Let down at the mall
Hello! I hope you all had a wonderful Passover holiday. I hope that all your questions were answered, that your family got along, and that you didn’t go into bankruptcy paying for the food. Personally, thank God, I had a really wonderful holiday.
By the time you read this, Danish and her sister, with God’s help, will be back in their homeland of Israel. And I will be very sad. This is what happens when your kids live far away. You spend intense quality time, not quantity time, and then they leave you or you leave them. Until the next time you see them. And then you get sad all over again.
However, today I do not wish to talk about anything sad. Today I wish to give an honest review of the Sesame Street Learn and Play situation that is now at American Dream Mall. Ahem. My review is that the Sesame Street Play and Learn situation and the American Dream Mall is a waste of money. The end.
How was that?
Let’s give a back story. Danish and her family were going to be in America for a few extra days, and I saw an advertisement for this Sesame Street thing at the mall. My mind flew back to our visits to Sesame Place and how excited the boys were to be there (pre-Oreo, of course.) They loved it! And we always knew there was going to be mincha by the Grover roller coaster.
How did we know? We knew…the secret Jewish handshake. Man with yarmulke looks at other man with yarmulke and whispers, “Mincha 4 p.m. Grover coaster. If you see another Yid, let him know.” Ahh, men and their mincha.
Anyway, my expectations for this place so close to home were very high and my DIL #2 was so excited that she and Son #2 and Danish and her sister (I think her bakery name is Cheesecake because she was born around Shavuos, but I digress) were all going to experience the joys of Elmo and Cookie Monster and interactive play and learning. Wow! What fun!
So yom tov is over, and we go online to reserve a slot. And pay. And pay we did. Four people — three adults and one 2-year-old — $114. Ok, it’s a little pricey, I think, as I decide not to tell Husband #1 what the cost was, because who really needs his negativity when we are going to see Grover? Big Bird! The Count! Best day ever!!!
Everyone is dressed and ready, and we pile into Babka’s car. It is going to be an epic day. We put the parking lot into Waze and we end up parking in a different lot than we thought. Okay, still good.
We get inside, not realizing how far away we actually had parked, and find a map. Well, the modern-day version of the map, which we and the people behind us on line could not figure out how to work. Okay, it’s getting a little rocky, but we are intelligent folks, we can figure this out. We start walking one way and realize that, nope, this is the wrong way.
Twenty minutes later, we see beloved Sesame Street characters waiting to greet us for at least three hours of fun. Forty minutes later, we are trying to figure out how we had been duped. They have a really great PR person advertising this thing.
Allow me to get more specific. There is an indoor playground with two slides and a little playground for the under-3 set. The Elmo room is where you color in pictures on paper and then you can see your artwork on the screen. Hmm, I can take a picture of Danish’s artwork and do the same thing at home.
The only thing that made this place worthwhile (and by no means $114 worthwhile) was Hooper’s Store. Ahh, Mr Hooper, I remember him well, he should rest in peace. The kids get to fill up their shopping carts with all different types of produce and baked goods and household staples and the swipe them at the checkout counter and then put them back into individual bins. Yup, that’s the whole place.
Now we had a wonderful time, but that is because they are in from Israel, Danish and her sister have low expectations, and I got to spend time with them and their incredible parents. And I took home coloring sheets for Strudel.
Would I ever go back there? No. Do I think any of you should? Honestly? No — not unless you have some kind of coupon.
And that is all I got for this week.
Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck is grateful to God to be able to announce that Son #3 and Dil #3 have brought Matza Ball Ganchrow into the world. It’s a boy!
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