Mall of America - Overview

https://www.mallofamerica.com/

The Mall of America is really big. At 4,870,000 square feet, it is the largest shopping mall in the United States, though for the largest malls in the world it barely makes the top 30. Mere numbers can be hard to grasp.

It stretches out very far.

Navigation is done by coordinates. Each store has a letter and number, indicating whether it is North, West, South, or East, and they go essentially in numerical order, but it can be surprisingly easy to get lost, or to suddenly find you have switched wings.

Some of the vastness may be best illustrated by going over the duplicates. For example, there is both Claire's and Icing, and Hot Topic and Torrid.  There is Old Navy and Gap and Banana Republic. Eddie Bauer and L.L. Bean. It's not that it is completely unheard of to have similar stores in the same mall, but it's hard to think of something that is missing.

There were mall staples, and stores I had never heard of before.

And the food court just seemed to go on forever.

I thought we should do one complete circuit on every level, because then we would know that we weren't missing anything. As simple as that sounds, it wasn't. You just keep going and going and get distracted. Also, there are a few duplicates. Surprisingly there were only three Starbucks, but that may be mainly the result of the competition from Caribou Coffee.

In addition to the regular store spaces, there were also many kiosks.

We were excited to see a brick and mortar store for Greater Good. We had no idea such a thing existed.

One of our favorite things was the selection of Minnesota-themed stores. We thought Minnesot-Ah! had the best name, but there was also Love From Minnesota and I <3 br="" competition-wise.="" easy="" has="" in="" it="" kind="" made="" minnesota.="" of="" oregon="">

We were also excited to run into another iCandy. We found it a fun place to explore and talk to staff in Chicago, and it was here as well. Of course, there were at least six other candy stores, but with different themes (Lindt, Godiva, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, Northwoods Candy Emporium, It's Sugar, and the Peeps Store).

That may seem excessive, and such a large mall also probably seems excessive. The larger ones are often associated with wealthy countries, but before that trend, the largest malls were associated with cold weather, where you need to be able to do things inside.

That is certainly true for Bloomington, and something we will explore in the next few posts.

Sea Life Minnesota Aquarium

The shuttle buses drop passengers off in an underground parking garage. I'm sure the Mall of America has many entrances, but the one you get to from the shuttles takes you right to the aquarium.

https://www2.visitsealife.com/minnesota/

A quick escalator ride down takes you to the entrance, and then into the exhibits.

Many of the exhibits are standard but well done.

Others had some fun surprises. They did a good job of showing off the creepiness of the crustaceans and the eerie beauty of the jellyfish.

I am a sucker for seahorses, and the Hippocampus genus was well-represented.

There were also larger tanks with larger creatures.

There ended up being two things that especially impressed me. One was the focus on rescue work. In addition to statistics and information on display in various locations, there were signs explaining how some of the current residents came to the aquarium, and it was usually something humans did. These reminders are important.

In addition, at one point I noticed a tortoise who had gotten flipped and was having a hard time righting himself. We reached the gift shop shortly after that, and I asked the attendant about it.

I was really just hoping for an assurance that they check them periodically, which I have gotten at a zoo in a different situation, but he went and notified someone right away. And this was a person in the gift shop, not someone who kept the animals. He was helpful in our browsing as well, but I appreciated the level of commitment to the animals, and the communications in place.

This is very frustrating for a tortoise.

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.

The rest of Hershey's Chocolate World

 We loved the things that we did at Hershey's Chocolate World, but we did not do everything we could have done.

In addition to the Trolley Tour and Fall Festival of Flavors, other options included building your own candy bar, taking a chocolate tasting class, and a 4-D movie.

We know people who have done some of these and really enjoyed them. Knowing what we know now, if we had to do it over again we would have not gotten the theme park tickets, and instead done everything at Chocolate World, plus visited The Hershey Story Museum and Hershey Gardens. That is taking into consideration allocation of both time and money.

There are other things you can do at Chocolate World without a separate admission. There are photo opportunities, with a regular studio and with characters who walk around. They are in the 4-D movie, but may also look suspiciously like the candy you may buy.

There are some interactive Kiss-based games you can play.

There is a food court with a pretty good selection and reasonable prices. This is very practical, for employees as well as visitors. There is nothing within easy walking distance and the main attractions without any solid food could easily send someone into sugar shock.

But that is the best part.

All of the places on our Fall Festival tour, in addition to the samples we got, have regular product offerings. That does mean an ice cream place, and a place where you can decorate your own cookies and cupcakes, but also it means the most amazing bakery cases, with beautiful (big) cupcakes and cookies incorporating kisses, chocolate bars, and peanut butter cups. They are amazing.

Obviously, it is important to pace yourself - share different things in the group, come back on different days, whatever you have to do to maintain a reasonable level of wellness - but they have some great stuff.

Have a sweet day; they make that really easy.

http://www.hersheys.com/chocolateworld/explore

https://hersheystory.org/

http://www.hersheygardens.org/

The Milton Hershey School

There was only one point on the trolley tour where we got off, and that was to see the main building for the Milton Hershey School.

It may not look like much on the outside, but where that dome is on the inside is very impressive.

There are many buildings with the school, both for classes and houses for the students, but those would not be appropriate for touring. It is here that they tell you more about how Milton and Kitty Hershey - childless themselves - created a school, originally for orphan boys, to give them a start in life. Kitty is generally credited with the idea, but Milton was from a poor family where his father was often absent, so there were reasons for it to resonate with him.

There have been many changes, while keeping to similar values. Chores are still a part of daily life, but they no longer include milking cows, which was an important part of chores in the middle of dairy country back when the school was started.

The school used to focus more on trades than college preparation, then college became more standard, much as it did with society. Originally only white boys were accepted, but now boys and girls of all races are accepted. Also, they used to only take orphans. While the children accepted are from difficult circumstances, in many cases their parents are living. Circumstances have changed and the school has adapted.

There is more information on the school available, including a short documentary, Living the Legacy. That is fairly clear about the difficulties faced in what they are trying to do, but ultimately hopeful.

http://www.mhskids.org/

http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/hall_of_fame/milton_hershey

Hershey's Chocolate World - The Trolley Tour

When looking at optional experiences at Hershey's Chocolate World, one of your options is to head over to the Trolley Works. We selected the Chocolate and History Trolley:

http://www.hersheys.com/chocolateworld/Trolley-Works

This was our guide. He did three things for us. The first was letting us know about the area and its history.

We saw farmland (this was a big dairy area, because you need milk for milk chocolate).

We saw some glimpses of the factories and industrial sites.

And we saw historic homes. Milton Hershey was a big believer in community building, so that included facilitating comfortable homes for factory employees but also some very generous housing deals for his executives.

Hershey includes education and recreation. There was one stop that I am going to treat separately, but for now I still need to say two things about our guide.

He did not just give us history, but also jokes with the history. It may have been fairly corny humor - maybe better than the Disneyland Jungle Cruise, but somewhat similar - but it still contributed to the enjoyment of the tour and in no way subtracted from what we learned.

He also gave us candy.

There was so much candy. It all related. We got caramel when he was telling us about Hershey's early work there, and how he used milk in the caramel first. There were different kinds of kisses. There were Reese's Peanut Butter Cups when he told us how H.B. Reese was inspired and supported by Milton Hershey, and how his sons eventually sold the business to Hershey.

Then at the end, we each got a full-size chocolate bar.

I remember ages ago someone talking about how after you took the Hershey Factory tour they gave you a kiss, and that didn't seem like that big a deal. No, if you take the ride, you get a bigger candy than that, and you can do it for free, as many times as you want. If you take the trolley tour, you get lots of candy, including multiple kisses. I took a survey, and only I took it, but they gave all three of us full-size candy bars.

They do sell candy at Chocolate World, but they give out a lot of candy too.

How can you not like them?

Hershey's Chocolate World - Flavors of Fall Dessert Festival

While the "factory tour" (really called the chocolate tour) is free, there are lots of ways to spend your money at Hershey's Chocolate World. In addition to the retail space and the many tempting places to get food, there are also some paid activities to do. We ended up choosing two, one of which was The Flavors of Fall Dessert Festival. It was seasonal, so not on the web site, but once there it was an easy choice to make.

We were given a box with slots inside and a checklist on the outside. Each symbol on the box appeared somewhere else in Chocolate World, and we could go there and get a treat. This allowed us to see what treats were new for Fall 2015 - and was a really good price for the treats - but also it gives you a tour of Chocolate World. It's focused on what there is on the food side, but most of the stops were near other activities. For example, if I remember correctly, one stop was near the Build Your Own Candy Bar activity, and one was near the Photo Studio. You ended up covering most of Chocolate World as you filled up your box.

Portions were generally small, because at every stop you were seeing wonderful things that you might want more of. Employees were very friendly and helpful. Generally they really knew their stuff too, except for the ice cream guy. He was not sure which thing he was supposed to gives us (probably something with caramel) so he just said we could have whatever we wanted free. We were satisfied with this.

Other stops included a candy-corn style mini cupcake, an apple crisp mini-muffin, and a dipped pretzel rod. Something had made me think that we were going to be able to dip our pretzel rods ourselves, but they were already dipped. Maybe I was confusing it with the other stop.

There is a section that focuses on building your own. There is a lot of emphasis on s'mores, but you can also concoct hot cocoa with marshmallows, or decorate cupcakes, or our creative endeavor...

decorating a pumpkin cookie.

This was a nice chance to wind down a little and relax. It's upstairs from most of the traffic, so you can let your creative juices flow, and then eat a cookie.

I can't find a picture of the third cookie, which was completely covered in sprinkles, but we all had a nice time.

In a very real way, every single thing you can do at Chocolate World is for your sweet tooth, so saying this was satisfying for that... I mean, what wasn't? I maintain that this was a good choice.

http://www.hersheys.com/chocolateworld/explore