June 28 - Edmonton

One of the items on the “Must See” list of things to do is the West Edmonton Mall and WOW!! We have been to the Mall of America in Wisconsin, but this blew them out of the water!! You literally need a map to get around this place, and a scooter would be very handy!! If you don’t have a scooter, be prepared to be totally exhausted if you try to see everything, and we tried, we really did. It’s kind of like Disneyland, you just can’t see all of it in one day!

 This mall is totally enclosed, has three levels, covers 5,300,000 square feet, more than 800 shops and services, has parking for more than 20,000 vehicles and employs more than 23,000 people.

 But wait, there is more…included in this mall are several specialty areas:
 Galaxy Land Amusement Park-Features more than 24 exhilarating rides and play areas for all ages. Four distinctive roller coasters, kids play park, Turbo Ride Theater, carnival games, a rock climbing wall and more.

 Water Park-World’s largest indoor wave pool, located in a tropical oasis with an average temp of 29 C (84.2 F), has 17 unique water slides, including one that loops, a couple of hot tubs areas and a wading pool.

 Deep Sea Adventure-Worlds largest indoor lake features an exact replica of the Columbus flagship Santa Maria, water bumper cars and a Sea Lion/Seal show area.

 Two Miniature Golf Areas-One is a Glow in the Dark game and the other is a full 18 hole Mini Golf course.

Ice Palace-NHL sized Ice Rink, skating lessons, hockey lessons, open skating and hockey games.

 Ed’s Rec Room/300 Club Lounge-Cosmic Bowling, 14 projectors showing live music videos and sporting events. Arcade games and fully licensed bar and kitchen.

 Ropes Quest-Three story ropes course. While harnessed in, climb along a sea of beams and ropes all the way to the top to conquer this obstacle course.
 The ‘food court’ is amazing compared to what we are use to in most malls in the states! One area has full sit down restaurants with a variety of choices of types of food. The actual food court is an area about the size of a football field with every type of food vendor there is, and common seating in the middle. We splurged on handmade crapes with bananas, whipped cream and chocolate syrup…soooo good!!  

 This was an all day event for us and we didn’t even ‘do’ any of the special things, just walked through and looked! Oh, almost forgot, there are also two hotels, complete with conference rooms, a movie theater and a full service grocery store in the mall. You could live here, and never have to leave…unless you just felt the need for fresh air. If you are interested in more information you can check out the web page at: westedmontonmall.com.