So tell me about the Mall of America.

In My Humble Opinion
1

We’re taking a week of vacation at the end of the month. We’re going up to Minnesota, going sight seeing, fishing, and I might stop in on an old boss who lives up there and kick his ass, but only if time permits:D

Anyway, on the way back to Wisconsin I’m thinking about stopping a day or 2 in Minneapolis. I go there about 3 times a year on business, but believe it or not I’ve never gone inside the Mall of America, though I’ve driven past it.
So, is it worth go into? Anything in there of real intrest?
Or should we just skip it?

2

I almost said skip it, but my philosophy is that something this big should be experienced at least once, so go for it. There are plenty of restaurants (not necessarily all expensive) and specialty stores (to go in and look around at neat stuff). There’s a whole amusement park (or was 4 years ago, anyway…all of my info is 4 years old) and there was a huge underwater aquarium exhibit when I lived out there. It’s not really that horribly much of a hassle, and you get the experience of saying “I was there”.

The drawbacks include crowds, expense, and a surrender to blatant consumerism. Also if you have small children, it’s a very large place. Easily the area of an actual amusement park as far as walking and total square footage go. Crankiness probably will happen.

When I lived in MPLS, my parents came to visit and we actually did the MoA as a two-day thing. It’s much more manageable and enjoyable split up like that. But that doesn’t appear to be an option in your case.

HTH :slight_smile:

jayjay

3

Well it’s big, and it’s a mall.

Uh, they have a Hooters, and they have a Camp Snoopy theme park, Planet Hollywood and some other stuff.

**Rysdad, LNO, Cnote chris, racerx **and a few others live nearby, 10-15 minutes.

Did I mention they have a Hooters.

4

Hmm. Since this is IMHO, I’ll say I despise malls. I think there is something inherently wrong with a society that counts a giant bunch of chain stores as one of the most popular vacation destinations in the country. People wandering malls look like vacuous goggle eyed sheep, doing exactly what the advertisers tell them to do. Being somewhat of an iconoclast, I am proud to say I have never been to the two major malls here in the Denver area (Flatirons Crossing & Park Meadows.) In fact I get all hostile & cranky just thinking about it, can you tell?

Oh…:smiley: I guess my recommendation would be skip it!

5

I gotta be up front with you–the Mall of America is actually really disappointing. There’s nothing in it that you won’t find in anything other mall (except for the theme park, natch), but it’s really just like any other mall. . . except bigger.
I’d say skip it.

6

Just how big exactly is the Mall of America? I realize I could look it up, but hey, this thread is already up. :smiley:

7

It’s a mall. That’s it. It’s a big mall, granted, but that just means there’s more idiot mall-walkers packed into it.

So, if you really dig malls, you’ll love it. If you don’t like malls, you won’t. If you despise malls, it should strike you as a good target for a low-yield ground burst nuclear warhead. Choose accordingly.

8

I really hate malls & the whole mindless thing that they engender in the sheep. I would never want to hurt a single soul, though.

Just wanted to make that clear!

9

Several years ago, shortly after the place opened, Mrs. G. and I took a vanload of foreign exchange high school kids from England up there. The kids had a great time. Apparently fancy underwear was hard to come by in England. The young ladies very nearly cleaned out Victoria’s Secret. The American kids and adults thought it was another shopping mall. Big, though.

M of A does make it easy to park and eat and generally spend the day. The amusement park does provide a way to entertain the little kids and keep Papa occupied while Ma and the daughters mount a raid .

10

Hmmmm…They don’t have much fancy underwear in England? Isn’t Victoria’s Secret “supposed to be” an English company? (I don’t think they really are, but that was kind of their “story”, right?)

My experience with taking foreigners (Finnish people, in this case) at the megamall is that they seem to love either the most quintessentially “American” stores that we can find anywhere, like Burger King or Hallmark Cards, or the ones that remind them of home, such as Liten Hus, which was full of Scandinavian goodies, including a sauna. They oohed and aahed over how small that sauna was :).

It is just a big mall. In fact, it’s so big that it’s very difficult to shop effectively in. It’s more of a place to wander around and browse. And even that gets tiring, if you really want to see the whole thing.

If you were coming to the Twin Cities in the wintertime, I’d say that it would probably be worth a trip, but since you are visting when the weather is usually pleasant, you could skip it, especially if you are not fond of shopping. Might be a good “rainy day alternate”, though.

I’ve never seen the Underwater Adventures aquarium…all of the out-of-town guests I’ve taken to the mall have balked at the admission price (over $10, IIRC.)

Camp Snoopy has some fun rides, especially for kids, and I take my kid there sometimes as a treat. It’s a nice “piece of summer” when the days are cold and dreary.

My kid also really likes the Lego store. They have tables set up where you can use Legos and build whatever you want, a ramp so you can race Lego cars, and some neat Lego models of dinosaurs and other things (a bit dusty these days.)

Up on the third floor, there is a cheese store that usually has free samples, in case you feel a bit peckish (or homesick :).)

My recent find there has been the DSW Shoe Warehouse. All kinds of women’s shoes, name brand and not-so-name brand, for (IIRC) 30 to 70% off regular prices. I needed some shoes for a wedding I will be attending, and I found them there. Could not find a single appropriate dress in the whole freaking mall, but I found shoes! :).

The guests that I’ve taken to the megamall who have loved it the most have been people who like to shop and who have money (or credit) to spend.

I think that the Mall of America does so well in Minnesota because the weather is so terrible most of the year. Where else are you going to go?

11

As malls go, it’s an interesting place. I kind of enjoyed walking around the amusement park. It gave me a “we’re inside but it feels like outside” feeling. Weird.

The other strange thing is that I managed to bump into someone I knew. So maybe it’s not THAT big…

What struck me about the MOA is that parking is pretty easy. I had envisioned leaving the car miles away and taking a shuttle bus to the darn place. But we just parked the car in the lot, and walked 50 yards to the mall.

12

Victoria’s Secret is owned by The Limited, based in Cleveland. Some years back, the owner/founder of The Limited–a retail genius IMHO–bought out a very small (6-store?) and rather ordinary California lingerie chain called Victoria’s Secret. He loved the name.

Then this guy created a lingerie store in his own fantasy of what women would like. Apparently he didn’t do market research or anything. He thought women would like the boudoir-ish decor and the fake English theme, etc. He even went so far as to get a London mailing address. (All mail was immediately forwarded to Cleveland.) He was right-on in his assumptions, because Victoria’s Secret is fabulously successful. Obviously, a key factor in its success was that people liked the product, but the whole “English” thing was what really made it fly.

So, it isn’t and never was English, not even a little bit. But they sure sold a lot of underpants by faking it.

13

There’s an amusingly naughty joke in there somewhere…

jayjay

14

The official website is here. It’s got a lot of information, as well as a directory and regional information on hotels, etc.

You can find Camp Snoopy here. Word of advice: turn the sound off, because there is an annoying MIDI of “Linus and Lucy” that repeats over and over and over again.

Parking is fairly easy to deal with, and the mall is fairly accommodating. In the interests of full disclosure, however, I should point out that crime within the Mall has increased significantly, so lock purses in the trunk or rent a locker, and make sure you know where your kids are at all times.

It’s a fun way to spend a day, but I wouldn’t make a vacation out of it.

Robin

15

While there are a few specialty shops that are nice to look at (Lake Wobegone store, e.g.) this, IMHO, is the only thing really worth seeing at the MegaMaul. It really is kind of neat (especially if you’ve never had the opportunity to pet a baby sting ray). It’s worth the $10.

16

If you’re a sports fan, it’s a little eerie to realize you’re on the site of Metropolitan Stadium. If you visit Camp Snoopy, you’ll find a brass plaque on the floor where home plate used to be - if you like, you can stand there and imagine being Tony Oliva facing Sandy Koufax in the 1965 World Series. Look out to the facing of the second deck, and you’ll find a seat hanging off it, right where it was when Harmon Killebrew hit it with his longest career home run (the mall is on Killebrew Drive, btw).

Or, you can remember all those Vikings game in frostbite weather, with the icicles hanging off Bud Grant’s face, and Chuck Foreman banging through for another TD right where you’re standing, while the visiting team bench huddled around the heaters and the Vikes just had this “Cold? What cold?” expression on their faces.

But otherwise, it’s just a mall, with a roller coaster, a putt-puut course, and its own bus station. Well, check that, the first time I went to the Minneapple on a business trip with nothing else to do at night (that’s redundant, btw), there was a museum exhibit about mammoths from St. Petersburg, Russia, including a reassembled skeleton. It moved on and some generic mall store moved in the next time I went, though.

17

:: huffs up chest ::
Screw you America! Our mall could kick your mall’s ass!

If its anything like West Edmonton Mall, and it sounds like it is, they can be a fun way to spend a rainy day. I’ve had the same observation as Grok, it’s rather a neat feeling to be able to walk such a long distance and still be inside.

There may be a couple of interesting shops too in between the thirty jcPenny’s.

Take some precautions though, you can lose people in big malls pretty easily which can be very frustrating if not downright dangerous. Make sure people are well instruced where and when to meet. And don’t be lulled into a false sense of security by the muzac and plastic pastel seats, the last time I was in Edmonton, somebody was stabbed in the throat in the middle of the mall.

18

When visiting the Mall of America be sure to check out the House of Enlarged Elephant Balls and Sodomy City!

19

It was developed by the same company. I lived in Minnesota in the late 80s, when MOA was in its planning stages. It was originally supposed to be even larger than its W. Edmonton sibling, but the highly inconvenient, almost simultaneous bankruptcy of virtually every national department store chain in 1989-91 forced them to scale back from 8 “anchors” to the existing four.

In the early 90s CBS ran a “48 Hours” episode at MOA, in which they followed an English family who flew into Minneapolis, stayed in a hotel by the mall, shopped for two days…
…and flew home.
Waaaah! My country! Eight million goddamn things to do here, thirteen odd thousand lakes to visit in Minnesota alone, and they spend holiday in a [Ed Sullivan]rilly big Mall[/Ed Sullivan]???

20

It really depends. I live in Edmonton and find myself in the West Edmonton Mall (which is even bigger than the mall of america, but probably very similar) every week or two. I usually go there when I go see a movie. Yeah, there are lots of stores there. Yeah, there’s an amusement park. Yeah, there are several cineplexes in it. Big deal. Once you get used to it, the only things that remain impressive are (in my opinion) the huge, open, “domed” areas (about the size of an ice rink under a ceiling made entirely of skylights). Otherwise it’s just a regular mall. If you like spending the better part of a day shopping at the mall(s) in your home town, then you’d probably like the MoA. If you don’t, save the time and skip it.