Fun Fact: St. Paul, Minnesota was originally called Pig's Eye after Pierre Parrant, a fur trader who opened up a tavern there. Perhaps foreshadowing St. Paul being known as the "beer capital" of Minnesota today.
Our last morning on the Viking Mississippi has come as we prepare to transition from ship life to hotel life once again. We used the provided color coded luggage tags to leave our luggage outside our cabin the night before. We had to vacate our cabins by 8AM with final departure at 9AM. Both The River Cafe and The Restaurant offered breakfast service from 6AM to 8AM.
The below photo may be disturbing to some viewers.
I finally took a moment this morning in between swatting to grab this photo as a perfect example of what it was like trying to dine the entire cruise at the indoor River Cafe. Only fitting that our final meal on board had some uninvited guests. I named him George (and if you understand my reference there, you might be talking to your doctor about getting a colonoscopy) and let him have the rest of my breakfast.
After the crowded situation at our hotel in St. Louis, I was glad to see that Viking had taken steps to split up the passengers between two different hotels with transfers provided to both. Both hotels were within a brief walk of each other. The multiple motorcoaches going to each hotel were also staggered in hopes of keeping everyone from showing up at the hotel check in desk at once. Like our excursion days, the list of what bus was called or being called was displayed on TV monitors throughout the ship.
Our bus transfer to the InterContinental Saint Paul Riverfront included a guide who also worked in the Red Wing factory. She not only gave us a wonderful city history lesson during the drive but also moved throughout the bus answering questions and giving suggestions to anyone who was still looking for something to do in town. She also stuck around once off the bus to answer questions for anyone.
The hotel had a separate check in desk area for Viking passengers set up in the back room. The line was a bit long but the Viking reps did the best they could with the onslaught of people who arrived. Rooms were not ready as official hotel check in time wasn't until 3PM. It took a while for hotel management to finally bother setting up a spare room with chairs so people could sit and wait. The Viking reps were a lot more efficient and organized. The gentleman we checked in with took down our contact information and directed us to a woman manning an information desk for Viking. The rep encouraged everyone to leave their carry on luggage in the room with him so they didn't have to carry it around.
The only downside was that the information desk was set up so that the people talking to her were standing in the middle of the check in line. Once we had a chance to get up to the information desk, she was prepared with information sheets about local sites, recommended restaurants, and a paper map. We chatted with her for ideas of what to do and she used the paper map to highlight the routes to various options.
One of the positives I would like to commend Viking on is that rather than simply direct people to hang out elsewhere while waiting for the rooms to be ready, they arranged for an admission voucher so passengers could spend their time checking out a local interactive museum, the Science Museum of Minnesota. The museum was described as being a short walk away but it was a bit of a trek on thankfully easy concrete. The museum seemed so much closer when we'd ride past it multiple times over the next two days. At least it was pleasant weather and we could go at a leisurely pace. On the plus side, I found a $5 bill on the pedestrian bridge during the walk so yes the exercise and fresh air was worth it.
We paid about $7 to rent a locker as we were still carrying around our backpack with meds and valuables and the museum does not allow any big bags. It was easy to pay the fee from a self service kiosk that assigned us a locker number with a digital lock. Make sure you follow the instructions of holding the End Rental button for five seconds when you've retrieved your belongings or it'll think you're renewing your locker rental and charge your card.
We enjoyed spending a couple hours at the museum even though it was mostly geared to children and families. Our admission voucher included a visit to an Omnifilm of our choice so we saw the Deep Sky presentation. The theater is set up like an IMAX meets Planetarium and was a cutesy but interesting show.
After the museum, we continued walking along the street in search of a pizza restaurant that the rep had suggested. The pizza restaurant did not seem to be open but there were several options along the same street. We decided to check out Patrick McGovern's Pub & Restaurant.
And what do you do when in Minnesota for the first time? Sample Wisconsin Cheese Curds of course! Our guide for the bus transfer said that cheese curds was a must try for this area. From the mozzarella stick lover side of me - these were pretty good. From the Italian side of me - the marinara sauce on the side could have been thicker.
For entrees we had similar thoughts. Dad chose the Turkey Philly Sandwich and I finally got my Turkey Club Sandwich! I was a little surprised though that it was Thanksgiving Turkey style slices instead of deli slices.
That's not a bowl of soup with Dad's huge sandwich and fries - that's the special gravy sauce for dipping!
While I had my phone out at lunch to take pictures, I discovered that we'd missed a call from the Viking rep letting us know that our room was ready. He also followed up with a text so I replied to the text to say thanks and let him know we'd be by when we were done with lunch. When we returned to the hotel, we followed his instructions to return directly to the Viking desk where he handed us our envelope of information and room keys. On the envelope I noticed that he had left a written notation of having called, when he called, when he texted, and that we'd replied at this time with our explanation about lunch. Thank you sir, for being so organized!
A couple notes about the hotel room - tub shower didn't drain very well and several passengers I spoke with at breakfast said that they also couldn't keep their rooms from being too cold. Thankfully we weren't in Minnesota in the wintertime! Breakfast here was slightly better with a few more options that were refilled.
Dad had two ideas in mind for how to spend our time in St. Paul. His initial idea was to check out the Minnesota State Fair so we booked a rideshare after breakfast the next morning. The fairgrounds was a madhouse with cars having to drop off blocks away and lines back to the street for ticket purchasing. I tried to purchase tickets online on my phone while standing in the ticket line but the site wouldn't load. After wandering around getting lost for a while once inside the fair, Dad was disappointed to find that it wasn't more like a carnival with fun games to play. He soothed his disappointment with a chocolate malt and we walked a ton more trying to find the exit.
Our second option was to visit the famous Mall of America in nearby Bloomington after our bus guide said it wasn't a far drive. After wandering around the mall we tried to check out Johnny Rockets for lunch but it was packed. We ended up finding availability at the Cadillac Ranch restaurant.
I was almost tempted to order the first thing off the appetizer menu:
Instead, we skipped ahead to entrees and both ordered The Philly. Dad's sandwich was beef and mine had chicken. I regretted not getting the beef as well because the chicken turned out to be grilled chicken strips and barely enough melted cheese to hold it all together.
So what did we do while visiting the huge Mall of America you ask? Dad found the Apple store to try to get his archaic iPad to work again. Result - they reset it so he could log in to his Apple account again but then nothing else on it would work. Moral of the story - he finally upgraded to a 9th version when we came home and is now happily once again reading his books borrowed digitally from the local library. I walked nearly every wing of the mall, partly due to getting lost, considered doing a little shoe shopping but then thought about having to pack it, and ended up solely buying some nostalgic candy in Five Below. Real party animals the two of us I tell you. :)
We got a lot more steps in once back to our hotel trying to find the Walgreens that was only a couple blocks away. Turns out we headed about 6 blocks in the wrong direction first. For the rest of our time at the hotel we subsisted on Walgreens snack runs as most eateries including in the hotel were closed. Ended our final evening watching a Hallmark Mystery movie on TV. Monday morning we opted not to wait for the Viking airport transfer and booked our own rideshare.
Disclaimer - we did share our feedback with Viking after returning home and they kindly offered a voucher to be used on a future cruise.
Thank you for following along with our latest travel adventures up the river on the Viking Mississippi. Stay tuned for our next trip report sharing our time in a Sky Suite during a Magic Castle cruise on the new Sun Princess.
