Minnesota's Mall of America: the nation's premier shopping mall celebrates its 10th year in Bloomington, Minnesota

Travel America, Nov-Dec, 2002 by Randy Mink

Riders scream as the Ripsaw roller-coaster skims the treetops on its lightning-like spin around the theme park. A Ferris wheel and log flume offer less terrifying thrills. Along with games of skill on the carnival-style midway, the aromas of cotton candy and popcorn complete the picture of an all-American amusement mecca.

What's unusual about this picture? It all takes place indoors. What's more, this family fun park, named Camp Snoopy after the beagle in the "Peanuts" cartoon strip, is the centerpiece of an enclosed shopping mall--not just any mall--but the nation's largest retail and entertainment complex under one roof.

Mall of America, a true icon of our consumer society, is Minnesota's No. 1 visitor attraction. Tourism from outside a 150-mile radius accounts for almost 40 percent of all traffic. Popular with bus tour groups in the Midwest, the mall even draws shoppers from Europe and Japan. A destination in itself, it's the focus of international travel packages offered by Northwest Airlines and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.

This mega-mall, with more than 520 stores, was our destination late last March during our kids' spring break. Since we couldn't afford to fly anywhere warm for a week, we were looking around for some long-weekend getaways within reasonable driving distance of our home in suburban Chicago. A day indoors at Mall of America, mixed in with some attractions in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, sounded like a plan for two adults and three teens, one a foreign exchange student from Switzerland. (For the benefit or our European "daughter," we stopped overnight at the Swiss-style village of New Glarus, Wisconsin, to break up the seven-hour drive to the Twin Cities.)

Mall of America is located in Bloomington, a suburb of Minneapolis-Saint Paul and the state's fifth largest city. After a late-afternoon check-in at a Holiday Inn 10 minutes away, we took off to preview the mall, planning to stay just long enough to have dinner and get our bearings. We picked up a mall map and studied it in our hotel room that night, roughing out a general plan of attack for the next day.

Once we got to the mall for our marathon day, however, we chose to wander at whim (from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.) rather than follow an overall strategy. The main thing is to pace yourself and not overdo it. The cliche "shop til you drop" is a very real possibility at Mall of America. (If you spent 10 minutes browsing in every store, it would take 86 hours.)

Interspersing shop visits with meals, snacks, and the mall's family-friendly attractions--and not forgetting to plop down once in a while to people-watch from the many benches--makes the day go smoothly. It's really not too different than the way we tackle theme parks, and Mall of America in so many ways is a theme park--even without the rides. Like a Disney or Six Flags fantasy kingdom, it's a multi-sensory experience loaded with live shows and demonstrations, food courts and stand-alone restaurants, specialty kiosks, and clever landscaping in themed "lands." We left rather exhausted but with the satisfied feeling we had seen and done a lot, including a little shopping.

Our daughter and Swiss student met us at meal times but otherwise went off on their own, looking for "hot guys" and going to familiar stores--Old Navy, Claire's Boutique--they would find at any mall in America. They didn't even go on rides at Camp Snoopy because they were "not in the mood." With our 14-year-old son, my wife and I visited some of the entertaining attractions and leisurely poked around the stores, looking for unique places we would not have encountered at home.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, Mall of America opened in 1992 and attracts 43 million visitors a year. It has two distinct tourist seasons--the summer months of June, July, and August and the November-December holiday season. Back-to-school shopping is especially popular because there is no sales tax on clothing in Minnesota. During our spring-break visit, the crowds were moderate; we were expecting worse.

The mall's square design makes it easy to navigate. Department stores--Nordstrom, Sears, Macy's, and Bloomingdale's--anchor each corner of the complex. The four, three-level retail avenues connecting these stores have their own distinctive decor. North Garden, between Sears and Nordstrom, is like a walk in the park, with trees, lampposts, park benches, and a string of natural skylights. Between Sears and Bloomingdale's, a futuristic look colors East Broadway, a high-tech avenue accented with neon and chrome. Special events are staged in the performance area at the center of East Broadway.

The sky-lit, seven-acre Camp Snoopy is right in the middle of the mall, just steps from the stores. An entertainment district on the fourth level includes a 14-screen cinema, nine nightclubs, bowling lanes, and game arcades.

For out-of-state tourists, stores worth a peek include Minnesota-ah!, where quality mementos of the Land of 10,000 Lakes include bags of wild rice, bottles of maple syrup, and northwoods-style sweatshirts. Lake Wobegon USA is an emporium offering books, videos, and various curios based on Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion" radio shows about small-town life in Minnesota. Several stores cater to pro baseball and football fans with Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Vikings items. Each avenue has a Mall of America Gift Store with mugs, pens, T-shirts, shopping bags, and other logo merchandise to commemorate your visit.