Arundel Mills Mall Wi-Fi Review

After spending a nice 3 hours in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, I decided to ride my TMAX to the Arundel Mills Mall in Hanover, Maryland. I wanted to put some more tokens on my Dave & Buster's power card only to find out once I got there, I'd forgotten the thing. :-( My 2nd objective there was to test the mall's FREE Wi-Fi. I found out from the mall's website www.simon.com/mall/arundel-mills that it offers free Wi-Fi though they warn you that you'll have to agree to their terms and conditions (standard for free Wi-Fi). As I didn't have a problem with their terms and conditions, I gamely tried to connect at the Arundel Mills Mall. On the list of Wi-Fi signals, you click on Simon WiFi. I did that, my Nook e-reader tried to find me an IP address and, I promptly started getting Wi-Fi errors. Uh oh! Shades of the Starbucks at the Trump Boardwalk Hotel. I decided to move around the mall to see if that would help and, it helped in that the log-in page came up. It asked for my first and last names and either an email address or cell phone number. It claimed this information was mandatory in order to hook up. The company that runs the mall would use your email address to send you emails telling you of specials at the mall as well as new stores. If you supplied your cell phone number, they'd text about such things. I filled in the information and tried to connect and repeatedly got errors where I had to go back and try sending the information AGAIN. After the 3rd try, I noticed a little further down was a box you could check that would get you out of the emails or text messages. I checked the box as I wasn't feeling generous with the mall after all the problems I was having connecting to their Wi-Fi.

Eventually, I did get the service to work though I suspect I spent at least 15 minutes or more repeatedly trying to connect. During the whole process, I would receive at least 2 more Wi-Fi errors. Once I did connect, the connection was sufficiently fast. I will give the mall at little slack as I wonder if part of the problem was a number of people using their free Wi-Fi. The mall was packed today I suspect because it being Martin Luther King Day. I'll have to test the mall's Wi-Fi another day when there aren't such large crowds.

For now, I can't rave about this mall's free Wi-Fi. I had a real job trying to get it to work. If you wanted an easier free Wi-Fi connection, the Arundel Mills Boulevard McDonald's I reviewed was close by. It was definitely easier to use than the mall's Wi-Fi. Still, you can put this mall on your list of places that do offer legitimate free Wi-Fi. Happy surfing all!

Update February 17, 2014: I tried connecting to the Arundel Mills Mall free Wi-Fi and, I had problems again.  I definitely wouldn't recommend their Wi-Fi. Also, while I was at the mall, I tried the free Wi-Fi at their Books-a-Million store. Their Wi-Fi worked great. However, Books-a-Million has apparently instituted a policy where if you don't belong to their Millionaire's Club, you have to pay a small fee to use their Wi-Fi. Club members get to use their Wi-Fi for free. As I'm a member, this isn't a problem for me but, it could be for others.

Arundel Mills Costco Optometrist

To appease my doctor somewhat at least, I decided to get my eyes checked by the Arundel Mills Costco optometrist. Why go there? For a couple reasons, 1) convenience - it's easier for me to see the optometrist there than it is to try to see one at a military clinic even though I will have to pay for it out of pocket and 2) it isn't that expensive.

I found out the Arundel Mills Costco has a new optometrist. Here name is Dr. Julie T. Tran. She's a new optometrist. According to the certificates on one of the walls at her offices, she graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Optometry in 2010 and completed her residency at a Veteran's Affairs facility in Palo Alto, California in July 2011.

I found Dr. Tran to be really nice and very professional. It was easy to deal with her and, I felt she gave me a very thorough eye exam. She was also kind enough to make a copy of the exam so, I could give that to the clinic I use to be put in my medical records. The exam cost $49.

Dr. Tran offers 2 other services which cost $20 each. One is a pupil dilation procedure when enables her to better exam the patient's eyes to see if there are any signs of glaucoma or other potential problems. I did this one and, I found it easy enough barring my dilated eyes being more sensitive to the sun after the exam until the eyes drops she used to dilate my pupils wore off. Sadly, I forget what the other test/exam was though I remember it too could help detect glaucoma. Obviously, I didn't have this one done. Dr. Tran didn't think it was necessary.

Overall, I was very pleased with this very nice lady and optometrist. I felt her fees were very reasonable. I'd gladly go back for another eye exam by her and would recommend her to any of my readers out there.

A correction was made to this post after an anonymous commenter told me Palo Alto is in California. Many thanks to the commenter on this.

Free Costco Tire Rotation

One plus you get when you buy a set of tires from Costco is free tire rotation during the life of the tires. This can save you some bucks on top of the good tire prices Costco offers. Recently, I visited the Arundel Mills (located in Hanover), Maryland Costco where I took them up on this offer again. The tire department was prompt, fast and courteous and the best part was there wasn't any charge for the service.

Another mixed blessing Costco offers tire wise is filling their tires up with nitrogen gas vice regular air. The reason they do this is so the tires maintain regular pressure at all times. Regular air expands when it gets heated and contracts (apparently) when it gets cold. This means your tire pressure can change based on the local temperatures. How inflated your tires are can have an effect on your gas mileage  Nitrogen doesn't expand or contract based on the temperature. This enables the tires to have a steady pressure and help get you more miles to the gallon. The down side is that nitrogen isn't available every where and, some of it does eventually escape the tires making it necessary for the car owner to get their tire pressure checked at Costco and if needed, get more nitrogen put in the tires. That's why I call it a mixed blessing because, it is a bit of a hassle to go to Costco to get your tires topped up with the nitrogen.

Happy driving all!

Arundel Mills Dave & Buster's

Today, I decided to treat myself to some Spin & Win at the Arundel Mills Dave & Buster's. For those who don't know what a Dave & Buster's is, Dave & Buster's are a combination sports bar, restaurant and arcade. They have big screen tv's in the the sports bar part of the complex for the sports nuts. They have a restaurant section which is right next to the arcade with some tv's for the not so devout sports nuts and, they have a million dollars worth (supposedly) of arcade games. The games run the gamut from shooting basketball hoops to shoot em up games to skeeball and my game which is Spin & Win. Spin & Win is a game where you pull a lever which starts a light going around a big massive number wheel like Wheel of Fortune. You hit a pad on the console which stops the light moving and whatever number it stops on is the number of tickets you win. The ultimate prize of this game is winning 1,000 tickets. There are 3 spots on the wheel where you can do that. You just have to have great timing and hand/eye coordination. Also, you mustn't let yourself get distracted by all the noise, the people around you or the excitement of playing the game. It's not easy to hit the 1,000 ticket light but, it is really cool when you do it. I managed to hit it 5 times before I decided to call it quits though I still had over 350 coins on my powercard (I did a $100 re-charge).

When you're ready to cash out, you walk up to the Winners Circle where you put all your tickets in a big plastic tub and, they weigh them. They know by weight how many tickets you'll have won. Also, they'll tell you your total number of tickets you have on your card. After that, you can browse the prizes in the Winners Circle. They run the game from candy to game cartridges to small appliances like a George Foreman Steak Grill or blender. One particular neat prize I saw was a fake jukebox which plays CDs and, I believe it can play MP3 tunes. I saw a USB hook-up in it. This particularly nice prize was also the most expensive costing a hefty 110,000 tickets! Still, I thought it was pretty cool.

The Arundel Mills Dave & Buster's is easy enough to get to. It's in Hanover, Maryland just off of Maryland-100 or you can exit Maryland-295 (the Baltimore Washington Parkway, drive down Arundel Mills Boulevard (I think), turn left so the Tower Federal Credit Union is on your right and drive around the huge mall until you see the Dave & Busters's. It's right next to Chevy's. Parking wise, there is a lot of parking BUT, it can still be a challenge to find a spot on weekends and holidays like today. For those who like to ride motorbikes (like me), there is a special parking zone for motorbikes though this can get filled up like it did today.

Happy gaming all!

P.S.
Concerning the food at Dave & Buster's, I can't rate it. I never eat or drink there. All I ever do there is play Spin & Win and check out the prizes in the Winners Circle.

Holiday Special at Dave & Busters

I've been wishing that Dave & Busters would offer another half price game day. To my delight, they have. During the holiday season, Dave & Busters will have half price game Wednesdays. On Wednesdays, all games will be half price except for photo morph whatever that is. This is a really good deal as the games can be very expensive at Dave & Busters. I'm certain that Dave & Busters will still be raking in the money. It still takes a lot of tickets to get some of the really cool prizes. However, this will make it easier for you to win the cool prize you've been wanting to get. See you there on Wednesdays. Cheers all!

Hanover Five Guys Restaurant

Earlier this week, I had a nice chat with my friend Harvey. He mentioned that he'd gone to a Five Guys restaurant within the past week and really enjoyed it. It'd been a while since I visited a Five Guys restaurant so I decided to check out the new one that had recently opened in Hanover, Maryland. This review is about that restaurant.

The Five Guys restaurant in Hanover, Maryland is very easy to get to. It's located just off Arundel Mills Boulevard when you take the Arundel Mills exit off of Maryland-295 (Baltimore Washington Parkway). It's located in a small shopping center called Arundel Preserve.

The restaurant is like other Five Guys restaurants in that the decor is a bit spartan. The most noticeable thing about the restaurant was the copies of articles that had been written about the chain and how many times it had various awards for the best hamburger restaurant or cheap eats.

However, I would have to disagree about its claim to be cheap to eat at. The small burger as they call it costs $3.19 and comes with 1 beef patty and a large selection of toppings. It is the toppings where Five Guys separates itself from other hamburger joints. You can get fried mushrooms, fried onions, green peppers, A-1 sauce, jalapenos, hot sauce or the standard ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickles or lettuce all at no charge. As far as I know of, no one else offers such an extensive list and at no extra charge. The only 2 toppings that do cost extra are cheese and bacon. Those come at a stiff 60 cents each. I tried their regular burger with bacon, cheese, fried onions and fried mushrooms. The regular burger which has 2 beef patties costs $4.19. In my opinion, for an extra buck, you might as well get the extra patty. With cheese and bacon, my burger ended up costing $5.39 which wasn't cheap.

Five Guys also offers 2 types of french fries. They have Five Guys flavor and Cajun. They come in regular and large size. A regular will cost you $2.40 while a large fry will cost you a stiff $4.19. I tried their large fries and I did get a good portion of fries but, $4.19 isn't cheap.

Five Guys offers hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches if you're not in the mood for a burger. I didn't try either of these but, a friend at the Post Office has tried their hot dogs and he raved about them. For those who are vegetarian, they also offer a vegetarian sandwich.

Lastly, Five Guys offers the standard line of soft drinks such as Pepsi, Hi-C, and some kind of Root Beer. A regular drink will cost you $1.79 while a large will cost you $1.99. They also offer bottled water at $1.79. For those who dine at the restaurant, you can get unlimited free refills. If you are going to eat the restaurant, you might as well save yourself the 20 cents. If you're not, you should spend it and get the large drink. I tried the Root Beer and the lemonade and both were fine.

Overall, I found Five Guys a cut above your average hamburger joint like McDonalds or Wendy's. All the hamburger they use is fresh as are their french fries. They actually keep sacks of potatoes where customers can see them. Price wise, they are a bit more expensive than McD's or Wendy's but, their burgers are good and their service is prompt. If you want a better burger or want one with some of their excellent toppings, you should try them out. They are very good. Bon Appetit!