Mall of America Dive, Let's Do It!

[Chris]

Ok, I'll give this a shot...

First, thanks to Underwater World for their great hospitality... really enjoyed the dives and people there.

When you get there, the first thing they have you do is unpack your gear (they set it up for you), then you have a little briefing and they give you a behind the scenes tour and show you the drop in area of each tank (2) that you'll be diving in and what to be aware/cautious of. Next, you suit up and head to the freshwater tank. This was very enjoyable and relaxing. One of my favorite things to do was interact with the people going through the tunnel, especially the kids. They think it's really cool when you wave to them. The alligator gar were enormous, and really looked like an alligator from below! They let you dive by yourself and feed the sturgeon which was really cool too.

After this, you make a short surface interval (snack, juice) and talk about the next dive, the saltwater dive with sharks! This was a neat experience... Two of them go down first to setup a perimiter, then you go down close to the wall. They do a nice job of letting the sharks get close, but not too close. Pretty intense watching them go by and come towards you. It's not scary at all, and really nice seeing how they look at you and don't really seem to care. The stingrays and sea turtle were really neat as well. I got a nice under-shot of a ray and will post it when I remember to bring my cd in. You make 3 stops in the saltwater tank and really get a good feel for it.

As always, the dive was too short... would have loved to spend more time down there.

I'll be doing this dive once a year for sure.

Highly recommend this to anyone that wants to try it. Well worth the money in my opinion. After the dives they allowed my fience and her two kids to come up and take a little tour, they gave each of them a t-shirt as well, which I think went above and beyond. One of the divemasters let her daughter (4 years old) spray water at him, she thought that was pretty funny until the hose got away from her and she got all wet... That's when they brought out the extra shirts and everything was better