MOA live blog!

It's our last hurrah before the baby comes in March... We flew to beautiful Minneapolis to see the Mall of America.

The trip there was interesting... We took off from Baltimore airport- this was my first time there, because I usually take off from Philly. I will do anything in my power to travel out of here instead of Philly. The airport is nicer, there were very short lines at the ticketing line and the security checkpoint, and we didn't have to sit on the runway for 15 minutes behind a line of planes waiting to take off. This was also my first experience on a commuter plane, which we flew from Baltimore to O'Hare. A bit cramped for my tastes, and some asshole said it looked like Buddy Holly's plane right before we got on. 

Then it was time for a nearly 4-hour layover in O'Hare. This was a huge airport, but it wasn't fun being there for that long a period of time. Then we took a "real" jet for the 1-hour flight to the Twin Cities.

Our hotel, the Cambria Suites, was a true bargain for the money. The shuttle service is great. They will take you back and forth to the mall and the airport any time. The rooms are very nice. There is a sitting room, desk with ethernet connection and cordless phone, 2 widescreen HDTV's and even a DVD player. The hotel is only a couple of years old. The decor is very modern. It looks like the raided the local Crate & Barrel for the furniture, and it has one of those newfangled sinks that sits on top of the counter. All the soap and shampoo in the room was from Bath & Body Works.

The only drawbacks are that the swimming pool is the size of a large puddle, and there is no complimentary newspaper.

We took the shuttle over to the mall to eat some dinner and get the lay of the land. Obviously it was overwhelming. I got to see the amusement park for the first time. Wow. The mall is obviously huge, but it is laid out like a square and is easy to get around in. King of Prussia mall, in our home state of Pennsylvania, actually has more retail space than the MOA, although the Mall of America is a much larger building with the amusement park and all. We ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. I have seen many complaints that these places are touristy and overpriced. I can see their point, but the food I got (Jambalaya) was very good, and people need to understand that you are paying for the experience, not just the food. It would be an understatement to say this restaurant is elaborately themed. Our table was next to a huge saltwater aquarium full of tropical fish. Every 10 minutes or so, some animatronic gorillas would come alive (no, they didn't sing, we weren't at Chuck E. Cheese), and thanks to clever lighting and sound effects, there was a "thunderstorm" every 30 minutes.  All in all, it wasn't cheap, but this is a really cool place to bring kids, and adults will like the food and booze. (lots of elaborate frozen drinks.) Update: The Rainforest Cafe has reopened on the third floor. 

We headed back since we were ready to fall over. The next morning, it was time to shop. Most of the stores on the first two floors of the mall were stores like any other mall, and can be found in our neck of the woods. All four department stores (Sears, Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom) are nationwide chains, and I know a lot of people have complained that there is no distinctively Midwest store like Marshall Field's. The Apple store was actually smaller than the one that just opened in our local mall. The Macy's was about the same size as the store in King of Prussia. My wife did find a dress at Macy's for an upcoming black-tie wedding we are attending, and I found a good, relatively inexpensive pair of shoes at Nordstrom Rack. The MOA also has the first in-mall Best Buy location I have ever seen. It opened only a few months ago. (see picture). On the third floor, the shops have a bit more local flavor. There are a couple of Minnesota-themed gift shops, a store completely devoted to farm toys, and some sports memorabilia stores that had way too few Eagles stuff. The mall itself is really nice. It was built about 16 years ago, and has held up well since, and still looks contemporary. Each side of the mall has its own "theme," and this idea works pretty well.

Since lunch was digested, and my pregnant wife wanted to sit and relax, it was time to hit some rides. First, I rode the most intense coaster in the park, the SpongeBob Rock Bottom Plunge (the bright green coaster in the pictures That's me in the front row). This ride only opened earlier this year, when they re-themed the park as Nickelodeon Universe. You go up a totally vertical chain lift. Then you go over the top, literally in the rafters on the roof of the building, and drop 97 degrees. Then you go through a loop, than another near-inversion, then the second inversion, which is a barrel roll. Of course, this pales in comparison to any of the coasters at Busch Gardens (See an earlier entry on the blog), but the ride was smooth, and this was pretty intense for an indoor coaster. I also rode the Fairly OddCoaster (dark orange track in the picture), a wild mouse coaster that gave a fun ride, and the Pepsi Orange Streak (green track, long orange train), which is as old as the mall, and isn't all that exciting. I also rode the Paul Bunyan Log Flume, which was a lot of fun. The ride was 4 minutes long, and there were two large drops, one of which was in the dark. There were also some low-tech but entertaining animatronics during the ride. It looks like they may take this ride down as they continue to put up Nickelodeon-themed rides.

Dinner was at Tony Roma's. There are none of these in Pennsylvania, but there are a few scattered around the country. The ribs, their specialty, were almost as good as the ones at the Texas Roadhouse (best ribs ever!) My wife's pork BBQ sandwich was really good, and had a nice, tangy flavor. The food here was very good and the prices were reasonable.

Tomorrow, we take a bus tour of the Twin Cities, and eat at the Melting Pot in downtown Minneapolis.