Editor Pick
Holiday Inn Express Minneapolis-Minnetonka
- November 14, 2007
- Rated 4 of 5 by
callen60 from Ozarks, Missouri
We stayed here in late summer, looking for a location that could be booked with Priority Club Points. Unlike a lot of Intercontinental properties in the Twin Cities, this was available for 15,000 Points a night, while many (even Holiday Inn Express locations) required 25,000.
I’m sure that had something to do with its location. I didn’t know the western suburbs very well, and I still don’t, given that we stayed here but spent our time elsewhere. The location wasn’t that inconvenient, even though were substantially outside the city center, and as a relatively new property, was in very good shape. It was easy to access off the Crosstown Expressway (Highway 62), the principal east-west artery between downtown and I-494, running (appropriately enough) at the level of 62nd St.
To get there, take the Crosstown through Edina, past Highway 100 and US 169 to the Shady Oak Road exit (make sure you stay to the right as you approach, to avoid getting shunted south on US 212). As you head north, you’ll see the hotel on your right, right at the start of Red Circle Drive, an odd one-way loop. We made several trips from here into central Minneapolis, and the 20-minute drive wasn’t too bad.
We housed two rooms of people here for between two and four days. The rooms were good sized, and gave us room to get in a rollaway and keep our suitcases out from underfoot. The pool is on the first floor, and typically small and noisy, so I passed on a swim during our stay. The breakfast area is a little undersized for the restaurant, but we ate fairly early and avoided the crowd. Like all Holiday Inn Expresses, there’s no restaurant, and this area isn’t chock-a-block with accessible dining options. There’s a chain restaurant that shares the parking lot (I can’t remember which one), and a sports bar a bit east where we had dinner our first night that would be about a half-mile walk.
The staff was unusually friendly and helpful. We didn’t place any great demands on them during our stay, but they found city and area maps for us (and graciously gave us others when we misplaced them after five minutes). They checked on the delivery of our rollaway, remembered us as we came in and out, and generally conducted themselves in a way more typical at a much tonier hotel.
I can’t expect that I’ll stay out this way again. But if I had to, I’d be glad to come back here.
From journal Gotta Eat, Gotta Sleep: Lodging & Dining in Minneapolis