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thinking of going on a trip to minneapolis and mall of america and stuff. good idea or bad idea is there cool thing to see on the drive down-anything i need to know and do before i go-input would be great

My husband and I drove down last September. It was a nice drive. Not a whole lot to see on the way down. Depends on your interests. I slept most of the way LOL!  
 
But Mall of America is great, lots of things to do in there. Amusement park, big aquarium (do the background tour, you get to see the vet room, where they prep all the food, and also get to go see above the tanks). Mini golf, indoor go kart track, great amount of restaurants to choose from (Dick's, Bubba Gump, Rainforest Café, Margaritaville, Buffalo Wild Wings, etc)  
 
There is a zoo, it wasn't the greatest when we were there, but it is nice.  
 
We went to the big Cabela's about 45 minutes away. It has life sized elephants. It was amazing to see all that stuff.  
 
Go and google attractions around the area and along your route. Could find a lot of little sites you wouldn't normally see unless looking them up first!  
 
Have fun!

Albertville Outlet malls if you are into shopping.

We have made a regular trip out of Minneapolis of late. Are you taking kids with you? When we have kids with us, we break it up and stay a night in Grand Forks on the way down and hit the Super Target. Day two we make the stop at the Albertville outlet mall before rolling into Minneapolis. Mall of America is great, lots of different shops, restaurants and things to do as mentioned above (Nickelodeon amusement park, Aquarium, go-karts, mini-golf, movie theatre) all under one roof. The zoo is a normal zoo, nothing to fantastic, but a good half day adventure to be sure.  
 
If you have kids going, again, we've become big fans of the Best Western Plus Bloomington which has a fantastic kids swimming pool with water features and hot breakfast every day. The light rail train departs from the MOA and will take you all the way to Target Field for baseball or the new football field for a Vikings game if that is of interest.  
 
Hope any of that helps, enjoy

This was our yearly go to trip.  
Loved the drive, and we love the whole area.  
Albertville is cool, but don't spend all your cash there....there are two outlet malls closer to Minneapolis proper. We actually found better deals at those two.  
Mickey's Diner is downtown St Paul and it is a must if you like good solid diner food. It's is an old train car, so it literally sits only about 25 people, but worth it for the food and the experience.  
Shop around for hotel deals because pricing is all over the map. We used to stay in Bloomington though because it is so close to the mall you can often get packages with deals for the mall and stuff.  
Water park of America was a blast too.