(Review) Cloud City Games - Lehigh Valley Mall - Whitehall, Pennsylvania

My weekends are back to being overfilled, with volleyball and running down to handle my mother's yardwork, plus a shed project.  

Adding to my boggle is that I-80, a large chunk of drive to the ancestral manse, has been a parking lot recently, adding to my aggravation.  

Checking traffic before embarking, I saw the five mile back-up once again, and decided to hop on the turnpike.  Jumping off at Allentown, and experiencing a slow-down, I felt it was as good a time as any to stop and check out the flagship store of Cloud City Games in the Lehigh Valley Mall. 

Flagship is a bit of a misnomer.  This location was the first mall store for them (which originally in the nearby Emmaus/Macungie are).  In all honesty, this is the format that worked for them at this location, and has translated well to their Palmer Park Mall and Stroud Mall locations. 

CCGS:  By just following the stores on social media, it sounds like this location goes through the most collectible card game packs and singles.  The reason for all those tables.  A good supply of Magic/Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh! singles, with a good number of folks crowding the display cases looking at cards.  An increasing selection of graded cards too. 

RPG:  A great selection of 5e, Pathfinder, Paizo, but their Indy RPG section should be a pride and joy.  A much richer and developed selection than Palmer and Stroudsburg (with price tags on everything!)  A copy of For the Queen was in this section and became an instant purchase, even if it's very Indy, but not usually in the RPG section.  

Minis:  GW racks, GW paints, and a large selection of the D&D mins/Wizkids licensed stuff.  They also have a full rack of Monument Hobbies paints.

Not deducting points for a whole library of Black Library, or whatever they call GW Fiction nowadays.

Events:  I walked in between a Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament and a Magic pre-release, with a full schedule for the rest of the week, all structured within mall hours..  

Staff:  Employees were friendly, if slightly overwhelmed by the bodies at the counter.  

Comics:  They are a comics and games store, after all.  A great rack of new releases, and enough older and graded material to attract attention, and hopefully, sales.  

Other stuff:  Some light video games and poster sales.  I didn't see a matching display of Squishables like Stroudsburg.

As the original mall location, I see now why the other locations had good reviews.  Outside of being in the area, I don't see a reason to venture to this site again, as things are transferable between locations.  Like its satellite locations, Cloud City Games in the Lehigh Valley Mall earns four out of five gnomes.

Cloud City Games is located at 257 Lehigh Valley Mall, Whitehall, PA 18052.  It's open 10-8 during the week, 10-9 Friday and Saturday, and 12-6 on Sundays.