Our last day in Minneapolis, and this is the main day I think we were all looking forward to...The Mall of America's Nickelodeon Universe! I am realizing just now that we did not get the whole family in any of these pictures. Oh well, we were split up most of the day. We got unlimited ride wristbands, and began on Davis' and my favorite...The Fairly Odd Coaster.
Magan took the first spell with Ruby, while I went to ride the rides with the other kids. Then we even split up for Sam and Davis to ride the Turtles ride, while Belle rode the Rugrats bumper cars. Then me and Sam rode the SpongeBob ride together while Davis and Belle rode a laser shooting game. The SpongeBob ride went up at 90 degrees, and came down in that same manner. Pretty cool coaster. Magan rode it later with Sam and was still feeling the effects days later.
In between rides, I think we got to see every nickelodeon character there is... and No lines, so that was nice. The lines for the rides was not too bad until the evening when lines backed up pretty good. And we also quickly realized that we were in the midst of some Muslim celebration, as in many times, we were the only white people in line, and the only people speaking English. Later we found out this was the day after Ramadan...or the day of Ramadan...anyway, apparently muslims that have been fasting like some Nickelodeon rides to break that fast.
So when Magan took her turn with the older kids, I had Ruby, and got in line with her on Diego's wild bus ride. After waiting for about 30 minutes because someone puked in the back seat, we finally got on. And this was when I believe Ruby remembered the ride we put her on at the Water Park, and she erupted. Terrified. Now Diego's bus did not do much at all, but apparently to her, it was a roller coaster. So after that I thought I would try the carousel with her...not having it on the horse, not having it on the bench, no more rides for that girl. But no problems, I had a blast taking that little girl through all the character lines. She was so cute running through the lines...remember no lines, but there was the place where the line was supposed to be...and she was just scream with excitement when she got to the front. Then when it was her turn, Her scream turned to terror until I picket her up. She loved the characters, but had to have Dad holding her with them. Then we would run back around and visit with the characters again. And for the other kids, there were all those characters, and their favorite to see was Mrs. Puff...spongebob's boating instructor. I just thought that was funny.
The log ride was pretty cool here, and themed really well as Paul Bunyon's woods. I was very impressed at the theming, the line presentation, and the efficiency of the loading process. Also on this log ride you go directly beneath the farthest home run ball hit by Harmon Killebrew. The Mall of America was built at the old Twins stadium location, and they have a marker on the wall at the location and distance his home run ball went. A sign above this reads "Thanks for the memories". I thought that was just pretty cool. I think this was my second favorite...again, the fairly Odd Coaster was the best...Belle agrees with this Odd Coaster too. It would twist around while going up and down.
Dear me, that girl is too cute. I let her down to shop around while waiting for the other kids. She immediately picked up both purses, and carried them around for the rest of her shopping. I won't tell you about taking them away.
Oh, I love the Long John Silvers, and so did everyone else (except Magan) for supper. You can see the kids also pressured me into the refillable ICEE spongebobs.
So while we were riding rides after supper Magan decided to hike it over to IKEA. I will attempt to tell this story second hand. Magan had Ruby and Ruby was asleep in the stroller, so she attempted to take the sidewalk over to IKEA. That was when she realized some roadwork was going on, and she would have to go on the main highway, which she did, then through mud to get back on the right path, where she realized would NOT make it to IKEA. So she started over, and went back to mall of America, and then around through the parking lots (Ruby had woke up at this time, and was enjoying to watch the many airplanes taking off from the airport across the highway). Finally she made it to IKEA, where she stayed until they closed, then had to wait on the front of IKEA until I got there with the other kids 30 minutes later. She tells it much funnier, but this is just to help her remember.
I went a little crazy with the souvenirs. Me and Sam got some shirts. Belle got a rabbit. Ruby got one of the purses she had from earlier and a "Ruby" bunny. And Dave couldn't find anything, which made me both sad and frustrated.
The kids also got a surprise at the hotel with the bunkbed room. I was excited to find out that their were two bunkbeds, and as we were moving into this hotel, I told them that whoever acted the best got the top bunks. They were on their best behavior, and it worked out for me, cause I also got to reward both of them. So the award for the coolest hotel on our trip goes to the Raddison at the Water Park of America.
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