A Slightly Less Than 48-Hour Trip To Minnesota

Many of you may wonder why anyone would choose to visit Minnesota in late October. I mean, while we’re used to handing out Halloween treats in shorts at home in Florida, the temperature difference is significant. In fact, it was 70 degrees and humid when we left our house at 7 AM for our flight from MCO to MSP. We knew that the temperature would be much colder in Minnesota so we packed our heavy jackets, scarves, gloves and thermal underwear in our carry-on bags for the trip.

We’d be in Minnesota for less than 48 hours so we didn’t want to check a bag. Due to some poor planning on our part, we left the house later than usual and decided to park at MCO instead of at our usual off-airport lot. It cost a bit more but from leaving our front door, we were past security and to the gate area in 45 minutes.

Plenty of time to stop at the Delta SkyClub at MCO. Unlike our last visit when I almost went full Karen on one of the agents at the club, this time we had no problems since our AMEX Platinum cards are linked to our Delta accounts.

No matter how many times they repaint the club, it still looks like a room from The Golden Girls. And I never noticed the penny-farthing bicycle until this trip.

I checked into our room at the Hyatt Place in St. Paul while in the lounge. That’s when I saw we received an upgrade due to my Discoverist status.

I sent a text to the hotel from the lounge alerting them that we’d be arriving at noon and asked for an early check-in.

We flew to Minneapolis-St.Paul on a Delta A321 in the back of the plane (here’s what I thought of the experience.)

I received a text when we landed that our room would be ready when we arrived at the hotel. This was a relief as we only had a few hours of sleep and were in need of a nap.

When we got to the hotel, we discovered it was one of the most unique Hyatt Place properties we’d ever seen.

Our room had a 16-foot ceiling. More to come about the hotel and its interesting history.

After a nap, we headed to a local place to grab a bite before heading to the Xcel Center. We weren’t that hungry so we split an appetizer platter.

Then we headed to the arena for the reason we traveled all the way to Minnesota. We were there to see Queen + Adam Lambert. We were able to grab tickets in the 5th row off to the side of the stage because of the early access and preferred seats available from American Express.

It was an amazing show and I’m glad to have been able to see Queen (or at least Brian May & Roger Taylor) live. Fun fact, did you know Sharon and I sang at Royal Albert Hall with Brian May? It’s true. (Note from Sharon: We didn’t sing WITH Brian May. He played guitar and we and a couple of hundred other choir singers sang behind him. Big difference LOL. But it was one of the top ten coolest events in my life.)

When someone commented about our great seats, I said that when you use points to pay for your flights and hotel, you can spend all of the money on tickets to the concert :-).

After recovering from the concert, we did the most touristy thing imaginable the next day and headed to the Mall of America. We’d been there about 20 or 25 years ago and wanted to see how it changed.

In keeping with being good bloggers, we did manage to visit the Capital One Cafe and have a coffee (and saved 50% by having a Capital One card as I had my Venture X in my wallet.)

We’ll review the Capital One Cafe in an upcoming post.

On our way back to the hotel, we saw snow flurries outside the window of our Lyft, as the temperature was dropping.

We headed back to the room for a nap on the comfortable Hyatt bed.

That evening, we headed somewhere we’d been excited to visit. The Apostle Supper Club is a kitschy spot that is a throwback to a 70s-era Palm Springs supper club.

Besides going to dinner, we had to visit the False Eyedoll Lounge Tiki Bar for a nightcap.

We had an early flight home, so I used the Uber Reserve to book a ride to the airport. I’ll write another post about my experience with this service and if it’s worthwhile.

We got to MSP airport extra early so we had time to check out the Delta SkyClub offerings, including the brand new SkyClub at the end of the G gates.

As one of our Minnesotan friends said. “This pic literally FEELS like MSP.”

And then it was over. And we were back home.

We crammed a bunch into a three-day weekend, but we still had time when we got home to finish building our IKEA bookcase and set up a Christmas tree (since we’re going to be traveling, we need to get a head start on decorating).

This was our second whirlwind weekend since 2019. While they are somewhat exhausting, it’s fun to fly away for only a day or two. However, we also discovered it’s just as fun to drive away for the weekend, like when we headed to St. Pete for 2-nights.

What’s your craziest long weekend trip?

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