Regardless of if you enjoy shopping or not, you need to visit North America’s biggest mall, the West Edmonton Mall. It was the world’s biggest mall until 2004 but had lost that spot and is now 23rd largest in the world.  The mall boasts having over 800 stores and services, along with the world’s second largest indoor water park, ice rink, two miniature golf courses, bowling alley, movie theatre, two hotels, indoor aquarium and world’s largest indoor amusement park. Along with those attractions, West Edmonton Mall also has themed areas set up like a mini Chinatown with the anchor grocery store T&T Supermarket, and Europa Boulevard where it looks like a street in Europe.

There are several major anchor stores in the mall including Winners, Home Sense, Hudson’s Bay, London Drugs, Simon’s, and the Brick. With the variety of merchants in the mall, there is something for everyone regardless of income and tastes. I think West Edmonton Mall has a sense of humor too since in one section of the mall, there is a Christian bookstore, and then four or five doors over is a sex store.

West Edmonton Mall is a major tourist destination in Alberta with about 32 million visitors per year! Depending on the time of year, the mall can have anywhere from 90,000 to 200,000 shoppers per day. Spread across close to 500,000 m2, West Edmonton Mall can be its own resort separate from the city of Edmonton.

One of the two hotels on site, Fantasyland Hotel, has amazing looking decorated themed rooms. Themes include African, Arabian, Imperial, Truck, Western, Polynesian, Outer Space, and several more, in both standard and luxury versions of the rooms. The luxury themed rooms are 40% larger than the standard themed rooms. There are also executive and superior sized rooms too.

The mall also boasts close to 100 places to eat and unlike your typical malls, where everyone follows the same hours of operation, the area of the mall called BRBN St. can have restaurants open until 2am. Some of the sit-down restaurants include brand names like Earls, Boston Pizza, Moxie’s, Hudsons Canada’s Pub, Old Spaghetti Factory, Tony Roma’s and more. If you want entertainment along with your dinner, you can watch a live on-stage performance at Jubilations Dinner Theatre. The mall also has a nightclub which is accessible from the outside. Fast food restaurants include a lot of name brand franchises and with the massive size of the mall, there are sometimes two or three separate locations of the same restaurant scattered throughout the mall!

One of the big attractions to West Edmonton Mall is the World Waterpark. It is the second largest indoor water park in the world and if you enjoy water slides, this is the place to go. Being indoors, you can go on to 21 different slides year-round and there are slide configurations from novice to experienced so everyone can enjoy what they are most comfortable with.

The water park also has the world’s largest indoor wave pool. There are beach chairs around the wave pool for those who just want to relax or enjoy the natural light that comes in from the glass ceiling. There are three hot tubs for those who want to soak as well as an area off to the side to surf on the surf simulator. A zip line is suspended across the length of the wave pool for those who want to fly over the crowd.

You can easily spend an entire day in the water park which also does serve food and alcohol. Free Coca-Cola Freestyle pop is available in several locations throughout the park to help keep yourself hydrated with unlimited refills. If you need a break from all the fun, they have in and out privileges, so you can enjoy other parts of the mall. You can leave your wet towels and swimwear in your locker then come back for more time in the water park.

Just outside the water park is a large indoor salt water lagoon. Docked on one corner of it is an exact replica of the Santa Maria which is available for parties. On the other corner of the lagoon is a stage with seating to watch sea lions perform and interact with the audience.

Below the water surface is the Sea Life Caverns which houses over 100 distinct species of salt water fish, sharks, sea turtles along with amphibians, reptiles, penguins, and more. There is a tide pool set up as a hands-on exhibit to touch star fish too.

West Edmonton Mall does not do anything small including having North America’s largest indoor amusement park with over 27 exciting rides and attractions. It is easy to lose track where you are at in the park since several of the rides do travel through paths of other rides, but I think that adds to the thrill of the rides. Unlike the yearly carnivals that happen in major cities, where the lineups can be ridiculously long, with the rides being available throughout the year, it does make it easier to get on them.

Unlike the water park where you need to pay to enter it, you can walk through the amusement park and check out the rides, you just cannot go on them unless you pay for either an all-day pass or single ride tickets. Having the all-day pass is nice since you can go on your favorite rides as often as you want or in some cases, as long as your stomach can handle it.

There are two mini golf courses set up at West Edmonton Mall. The 18-hole Professor Wem’s Adventure Golf course is out in the open with large cartoon like structures and it has a challenging course but fun for all ages.

Into dragons, wizards and castles? Then the Dragon’s Tale blacklight 18 hole mini-golf course would be fun for you. Included with Dragon’s Tale is also the Crystal Labyrinth Mirror Maze which has mirrors and glass walls creating repeating patterns as you try to find your way out of the maze. The black light artwork in the golf course makes it feel like you are going through a 3D video game which is cool.

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Contributor Steve Polyak |

Locale Edmonton |

Topic Business Review | Travel |

Photo Gallery Edmonton | Travel |