing tables and lots of room to move around. The women's room has a nice, big, soft couch in a large sitting area.

Kahala Mall

The most centrally located restroom here earns the distinction of least accessible in any mall. It is down 18 steps, through a long corridor and around three corners. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, not a high-traffic day, there was a line for the three stalls in the women's room.

Far better, but way off near the Kahala Theatres, is a family restroom with a nice changing area, but no place to sit down.

Liberty House has a fairly roomy women's restroom with a changing table and a chair. It's on the second floor behind children's clothing. LH being on the opposite end of the mall from the theaters, this may be a handier choice, even though you have to go up the escalator.

Ward Warehouse

Not a lot of choice here. One bathroom, off the food court, is basically a closet. The better bet is across from the parking structure, around the corner from Liquor Collection. There's a fold-down changing table inside the handicapped stall. It's small, but negotiable for a stroller. Men's side also has a changing table.

Waikele Center

On the lower, discount end, all the big-box stores have restrooms, usually located to the left of the entry in the front or back corner. Nicest ones are at Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse and Old Navy. Both have changing tables and are clean. At Lowe's, the men's room has a low urinal for kids. At Old Navy, the bathrooms are in the dressing-room area, so moms who need to nurse could conceivably pop into a dressing room.

Also consider CompUSA, where the bathrooms are in a lounge with vending machines, a water cooler, table and chairs. The facilities are a bit run-down and there's no changing table, but if you're traveling with toddlers, it's a decent place to sit for a spell, even give them a snack.

At the upper level with the designer shops, the only restroom is way in the back Diamond Head corner. No family amenities.

Windward Mall

The first-floor mall restrooms are next to the Sears entrance and around the corner from the food court. They are basic and can get messy, but men's and women's rooms have changing tables in alcoves near the front, which is convenient. One low urinal in the men's room.

On the second floor, best bet is Liberty House, near the Gazebo restaurant. The bathrooms are spacious and clean. Men's room has no changing area, but the women's room does have a hard table (bring your own changing pad) and a hard chair.

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Staff writer Tim Ryan
contributed to this report.

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Comfort stations take
cue from customer

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By Betty Shimabukuro
Star-Bulletin

Our restroom tour of Oahu's major shopping centers uncovered two exceptional sets of bathrooms -- at Neiman Marcus in Ala Moana and at Pearlridge Center Uptown.

Neiman Marcus, given its overall upscale design and clientele, is a place you'd expect some extra comfort, but the Pearlridge luxury was a bit of a surprise, these stalls being required, after all, to serve the masses.

Scott Creel, marketing director for Pearlridge, said the restrooms were renovated along with the entire mall in 1996 with all new sinks, fixtures and tiles.

The center views the restrooms as another tool for keeping shoppers happy, he said. "Our philosophy is if you can make the customer more comfortable at all different levels, they're more likely to come back."

The addition of family restrooms makes it a bit easier for, say, a dad who doesn't want to march a young daughter past the urinals in a men's room, or for any parent shopping with several kids.

Creel said it is mainly female shoppers and their demands for cleanliness and convenience that drive efforts to improve restrooms. Pearlridge bathrooms are cleaned every hour, he said.

The Downtown bathrooms don't have the "soft design" of Uptown, Creel said, in keeping with Downtown's more cutting-edge image. The main restrooms near Pretzelmaker may seem more crowded, but he said that may be because people don't realize there are more restrooms upstairs in the food court.

"People are creatures of habit and when they know where something is, that's where tend to migrate," he said. "I've tried in other shopping centers I've worked at to tell people, 'There's a larger bathroom over there,' but they say, 'This is where I like to be.' "

At Neiman Marcus, public relations manager Pauline Worsham said the bathrooms were designed to complement the rest of the store in terms of spaciousness and high-quality materials. "It was important that they reflect the elegance of the store and not just be utilitarian."

The store has no problem with outside shoppers using the facilities, Worsham said. "People come in from the rest of the mall because they know we have great bathrooms."

Every passer-by is a potential buyer, after all. "It's nice to have them in our store and become familiar with our store."

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