Day Trip to Mall of America

Basics: the Mall of America is the biggest mall in America. It also happens to be the only thing I can think of that comes to mind about Minnesota. That and they basically are Canadians, just in America. Also the mall is so big *cue audience asking how big is it?* It is so big that it can fit 7 Yankee stadiums in it. Also it has over 520 plus stores including restaurants, an amusement park, hotel on site, an aquarium with over 1.3 million gallons of water in it, and much much more. So that’s basically why I went.

So earlier last week I created an instagram (which I don’t heavily use to begin with) for this blog because you gotta keep up with the times. Also I decided I want to be noticed. Yay shameless promotion. Anyways in my instagram, happytravels360 I promised that I would travel with all expenses paid, for two people round trip from NY for $360 total. Get it? 360 as in 360 degrees and because in no way did I have to use numbers to create an original username.

Anyways, I lied. I went over budget.

BUT. But. but. let me explain. You see as a responsible college student, I did the adult thing and splurged on food. So let me just say, you CAN do everything I did, such as all the activities the mall has to offer, shop, transportation, and food. But, don’t spend your money on a whole bunch of snacks and alcohol like I did.

So here it is, the break down, meticulously recorded by yours truly in order and story format:

$56.80 is how much I paid round trip for my girlfriend and I from MacArthur Airport in Islip, NY to Minneapolis, MN. There’s no hack behind this or anything. Frontier Airlines is a great low budget airline that I have some experience with and will talk about in another blog post. But all that you need to know for now is that the timing of making this a day trip was perfect. We left at 5:40am and landed at 7:00am (MN time, they’re an hour behind NY) so we had all day to do whatever we wanted.

I learned my lesson from PR, I googled for some coupons. The mall has 3 experiences that I think are worthwhile and all of them had some form of coupons or other. Also there was a coupon for the Mall’s own coupon booklet for 50% off so that came out to $4.98. We used that for some snacks, shopping, as well as 1 of the 3 experiences to save money.

I want to stress here, that if you have more days to look into more coupons and that the mall should have its own day. On other days you can go into the city or the zoo or something. I didn’t have time to go into Matt’s Bar for a Juicy Lucy (a burger with cheese cooked INSIDE the patty) but I got one at the airport. And oh my freakin God. If you are stuck at MSP airport and have a layover or something- consider yourself lucky. I always compare the classiness of places by what their bathrooms are like. And let me tell you something, when I walked into that bathroom I felt like I was at a 5 star hotel. Just so sleek and elegant, left me feeling like royalty…. anyways, enough about bathrooms. MSP airport had perhaps the greatest meal I had all day that day, and it was only 7:30am. They have this food court called “food truck alley” where they have built little shops in the shapes of trucks so you can’t miss it. We had this amazing ham and cheese stuffed croissant baked that morning from there, as well as a cup of coffee from Caribou Coffee because I wanted the full MN experience. Think Starbucks, but more, I don’t know, muskier I want to say. Anyways that breakfast came out to a whopping $29.53!

Tip to self: don’t buy food from the airport even though you did it a few times. I can explain why MSP airport is so expensive- it was voted the best airport this year and last year as well. The title is well deserved too. You can honestly spend hours in their exploring the track, various places to eat, shops, and MUSEUMS that they have. So obviously everything is expensive. Including my freakin breakfast.

The next step was to get the hell outta the airport. Oh also helpful bit of advice: THE MALL OPENS AT 7AM, not 10am as indicated on their website. The Governor of MN enabled this walk the mall initiative to get people to exercise by opening the mall a few hours earlier to help deal with MN’s obesity problem. My girlfriend and I did indeed walk that day (clocked in at about 7.5 miles the whole day) but it was also helpful in that we got to see the mall before it got crowded.

Traveling to the mall from the airport was so easy. MN has this train called the light trail which is a $2 fare to the mall in about 10 minutes per person. Also helpful for our trip was doing a price comparison of lockers. The airport lockers start at $8/ day and the mall’s lockers start at $6/ day. I recommend going with the mall, not just because its cheaper but because you’re definitely not going to want to drag everything around with you.

As we enjoyed ourselves walking around waiting for it to be 10am, we went over our plan of attacking this massive building. (By the way, don’t actually attack or do anything illegal- the mall has it’s own counter-terrorism unit!) Our plan was simple: do activities first, shop after, and eat in between. Most of the experiences have coupons that can be found online at the mall’s website. It actually does save you money buying online as opposed to if you just show up there. If you really want to pinch some pennies and figure it out yourself, you can literally compare the online price at the attraction you stand in front of too. The online deal we elected to do was the “Fish and Fly” combo. An all day pass to the aquarium and a voucher for this simulation ride looking at all America’s iconic sights called “Fly Over.” These came out to $66.56 total with taxes and all.

The mall really makes the aquarium a big selling point, and so will. First of all it’s an aquarium. In a mall. That’s so cool! On top of it being a really big aquarium, they also take you through a mini rainforest exhibit they have as well. But the highlight of my experience was the 300ft of clear tunnels to watch and observe all the sea life, it was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced at an aquarium! Also I saw a shark attack another shark while in the tunnels! Apparently it was explained to visitors as a “territory thing.”

Flyover was pretty cool too. It was more of a pleasant experience since we were the only ones on the ride and it definitely inspires wanderlust. The nickelodeon amusement park was something I wanted to do because how many people get to say they rode a roller coaster in a mall? The rides were more kid friendly but it’s still something adults can enjoy. They operate tickets by all day passes, point passes (6 points for a thrill ride, and 3 points for a kiddie ride), and have some combo deals with other attractions as well. We did 3 thrill rides each which came out to $41.13 total.

Some quick pointers about the mall. Download the app, it has deals and can help you navigate from store to store. They also have touch screens everywhere to help you navigate as well. Use the “corner method to determine where you are. The mall is in the shape of a giant square with four floors and each corner is a different mega store. Nordstrom, Macys, and Sears. In between Macys and Sears there is no mega corner store, so if you pass either and don’t see Nordstrom for a bit, you know where you are. The stores themselves are mostly on the first and second floors, the third is mostly restaurants, and the fourth is restaurants and this big movie theatre they’re in the middle of renovating. Also If you want to cut across the amusement park to get somewhere quicker you can. Just know that you’re going to have to juke past running kids and families though.

Also I’m not going to do a “my top stores” part because I think that’s subjective. It’s shopping. That part is up to you. They do have some MN gift shops and what not, but I was honestly not impressed because it was the same items that one could buy at the airport. I will tell you that my favorite store was a place called “BoxLunch” which basically licenses shirts and bags and collector items from pop culture like Disney and tv shows and puts all that stuff in one place. You can buy their products online and they also give a portion of their profits to charity, so its definitely a hip, trendy, and genuine place to be and shop in.

Anyways, it was around 1:30pm at this point (our flight was at 7pm) and we wanted an energizing/ alcoholic drink after doing all these activities. We stopped at this arcade called Gameworks which gives off a very Dave & Buster’s kind of vibe, didn’t disappoint. We got a redbull infused drink called the garbage can, that came out to $22 with tip included. Through out the day we had also spent $29.81 on snacks like pretzels and chocolate as well. We bough gifts for ourselves and others (mother’s day is coming up so guess who went to Build-A-Bear to make a custom Star Wars theme teddy bear?) at the mall and airport. These items included two tshirts, a hat, 2 custom Build-A-Bears, keychains… you get the picture. The Build-A-Bears (one for my mom, one for my girlfriend) came out to $64.52 by themselves. All other items were $46.24, thanks in part to the coupon booklet. Also I think if you’re nice and sign up for a store’s emails they may give you an item for free. I’m not sure if this is normal business practice on a Saturday or what but it happened to me in 2 different stores.

At 2:00pm we had finished our drinks and decided to go to the Crayola store and do the Crayola Experience. I’m not gonna lie, I was hesitant because I thought this was mostly for kids but they sold me with all the activities you could do inside, so I thought why not? We had a $5 off one admission in the coupon booklet, but the gentleman behind the counter was kind enough to give us $5 off for each of us and that came out to $35.35 total. It was actually a really good deal and I had more fun than I expected to. My three favorite things to do their were taking black and white pictures of ourselves and coloring them in, making your own crayon color name and putting it on a crayon (I decided to put my boss’s name as a color as a gift for him), and making a mold of a crayon into a shape of a car (you could also choose from a bull or a ring).

At this point, I think it was around 3:00pm and we just did some more shopping that I previously stated about. I didn’t know much about boarding a plane at MSP so I erred on the side of caution and wanted to be there at 5:00pm. We emptied our locker that was right by where an uber picked us up for $10.40 back to the airport.

Needless to say, I underestimated this amazing airport. I don’t know if it was the time of day or what but TSA was a breeze, less than 5 minutes (as my girlfriend repeatedly mocked to me for being worried about getting through) and she had every right to do so. There was a freakin sign right above saying “LESS THAN 5 MINUTES.” In neon lights. neon freakin lights. We could’ve spent more time at the mall but the airport was still fun. We stopped at the Stone Arc Bar in the airport and I tried some MN beer and got my hands on a Juicy Lucy (not to knock it but I’m pretty sure Matt’s would’ve definitely tasted better). That bill came out $78.42, so you see what I mean by splurged there. Also I was feeling lucky so I spent $7.00 on MN lotto scratch offs- I lost, but we got two free scratcher key chains that say MN Lottery on them, so it’s a wash. The last thing I bought before boarding the plane was some donuts from Angels Bakery, that we saved for the morning after (probably not the best idea in retrospect). After we landed at 11:00pm in Islip, we paid for the daily parking rate the airport charges that amounted to $15.50. Drove home for 20 minutes. Then knocked out and had the best sleep of my life.

And that was my Saturday.

Oh, and for all you mathematicians out there if you’re keeping track- my grand total with my girlfriend amounted to $513.36 for the day. However, I will point out that flying round trip to MN alone is usually about $300. Also perhaps I need to be a bit more on top of budgeting for food and drinking next trip. So shout out to Frontier Airlines for making this trip happen! Look out for my next article about my obsession with them!

If you have any tips, suggestions, or travel info you would like to discuss feel free to leave a comment. Also if there’s any Minnesotans out there that have any other recommendations of what your awesome state has to offer feel free to share it!

Happy Travels! 🙂