Ever wonder what it’s like to venture into a mall that’s the size of an amusement park? Well, look no further than the infamous Mall of America. And let me tell you, it’s probably even bigger than some amusement parks.
I visited the Mall of America back when I was living in South Dakota as a little mini getaway to Minnesota. You can read about my morning in Minneapolis and at the Spoonbridge and Cherry Park right here.
Now I’ve heard about Mall of America, which is located in Bloomington, Minnesota, which is not too far from Downtown Minneapolis. I’ve seen Mall of America on TV loads of time. I mean Travel Channel always would feature this place as a place to visit for any and all people. And it for sure didn’t disappoint when I visited.
There was so much to do in this mall that Alex and I weren’t even able to finish truly exploring or experiencing everything it had to offer considering we were only in town for about a day and a half before we had to drive back home and back to work the next day. I could have easily spent two and maybe even three days in this place.
Mall of America has 4 floors and an entire THEME PARK smack dab in the middle of the mall. So, in other words, it’s a fine place to get truly lost in, so keep an eye out for maps, they are pretty important if you want to remember where you park and where you kept your stuff (yes, they have lockers for you).
We happened to go on a weekday in the middle of January, which in my opinion, was the perfect time to go because it was almost near empty for a place that’s called the Largest Mall in America. So this meant no lines for rides and no having to weave in and out of large crowds. And it kept us warm in the cold.
Alex and I wanted to see the entire mall so we set out on trying to get through every floor and experience what we could in the little time we had for this place. So I decided to break this post up in parts. My guide to this huge mall.
AMUSEMENT PARK
We did end up gravitating towards the amusement park because hello it’s an amusement park in the middle of a mall, how cool is that? It’s called Nickelodeon Universe and I’m all for Nickelodeon considering I grew up watching many of their shows. So it was great to see Spongebob’s pineapple house and seeing all sorts of characters just roaming about.
You can buy an all-day wristband for about $35.99 at their kiosk (even cheaper online) or you can just get tickets or ‘point passes’, which each attraction has a certain amount of points you can use to ride or experience it.
In the beginning, Alex and I just walked around the amusement park seeing all the rides they had to offer. Check out the photos below for a few of the different rides they had to offer.
There was a new attraction at the time that was a part of the Spongebob Universe called Dutchman’s Deck Adventure Course. We were intrigued because it had a zip line attached to this rope course. Now I’ve done zipline’s before, the ones in Colorado was my first and were a lot of fun.
Upon seeing this Alex was on board to experience the Dutchman’s Deck Adventure Course. This Course is separate from the points or wristbands in that they charge you at their actual attraction and you can choose to do the zip line and rope course or just one or the other. With a little coaxing Alex was able to get me to agree to do both.
I mean I was all for the zip line because I loved going on the ziplines in Colorado, but the rope course was just a little too not my thing. But we paid our 15.99 each and got strapped up to do the zip line first and then head over to their rope course.
I wish I caught my terrified glory on getting to the top of the zip line, but I didn’t want to risk losing my GoPro (that’s my affiliate link) by having it fall out of my jacket as I zipped through the amusement park. I enjoyed the zip line part of this attraction because you do get a great view at the top and then you get to sit back and just zip through the amusement park waving at people down below you.
The rope course, on the other hand, was not something I fully enjoyed. I will say I was very proud of myself for doing it and I enjoyed the unfamiliar by going through the rope course. I definitely kept thinking it wouldn’t hold my weight as I walked across little bridges and tight-roped my way through some obstacles.
But in all, I was glad I did it and it was definitely an experience I can take home and say I did it.
And while all the other rides at this amusement park looked so fun, we opted to only ride the log ride (at the end of the mall day since if we got wet we can just change and go home) and also we went to their arcade to have a little arcade fun.
MIRROR MAZE
This was probably one of the most fun parts of the day. The Amazing Mirror Maze. We happened to just stumble upon this mirror maze when we were walking on the third floor of the mall.
At first, we just walked by it, but by the time we made our loop through the third floor, we decided to try it out. And it was so fun.
We got these plastic gloves to put on our hands so we didn’t dirty up the mirrors and then Alex and I had fun trying to find our way out and also hiding and scaring each other.
I’ve done mirror mazes before at fairs, but this was lots of fun and it wasn’t just kids in there roaming around, but also a lot of adults having fun running into mirrors thinking its hallways, or getting spooked by a person that isn’t actually right behind them even though it seems they are.
And our funniest story of the day was when Alex found the end of the maze, he thought I was right behind him, but I was in fact, still lost in the maze. I just remembered hearing someone roar and then a lady screaming afterward.
A few minutes later Alex finds me and he’s laughing. He tells me how he accidentally scared the crap out of a random stranger because he thought I was the stranger that had just finished going through the maze. So it turns out the roar and the scream I had heard earlier was from Alex. Still one of my favorite stories of Mall of America.
It costs about $9 for the Amazing Mirror Maze and it’s an all-day pass so you can go in and out as much as you want.
SEA LIFE MINNESOTA AQUARIUM
I love aquariums. Unfortunately, since we were so limited on time and we wanted to see at least the whole Mall, we weren’t able to actually visit the Aquarium that is located on the first floor.
I did get to see a little sneak peek of some stingrays when going down an escalator and that was pretty cool.
This costs 24.49+tax for anybody over the age of 13.
THE LEGO STORE
The other really cool thing that you can find near the middle of the mall on the first floor is the Lego store.
I grew up in Southern California and not too far from where I grew up was Legoland. So legos are super cool to me because I grew up not only playing with legos but going to the even cooler Legoland park.
The store itself is just a small little one, but it had so many cool legos and a place for kids to go and play Legos. And just the legos they built around it are super amazing. It reminded me of Legoland seeing the dragon they built or the big transformer that was hanging out near the second floor.
The Lego store is definitely a cool place to check out to see some very creative legos. I truly enjoyed it.
OTHER ATTRACTIONS
The other attractions that we didn’t quite get to, was the mini golf course (yep they have one), The Crayola store where you can create your own crayon, Fly Over America (a simulation ride), bowling, drive go-karts, watch a movie and quite a few other things that are hidden gems that we could’ve easily missed.
STORES
There is almost every store imaginable in Mall of America. While we didn’t enter into each individual store while there because that would take forever, we did visit a few. One of them being my new favorite store called TYPO.
I’m a stationery, planner and accessory nerd. I love notebooks, cool bags, and all sorts of things. When we passed by TYPO I HAD to go inside. It was my dream store, I could’ve easily bought everything inside.
Instead, I ended up buying my favorite backpack ever in this store. One I’ve traveled with, one that I get multiple compliments with and one I just adore. My world map backpack.
But seriously, if you go into that store you can easily get lost into buying everything.
But I was good and just bought this backpack. (I couldn’t find my exact backpack online anymore, but I did find a super cool one on Amazon here (my affiliate link).
FOOD
Mall of America has some world-class food. You can find all sorts of different food from sushi to chipotle. We went the cheaper route with Chipotle because
A.) We were Chipotle deprived since at the time Sioux Falls did not have a Chipotle
and
B.) Did I mention the entire time we lived in Sioux Falls there was NO CHIPOTLE?
But we also tried a Crepe place called the Magic Pan Crepe Stand and it was SO GOOD. I highly recommend it if you want some delicious crepes to eat as a nice little snack while taking a rest break from only going around one floor of the mall.
OVERALL
Mall of America was a fun time. It’s a place you can easily spend multiple days at if you want to experience everything it truly has to offer. But also perfect for a day trip as well. They have something for everyone to enjoy and they even hold events that you can go to. It’s just a fun place to visit at least once or twice in your life.
And there are hotels around the place if you do decide to make this a multiple day vacation. Ones with indoor pools and waterparks and they’re even directly connected to the mall so you don’t even have to brave the cold Minnesota air to get inside when it opens.
We ended up finishing our Minnesota trip with a trip to IKEA (I KNOW WE’RE SO COOL, but Sioux Falls also lacks an IKEA). And of course with IKEA comes the wonderfully delicious Swedish Meatballs to end the day with.
Cheers my friends. I hope you get to visit the Mall of America one day. I’m wanting to go back and experience all the other cool things it has to offer and maybe stay in one of the hotels nearby so I can experience their indoor water parks. But for now, I’ll just keep traveling along with my super cool map backpack and keep enjoying the unfamiliar.
XOXO
Don’t forget to Enjoy the Unfamiliar!
And if you want to read about the first half of my Minnesota trip you can check it out here!
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