American Dream Mall – New Jersey (4/6-4/8/2022)

The American Dream Mall is the second largest mall in America. Located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, next to Met Life stadium.

We planned to go to the Mall for our Spring Break vacation because in the mall is Nickelodeon Universe (Theme Park) and DreamWorks Waterpark. Both were open during the week of our spring break. Our spring break was a week earlier than other states and districts spring breaks.

American Dream Mall has a lot of indoor attraction options.

• Nickelodeon Universe
• DreamWorks Water Park
• Blacklight Mini Golf
• Dream Wheel (Opened April 13th)
• Mirror Maze
• Angry Birds Mini Golf
• Big Snow
• The Rink
• Legoland Discovery Center
• Sealife Aquarium
• Tilt 3D street chalk museum
• Skudin Surf

Not knowing anything about the mall, we decided to go on Wednesday evening after checking into our hotel to get our bearings.

The mall has an underground parking garage with 4 sections: A, B, C and D. B and C are the parking lots for the parks. We drove around the outside of the mall until we reached the B and C lots. We passed Met Life Stadium while driving around. We ended up parking very close to the entrance. The mall wasn’t busy at all.

From the outside of the mall you could see the location of Nickelodeon Universe.

The first thing we did once inside the mall was to check out the spring set up for the Easter Bunny. The Easter Bunny was taking a break at the time and we decided since we have 2 more days at the mall, we would see him the next day. The set up is gorgeous. Plenty of seating and places to take spring pictures.

We started seeing people riding around on plush zoo animals. You could rent a ride on zoo animal for $10 for 10 minutes and ride around the mall.

Ethan saw a Coca-Cola area and sat on the bench. As he said “he just had to”.

Apparently we took the longer way around to get to the parks. We passed the Angry Bird Mini Golf. The golf course is set up really neat and it looked like a lot of fun.

We made the mistake of taking the kids in the Lego store. They of course wanted every Lego they saw. They wanted to do the Lego Discovery Center. We told them that they were closed today but we would take the brochure with us and do some research on it. We ended up not doing it. It seemed like a lot of money for not much of an experience. Also the reviews were not that great.

Outside the Lego Store, is a play area and a kiosk called Me in 3D. We stopped by because they had superheroes. Ethan really wanted to check it out. I ended up getting him a Captain America figure. Nick got a Lego figure. The employee takes 360 degree pictures and then the figure gets mailed to you in 2 weeks. I will update this entry when we receive the products.

We finally made it to the parks. We were able to see Nickelodeon Universe and only the entrance to the DreamWorks Water Park.

We went down stairs to the water park to see if there was anyway we could see it before we went and were told no. Once we went, we understood why. When you enter you go straight to a locker room and then shower area and then into the water park. No easy way to just take a peek at the park.

The kids wanted to take a picture in front of the Nickelodeon Universe son.

Next to the parks is a 3-Story candy store called It’s Sugar. The store was crazy big and had so much candy. On the 3rd floor is an Oreo Cafe.

Next to It’s Sugar is a 2 story Toys R Us.

Most of the kids have never seen an actual toy store since the majority of Toys R Us stores closed years before. Needless to say they were a bit overwhelmed. We actually left without buying anything. As soon as we walked in there was a magician at the counter and he immediately started showing the kids magic tricks.

Taylor is absolutely obsessed with Boogie Boards. She has 4 of them. Well Toys R Us did not disappoint her when she saw their Boogie Board that is bigger than her.

We head to the second floor which is filled with LEGOs, hot wheels, play-mobile, Nerf , etc. Even a Play-mobile interactive Fire Truck.

We headed up to the second floor to check out Big Snow. Unfortunately it was closed. Disappointing since I was going to surprise the kids with letting them ski and snowboard. It looked awesome, none the less.

It was getting late and we needed something to eat. We opted for one of the restaurants and chose based on the food options and prices.

We went with 1st RND a Burgers, Beer and Sports Bar/Restaurant. 1st RND features over 30 beers on tap and over 17 burger creations. Not the cheapest but the food and beer are very tasty and we were very happy with our choice of restaurant. Our server and the service we received was top notch. We were checked on frequent enough to make sure we had everything we needed but it was not over the top to where we would be annoyed. Since it was Taylor’s birthday weekend, the staff even sang to her and brought her out a scoop of ice cream.

The next day we walked around the mall a little bit until Nickelodeon Universe opened at 11.

We found a pretty cool sculpture outside of Yard House.

In the area near the Lego store, different backdrops were set up for picture taking. Of course the kids wanted to have their picture taken.

Outside of Nickelodeon Universe are these little play areas with sheep. The kids enjoyed playing on them while waiting for the park to open.

We went by the Ice Rink. We didn’t have time to skate and that was okay.

The last night of our time at the mall, we decided we wanted to try to see as much of the mall we could. Keeping in mind that there are many empty stores because the mall is only 3 years old. We made our way to “The Avenue”. The Avenue part of the mall is the luxury part of the mall with stores to include Saks Fifth Avenue, Tiffany & Co., Carpaccio, Gentle Monster, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. Even the bathrooms seemed more upscale. The kids were fascinated with the area and the murals on the walls and especially of the sculptures/vases.

We did experience a lockdown situation while inside Nickelodeon Universe on Thursday April 7th. The lockdown situation was due to a shooting that occurred in the mall and at the time it was unknown if this was an active shooter situation or an isolated incident. The mall staff handled the situation diligently and professionally.