Adventures for Anyone: And This is What It's Like to Vacation in The Mall

I've wondered for many years about what I've often called the super mall. There are many of them around the world and they come with more shopping, eating, drinking, and entertainment than I was able to imagine. So, I took the opportunity to get away from it all and take a vacation in a mall. The mall of choice was the West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The time was February. Right around Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year. The temperature when we landed in Edmonton was -11 Fahrenheit. My experiment was to see if you could truly spend an entire vacation inside a mall and have a good time and have everything you needed. Crazy.

West Edmonton Mall is an amazing place. Second largest indoor water park and wave pool in the world. Second largest indoor amusement park in the world. Ethnic neighborhoods, activities, restaurants, a hotel, surfing lessons, movies, 800 stores, doctors, dentists, spas. The list goes on. This is the largest contained mall in the western hemisphere. I arrived a day late, due to travel issues. I left a day late due to travel issues. I stayed at the Fantasyland Hotel. This is the themed room hotel that is actually in the mall. I had a normal room, because I just didn't need a theme. My theme was vacationing inside.

Could it be fun? I found a waterfall by the sea where the Santa Maria sits across from the aquarium and the sea lion show. I couldn't believe that even though it was fake, I found a waterfall in the dead of winter in Alberta. I love waterfalls and no matter where I go, I seem to find one. That held true in Edmonton.

Let's start in Galaxyland Amusement Park. Not joking. Indoors, huge place, two monster roller coasters, one kiddie roller coaster, a virtual reality ride, swings, a train, other adult rides, a fun house, other kiddie rides, a playscape, bumper cars, carousel, shooting gallery, arcade, and on and on. It's unbelievable. I learned a great tip for this trip, especially with the parks. There are different prices for the parks, some of the other attractions and the hotel. Go during the week. Things are much cheaper and less crowded. You don't have to wait in lines and you don't have to pay as much. The mall has a multi play pass for the major attractions, and during the week; it's cheaper to just pay per attraction. Look before you leap on that one. And if you have time, do it during the week. Are the rides fun? You bet. I had a great time, but since my companion has some vertigo issues, I didn't choose to spend the whole day at the park. I spent even less than the day pass to go on the rides that I just couldn't miss. It was a great experience and I loved the major rides.

One of the other major attractions in the mall is World Waterpark. I spent the day at that park. It was well worth the price of admission. It was -7 Fahrenheit outside the day that we went to the park. There are several different water slides in this park. They have a loop, trap doors, the one I call the toilet, and so much more. They are amazing. I rode them over and over. They also have that giant wave pool. I played in it forever. It was amazing. The natural light is like you're right at the beach. I even got a little sunburnt. In winter, in Alberta, at the beach. Love that. We also zip lined over the wave pool. We even discovered later that you can learn to surf on that wave pool in the off hours. Amazing. I even had a beer at the beach side bar. They have cabanas and even have a flow rider. It's an amazing place, and it was the biggest single reason that I wanted to go to the mall. It was worth it. I would so do it again. Once again, it is part of the multi play pass, but the single price is perfectly reasonable during the week and the crowds are less. It is crowded. It's a very popular attraction in Edmonton.

Who doesn't love sea lions? The mall has an aquarium and some fun to watch sea lions. To tell the truth, the aquarium is underground in a cave environment. I wasn't thoroughly impressed with that one. It is the third part of the play pass, but if you wait until 4 pm to go, it's less money. Here's what I found. You don't spend a lot of time down there, because there isn't much to see and it smells pretty fishy. I felt sorry for the penguins being bunged up like they were, and it was my least favorite thing at the mall. The sea lions however. That's another story. They perform once or twice a day and you can view them from around the show. You don't even have to pay. You do pay if you want to get a picture of your kids with the sea lions, but my kid was home, so I watched that show every day for free. The sea lions seemed to be having a great time and we enjoyed it. You can come by at many times during the day and the sea lions will be out playing with their trainers. It is one of the best things in the mall, and you can see it all day long.

Okay, what else is there in the mall? Well, at one end of the sea we have certain attractions. There is a shooting range and gun store on the second level. They were having a Valentine's Special when I was there. You could pay to shoot with their guns. You could also bring your own. You could also buy guns. The security in the place is very good. We didn't have time to fit it in. Maybe next trip. There is also a radio station on that level. Capital 96.3 radio. You can walk right into this station. They even have a small radio museum and a gallery of famous people that they've had on. It's an interesting stop. What else is in that area? It's right by the hotel. So this is your entry point when you stay at Fantasyland. The movie theaters are there on the third level. They also have a natural light ceiling in the lobby and arcade area. There are several theaters up there including an IMAX. We went to see the latest Star Wars while we were there and the seats were comfortable, like in your living room.

There's a replica of the Santa Maria sitting in the sea. For a couple of bucks you can take the kids on it and look around. If you want, you can rent the space for a special event. There are also remote control boats next to the ship that you can rent to play with. That end of the mall is also home to small stall shopping that showcases local businesses. There's a virtual reality place at that end of the sea, with 15 different virtual adventures to choose from.

Also on that end of the mall are the adult specialty shops. There is a liquor store there, the Supply Sargeant with military surplus and lots of knives, the Love Boutique for adults only, and Caesars Bingo Parlor. Add that to the shooting range, and you have lots of adult time.

But, there's also Adventure Mini Golf on the lower level right underneath Europa Boulevard. Mini golf for the kids and high end shopping for the adults. Europa Boulevard is the scenic area. The shopping is high end. The food is minimal. But it reminds me of the Venentian in Vegas minus the canal. It's pretty and once again has the natural light glass ceiling. You find couples strolling in this area, just admiring the view. It is one of the quieter places in the mall and the place to get flowers for your partner.

Eat, drink and be merry. These things are essential, especially when on vacation. If you can't find something to eat and drink in that mall, I can't help you. It comes with Chinatown, Bourbon Street, Jubilations Dinner Theater, and two giant food courts. That doesn't include all the other places that are just hanging around. We ate at the grocery store in Chinatown. It was fabulous and we had all kinds of things to choose from and several food stations to get it from. It was amazing. We ate breakfast at A & W in the food courts. They serve a full breakfast every day. Sure, you can order room service, but it's boring and expensive. I got my iced coffee at Starbucks, my doughnuts at Tim Horton's and my drinks for the room at London Drugs. It's a great while you stay supply stop. We had Mexican, Japanese, Korean, and Greek right at the food courts. When we wanted a restaurant where we could sit down and be waited on, we went to Bourbon Street. They have some great ice cream and a comedy club down there. And we were there during the Olympics, so every time Canada got a gold medal; drinks got cheap. It was fun, and don't forget perks like the fact that we weren't driving because we were staying in the mall. Responsible drinking. Cool.

This mall has everything. It has neighborhoods. You can eat Durian Fruit in Chinatown if you want. They have great ice cream and an English Pub on Bourbon Street. They also have lots of pizza and beer. This mall has live trees, and ride on toys for the kids. They have River City Games, which is an entire store devoted to games. They also have a whole store devoted to bath bombs. It's crazy, and when you buy all your stuff at Tiffany's and Hudson Bay, you can stop by a luggage store and get an extra bag to put it all in. Amazing.

You never know what you're going to see in the mall. Edmonton is founded on oil. They have a statue for that. There's a regulation ice rink in the middle of the mall with a Starbuck's hanging over one side and a Tim Horton's hanging over the other. They have local hockey leagues almost every night and people sit, drink their coffee and watch the games. It's amazing. There was a Lamborghini being raffled off while we were there. I saw it on my way to the Palace Casino. That's right, a casino. It's small and mostly slot machines, but they are enlarging it as we speak and it will be about four times the size with much more to do soon. That's not far from Dragon's Tale Blacklight Mini Golf. That place is awesome and has a house of mirrors to go with it.

There's so much to do.

Then there's the partial list of things that we didn't have time to get to.

Number one, we had to leave before Chinese New Year. I hear that they have a parade, special entertainment and a fire breathing dragon for the occasion.

It was day three before I even knew about the bowling alley. Ed's bowling has wildly entertaining regulation bowling and duck pin bowling. They have a restaurant/bar up there in their little hidden hole in the mall and soon they will have an escape room. There's so much to do that we looked around a little and went on our way. We were running out of time.

Another thing that we missed was the Rec Room. This is a new arcade and all around entertainment place. They have all kinds of things to do in there. Once again, we were running out of time. I guess we should have stayed longer.

Adventures for Anyone

Translate

Monday, March 5, 2018

And This is What It's Like to Vacation in The Mall

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me