Mall of America - Peeps & Company

My sisters were very excited about the Peeps store. I was less excited, because while Peeps are very cute, they are not the best candy out there. Of course, it was the cuteness that excited them.

Okay, things were pretty cute.

There were some things that I wasn't expecting. Hot Tamales and Mike and Ike's and Peanut Chews are also part of the family, so there were other candies represented, and in fun ways.

Still, the main attraction was the Peeps.

I don't have a picture of what made the visit most memorable, but there was an employee there who was an amazing Peeps enthusiast. He was into the other candies too, and most of the samples offered were non-Peep, but he was just so into it all that talking with him you kind of had to love Peeps too.

After all, they are awfully cute.

https://www.peepsandcompany.com/

Mall of America - Hard Rock Cafe

We had the chance to visit two Hard Rock Cafes.

We went to the one in the Mall of America, but not the one in Philadelphia. It was right by the Reading Terminal Market, so we were nearby.

Our concern was that we didn't really want to eat there, and we weren't sure if it would be okay to just go in and gawk.

Maria's love of the Replacements caused her to ask in Bloomington, and it was fine - the girl was really friendly. We saw memorabilia from the Replacements, but also Prince and Led Zeppelin and Alanis Morrissette.

Knowing that made us feel worse about missing out in Philadelphia. We would have been thinking Boyz II Men and Cinderella, but the tour bus guide said they had Hall & Oates memorabilia too.

I wondered if this was something they played up. Not really. On the web site, there is no mention of any specific bands for Minnesota.

The Philadelphia page mentions Elton John, The Beatles, Jim Morrison, and Joan Jett. Well, Joan Jett was born in Pennsylvania.

The pages focus on food and T-shirts. I get that's what they make money on, but they might do better by focusing on what makes them cool.

http://www.hardrock.com

Mall of America - Disappointments

There were two things that we were looking forward to seeing at the Mall, but they were not there when we got there.

The first one was the Barbie Dream House Experience. My sisters were huge Barbie fans, and I believe they even had the Barbie Dream House at one time (the 1979 A-frame version). I was more taken with the Barbie Townhouse, which my friend next door had. It had a working elevator.

Anyway, we thought it would be interesting, and we would take our picture together in front of the giant pink shoe, and then it was gone! Closed down. By all reports, it was an underwhelming experience. Still, we had been looking forward to it, so that was disappointing.

Furthermore, I was trying something where the song of the day each day related to our planned activities, and I had chosen "Barbie Girl" by Aqua, and it no longer made sense.

In addition, Moods of Norway was gone.

https://www.moodsofnorway.com/us/

Let me rephrase that. Moods of Norway still exists, but there was no longer a Bloomington location.

We were aware of them because of a "We need to put the band back together" shirt that Magne Furuholmen wore, successfully convincing Morten Harket and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy (I know that's not the original spelling) and reuniting A-ha.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/ae/6a/78/ae6a78353ea60399bcd123e5a5d72ac2.jpg

We might have bought those shirts. Since it was gone, changing the Aqua song to an A-ha song would have made no sense.

The contents of malls change all the time, and neither of these changes ruined our trip. We enjoyed our time at the Mall of America, which should be obvious from previous posts and future posts. These were just some snags in our trip, and we survived them.

At least I still have this.

Mall of America - The Amazing Mirror Maze

On our trip to Chicago, we saw a mirror maze at Navy Pier. We thought about going, but it was not clear if it was open (we were there during the off season), and we may have had some other hesitations. No one was afraid we were going to get lost in there forever, but we have spent an awfully long time in some corn mazes and we didn't have unlimited time.

Anyway, there were reasons why passing by this was intriguing.

We did not do it right away. First we thought about it, then we asked questions. The attendant assured us that the average time was fifteen minutes. For people who were much worse at mazes he made a joke about throwing food in occasionally rather than being reassuring, but I think we were all at the point where we just felt we needed to try it.

One nice thing about the Amazing Mirror Maze is that they stamp your hand. If you want to come back a little later and try again (or just hang out in the maze) you can do so.

You can kind of see in this picture that they also give you plastic gloves. This means that when you inevitably reach out and instead of a passageway you find glass, you do not smudge it. Yes, that seems like it mainly makes their lives easier from a cleaning perspective, but smudges mirrors would lose a lot of the effect, and that's what you're there for.

Perhaps based on nothing but The Watcher In The Woods, I was expecting just white and glass. The Amazing Mirror Maze was much more colorful, with painted arches that were identical, and some light patterns that weren't.

It is amazing how effective it is. You would think that you will always see your reflection in the mirrors, and so the actual passageway should be obvious, but seeing all the possible directions before your reflection shows up can make just getting to the passageway confusing, and then, let's just say at least once it was a good thing I was wearing the gloves.

Still, we made it through, and I think in only ten minutes. We were happy with our time, and our ability to make it through the completely artificially constructed obstacle that we paid to do.  Therefore, we completely earned our stickers.

Yes we did.

http://www.mirrormazes.com/

Mall of America - Moose Mountain Adventure Golf

https://www.mallofamerica.com/attractions/view/moose-mountain-adventure-golf

One thing that surprised me last week was that Moose Mountain Adventure Golf was listed as one of the attractions for Nickelodeon Universe. We noticed no obvious connection between them while there, other than proximity. It has it's own admission and entrance.

The more obvious connection seemed to be that it was on Level 3, which was very much the entertainment level. Yes, many of the stores have entertainment value, there is food on multiple floors, and Nickelodeon Universe and the Hard Rock Cafe are on Level 1. However, there is a lot of not shopping that you can do on Level 3.

There is the food court there, with standard takeaway lines and your choice of tables, and there are more of those than any other mall I have been in. There are also restaurants that you will enter and sit down in, like Bubba Gump Shrimp and Tony Roma's.

And Level 3 isn't really the entertainment level, because that's Level 4, with cinema, a comedy club, and even hotel access. They are adding Sky Deck, which appears to combine a sports bar with bowling and video games. Also, there's a Hooters.

But with all of that, Level 4 doesn't feel like being in a mall anymore. If you aren't going up there to do something specific it doesn't feel fun to wander around. Level 3 had entertainment, but was still a fun place to poke around.

(It is also the home of next week's topic.)

And, importantly, Level 3 was where Moose Mountain reminded us of how bad we are at mini-golf.

Mall of America - Nickelodeon Universe

http://nickelodeonuniverse.com/

When we were traveling between cities in Pennsylvania, we were amazed at how many outdoor amusement parks we saw, knowing that there would be a lot of the year when the weather would make them considerably less fun. This was hammered home on our rainy day in Hershey.

Nickelodeon Universe is completely inside the Mall of America, so weather is not a problem.

There roof is glass, so it can receive plenty of natural light, but the rain and snow will not fall. (The weather was pretty nice while we were there, but that won't last.)

There is a definite focus on kids, with several of the rides only being available for junior riders. These are listed on their web site.

But even beyond the ride capacity, each ride incorporates beloved children's television characters. This did not mean that much to us, but it made for really adorable offerings in the gift shop.

Riders have the option of purchasing individual points, with different rides having different point values, or getting a wrist band good for one or two days. The wrist band prices seem reasonable, but it would depend on how much your child would ride.

We were there shortly after Labor Day, so most children should have been in school. We have no idea what it looks like when busy. However, I suspect it's helpful that on cold, snowy days, locals don't have to fly to Florida to ride a roller coaster.

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.