Potomac Mills — Attraction in Dale City

Do yourself a favor and wear comfy shoes!!!This mall is very massive, and takes several hours to enjoy as a shopping enthusiast. It offers every type of store imaginable, as well as name brand outlets. If you’re tired or hungry, there are massage chairs, food courts and massage vendors that do a decent jog with massages while fully dressed and seated. Avoid the phone repair shops at this mall, they are completely worthless and it’ll cost you in the end. Save time, money and headaches and take it to Apple or a well reputable company.

Despite the pandemic, this place is well visited every weekend and is packed all hours of the day. Parking is hard to find, so be patient. There are lots of great stores to see when we visit. I especially enjoy going to Marshall’s, and TJMaxx, while our son favors the Disney Store, Nautica and Kid’s Footlocker. My husband enjoys the alethic stores like PUMA, Nike and Adidas. Costco is also connected to the mall, if you prefer to do bulk grocery shopping after the mall, and IKEA is not far away.

It honestly is a day’s out excursion for those who enjoy window shopping, actual shopping and exercise. I typically achieve 10k+ steps with each visit! Plan your visit by looking at the website for the list of all their stores. This will save you lots of time. Some stores are on the opposite end of the mall and I have honestly gotten back in my car to drive there, as I know there will be lots of bags to carry.

The mall has security guards, so I have never felt unsafe. It is frequented by lots of young kids, many who are unsupervised. I usually find it a bit noisy, which is typical of any crowed area. Our son has autism and the noise level doesn’t set him off that much.

This mall has lots of diversity, from stores, vendors, customers and food options, which is nice to see! From our numerous trips, we discovered that weekday visits before 5, as well as Sunday afternoon have far less crowds.

I hope your visits are pleasant and safe! It will be well worth the trip and the walk!!! If Potomac Mills Mall disappoints, at least you got a nice workout in your...

Potomac Mills never disappoints. Even when you come with no specific items to look for, it’s certain you will find many deals you can’t pass up.

We found great sales at Coach & Kate Spade, although to be home, their stores are a little intimidating. You must be a scientist to determine which bags are on clearance & for what discount.

Vera Bradley is incredibly reliable for great clearance items that are simple to decipher the final price.

The Converse store was a little disappointing with a bare minimum of a selection; however, I’m sure that’s just how outlets go.

I recently broke my back and was so happy to find a significant number of benches scattered throughout.

Our last trip we ate in the food court. There are so many selections, you’ll do better than me to even make a decision. Everything smells and looks fantastic. We ended up getting supper from a pizza/Italian restaurant on the left side of the court. I apologize for not remembering the name. It was scrumptious.

They do have large kiosks with mall maps on them and I looked online for a general idea of where everything was.

My little grandson loved riding the automated although when we first came through, the large play area was jam packed. By the time we shopped and returned, the crowd had thinned.

Since Potomac Mills is almost 3 hours from home, we usually spend the night and head home the next morning. There are some nice hotels extremely close, which makes shopping here even better.

The parking lots are expansive and while you may have a bit of a walk, you’ll more than likely always find a space.

In the attached photo, this was after 6 hours of shopping; my grandson is in his stroller, under there somewhere. LOL At 2 years old, even the baby loved...

It’s an alright outlet mall, but frankly every time I’m here I feel like something is missing or wrong and I don’t exactly know what it is. I mean There’s plenty of stores here I like and a really cool arcade. and It’s not like it has the problem of being criminally de-themed like Arundel Mills, since I think even when I came here as a kid It was almost the same and if anything they might’ve added some character since then. But something seems off. Maybe it’s the really weird lighting where some parts of the mall are as bright as day with plenty of natural light while others feel like it’s dusk even at Noon. Maybe it’s the fact that the mall seems to be split up into districts that run a spectrum of store mix and potentially Even rent prices with the brighter end being more fashion and pricey stuff oriented and the darker end having discount stores and more Niche interest retail that wouldn’t necessarily be as big of a mainstream draw (including some of the stores I like), with typical mall stuff like Hot Topic, Box Lunch, Spencers Gifts and FYE all clustered in one little area in the middle. Despite its average footprint The place legit feels like 3 malls stapled together in a winding line in terms of shear vibes. A Fashion outlet mall, a standard neighborhood mall and a Dead/dying mall that’ll take whatever tenants it can get. It’s almost like being in some kinda retail liminal space with representations of the different stages of a Mall’s life cycle, or depending on where you enter, a crossroads to the 2 directions many malls tend to go, namely high rent fashion or low rent oblivion. I still like this mall but it’s just very weird, to the point where it makes ya weirdly Philosophical about a mall...