Minneapolis Memorial Day Weekend

Hello. My girlfriend and I are planning a trip to Minneapolis May 23-26! We have never set foot in the state and would like to know the best/safest hotels to stay and best restaurants. We plan to go to the Mall of America. We would like to see the Mary Tyler Moore statue. Is it hard to find? Is downtown a good area to explore? Also, is there any thing to tour or see regarding Prince or the movie ';Purple Rain'; We will be renting a car to get around after we fly in. We are in out mid 30s. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Minneapolis Memorial Day Weekend

If what you%26#39;re interested in seeing is the downtown area and the Mall of America, you won%26#39;t need a car. You can stay on Nicollet Mall (which is a street lined with stores and restaurants closed off to all but bus and taxi traffic), which is where the MTM statue is and use the light rail for the 35- to 40-minute ride to the mall. That frees you from the cost of a rental car and the high cost of parking, and lets someone else do the driving in an unfamiliar city. Also, the light rail will take you to Nicollet Mall from the airport for a fraction of the price of a cab. Easy to use and safe. Buy a ticket at the vending machine for about $2 a person before you board and it%26#39;s good for buses and the train for two hours.

Lots to explore downtown. First, Prince%26#39;s club (er, former club) is called 1st Avenue, which is, go figure, on 1st Avenue (north) near the Target Center. Also, I believe the Hennepin Bridge was in the movie, but it%26#39;s been a long time for me. Riverfront is nice, with a walk across the Stone Arch Bridge (view to the construction on the bridge collapse) and along St. Anthony Main.

I would suggest the Marquette on Nicollet Mall, but it really depends on your budget. Any place on Nicollet Mall and most other hotel areas are safe. Pretty safe city overall, really.

Should be a good time to visit. Lots of people will be out of town, up north fishing for the long weekend.

Minneapolis Memorial Day Weekend

With the money you save from not renting a car, you can get a better hotel room and pay for taxis when a walk is too far.

And I tell this to everyone who takes the light rail from downtown to the mall. Stop to see Minnehaha Park along the way. There is a stop for the park. Take it (on the way TO the mall so you don%26#39;t have bags), cross the main roadway (Hwy 55/Hiawatha Avenue) and enter the park through the tan divider wall. Cross the small parkway street and head to your left. Take a wander around and check out the falls and the creek below. It%26#39;s really a jewel visitors should not miss. Your train ticket is good for two hours if you bought a basic ticket, so unless you want more time at the park than that, you can get back on the train at that same station and continue on to the mall.

yeah, I%26#39;m bored:

metrotransit.org/rail/Hiawatha_map_freq.pdf

The other advice is good. The only other Prince stuff is his studio Paisley Park out in Chanhassen (not open to the public) and some remnants of Graffiti Bridge in Eden Prairie. I have had several friends take one of the bus tours of the city to see some of both St. Paul and Minneapolis as a good overview of the city (Grey Line has one, and there is another company that I can%26#39;t remember).

Thanks for all the information!!!! We will look into maybe skipping the car rental and just using light rail. We just had our new light rail system open here in Charlotte and its pretty handy and reliable. One more question? Is it pretty warm there in late May? Should we bring a jacket or coat maybe for the evenings? We wanna be well prepared to enjoy all we can. Thanks again everyone.

I is generally pretty nice in late May (highs in the low 70%26#39;s and lows in the upper 50%26#39;s) but it can be either really warm 90%26#39;s or really cold low 50%26#39;s some years. I would pack a jacket for sure. Its sort of swimsuit or sweatshirt weather, or somewhere in between.

Nights can get a bit cool (or they can be warm, it IS MN!), so bring a jacket.

Be sure to hit us up once you settle on a hotel for restaurant info and other stuff. This board has been slow lately and we are itching to get it cooking again.

Will do. I appreciate it everyone. We are still debating if we wanna stay in Downtown Minneapolis or near Mall of America.

Predictable me will suggest staying downtown.

Staying near the mall will be cheaper, but it puts you out in Bloomington. All that%26#39;s there is the mall, and the only restaurants available to you will be chains. What%26#39;s nice about downtown is there are things to do in walking distance of your hotel, and taxis available without prearrangement and best of all -- restaurants everywhere. Minneapolis is loaded with restaurants -- Thai, Cuban, Indian, Japanese, steakhouses, seafood, Mexican, German, Greek, and on and on. Also loaded with theaters and museums.

I find Bloomington a pretty sterile place -- esp. around the mall.

I totally agree, the mall itself is fairly interesting as far as a giant mall can be, but the area around it is exactly like the area around every other suburban mall in America. In addition to all of the eating options and things to see downtown, there is a ton of fun nightlife that is completely missing from Bloomington. You can find great live music from Jazz to Punk, dance places, cool lounge or chill bars. I think you will have more fun there. Plus as mentioned, the Mall is a quick train ride from Downtown.