Bloomington, Minneapolis

We left Hershey via a taxi to Harrisburg, and then a flight to Minneapolis via O'Hare in Chicago. The connection was cutting it a little closer than I like, but we made it, and then took another taxi to our hotel.

We stayed in the Courtyard Bloomington by Mall of America. While it was smaller and more casual than our Philadelphia location, the service level was just as high. The staff was friendly and helpful. The breakfast was not as elaborate but still very good. There was a small store with sundries, but there were also many things the staff would hand our freely, like little packs of Q-tips.

Philadelphia was still the only walkable location on our tour, but Bloomington compensated for the lack of sidewalks and close locations with shuttles. There was a shuttle to the mall, shared with the Residence Inn next door, and part of a vast fleet of shuttles going back and forth between the mall and all of the local lodging places. There was an airport shuttle, meaning we probably could have saved our taxi fare, but that is how we made our return trip. There were also additional shuttling options available.

For more delicate readers, I'm sorry for this next story, but it bears repeating. Despite a small store in the Inn, and a couple of convenience-type stores in the mall, none of them had the imagination to carry feminine hygiene products - a need that comes up. For this, the best option was Wal-Mart - normally a place I avoid.

For non-airport and mall trips, the shuttle would still take you there. There was more waiting for the irregular stops, but it nonetheless let me get where I needed to get what we needed, and went along with the generally excellent service.

Future posts will focus on things found inside the mall, but the outside part was very satisfactory as well.