Nope, we didn’t go to a tropical island for spring break.
Or on a cruise.
Or even skiing.
Instead, we made the bold decision to go here.
Yep. The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. The week of spring break. On a Saturday.
Can you guess where I’m going with this?
Look at the title again.
Spring. Break. Fail.
We really had no plans at all for spring break week. We had asked the kids if they wanted to do the much-anticipated basement renovations in our house or go on a trip over spring break and we all decided we wanted to do the basement.
It was a great choice and we’re happy to be done with the project.
But after this brutal winter, we started thinking we just want to get out of town.
Originally we had planned to go to Kansas City and stay at a hotel with a water park. But then discovered the Big 12 basketball tournament would be in town and scrapped that idea.
And that’s where the series of bad decisions began.
EJ and I had a lovely date night Friday night to start out the weekend (thanks Mom and Dad!).
So Saturday morning when we packed the kids in the car to head toward Minneapolis, we knew it was going to be the best trip ever! (One of my kids reminded me on Sunday that I had actually said “best trip ever” in the car on the way out of town. My bad.)
Fail #1: Thinking the Mall of America was a good choice as a spring break destination.
We didn’t think about the impact of spring break + Saturday on the mall. The impact was fierce. First, 30 minutes to find a parking space. We put on brave faces and drove through a parking garage until we found a spot on the highest floor.
The mall was insane. When I say insane, I mean so packed with people there had to be some sort of fire code violation.
When convincing the kids earlier in the week that the MOA was a better idea than swimming in a pool, we told them about a ride called Fly Over America. A super cool special effects ride the whole family would enjoy to kick off our mall experience.
Kids were pumped…so were we! Until we got to the ticket booth.
You guys, tickets were $20 for adults and $16 for kids. If you do the math (adding in sales tax and lying about Ella’s age), that is nearly $100 for ONE ride.
We caved. And then waited in line for 45 minutes for a less than 10-minute experience. Luckily, it was one of the kids’ favorite parts of the trip. For the win!
The master plan was to split up and the boys would go on rides all afternoon at Nickelodeon Universe and the girls would shop ’til we dropped.
Well…the boys went on one ride that scared Owen and they decided the lines were too long on everything else so that was the end of Nickelodeon Universe for them.
The girls and I didn’t fare a lot better than the boys. I had two stores I wanted to go in. I made it three steps into Lululemon with the girls and left. Chaos.
H&M is my all-time favorite store but the time spent there was hijacked by my thirteen-year-old wanting to shop for herself and my ten-year-old losing a $20 bill that I had to help her find (which I did after a
By the time Ella was done trying on clothes and the $20 had been secured, we just wanted to get the heck out of there!
Bath and Body Works was (as usual) an assault on the senses AND insanely busy but we managed to use a coupon for a free item and a couple of other goodies.
Ella was in seventh heaven when she found a Forever 21 with a girls section. This is a
After spending half an hour in the store (10 minutes finding clothes and trying them on and 20 minutes in line to pay), we grabbed the boys and fled the mall.
Okay, I’m going to stop for today. When I started writing this I didn’t intend for it to take multiple posts, but there’s so much failing to share! And keep in mind, this trip to Minnesota was a short, overnight trip. One night!
Stay tuned for my next post from this spring break disaster of a day…fail #2: food!! What a hot mess and major #momfail. Not to take all of the blame I’ll also add #dadfail, too.
Until Next Time,
Neko
Disclaimer: This post was meant to make you laugh and realize not everyone has perfect spring break trips. We laughed about all of the fails on the drive back home. We even made a list of the good and bad parts so we wouldn’t forget! But at the end of the day, we had amazing family bonding and loved spending time together. š
So sorry to hear the MOA was not a hit!! That would have given me anxiety!!
Haha, it did give me anxiety. But as we saw the bad luck continuing…we just went with it. š
This is the best! Sorry – Iām laughing though so successful blog! And because I know you and I would have had all the same thoughts š
Glad it was good for a laugh š