Eagan Civic Arena — Attraction in Eagan

I have come here a couple of times for open skating and I am mainly basing off my critics on another ice rink that I used to go to quite often. The first thing that I would like to comment on is the appearance. I find the place quiet dark and closed in. The area that you tie your skates in is quiet chaotic. For the staff, they weren't really present, which I will continue to talk about a little later. The only time that I really encountered a worker was when I payed to get into skating. The line to get in took some time because people wanted to borrow skates, but my friend and I just needed to pay. I almost wish there was a separate area to pay. Now onto my experience and what really bothered me. When skating there were kids laying on the ice and not paying attention to those around them. Most of the times when I go to an open skate, there are rules that you have to move around the ice in one direction, you can't have hockey pucks on the ice, and you can't do tricks (this is not the case at this ice rink it seems). This is mainly for the safety of everyone on the ice. Open skates are meant for people to get on the ice and hang out, but it is hard to do that when you are constantly worrying about getting knocked over. If I hadn't figure skated before, I probably would have not have been able to stop quickly enough to avoid a kid that decided to switch directions right in front of me. I know this may be seen as "not the ice rinks fault," but I find this an issue. At other rinks, they have someone designated to skate around and tell kids to stop laying on the ice, to make sure people aren't creating danger. This is the main reason that I am giving this ice rink a three...

Hosted my son's birthday party here. It was $150 for 15 kids including ice time and skate rental and use of a community room for one hour prior to skating. Overall I think the party was a fair value. I think community room time is tight because you only get one hour including set up, although they did let me in early when I showed up, but can't count on it. We ended up doing presents in the getting ready area at the very end and that was fine. I wish I had known they had a fridge and freezer somewhere where you could store your stuff after. They did expect us to clean out the community room during the party as well. Which is fine but bring a wagon and don't bring a lot of stuff. The host first told us we could leave everything and then during the skating portion of the party said we needed to come back for it. I had tons of adults to help me when I first asked, and then because of that lack of thinking on her part, I ended up hauling stuff with just her. She was just a kid, like 16 years. I'm sure she just wasn't thinking about practical things like a parent/adult would. Overall, I would host a party there again, but I wish the communication was better and the community room rental was 15...

I don't actually enjoy ice skating, but my husband skates some, and we've taken our 4 kids there multiple times. They have a great selection of skates to rent -- hockey or figure skates -- and plenty of walkers to use on the ice. Rental of skates and walkers is inexpensive.

Tonight we hosted a birthday party there. I didn't have to bring anything! They provided the skates, walkers, paper products, meals (there are two options), drinks, cake, cake server, candles & lighter. I loved it! We had a room assigned for the party, and then a locker room assigned to our group for putting on skates. They had me take a tally of skate sizes at the beginning and then the skates were waiting for us in the locker room when we got there. It was a Club Sk8 Night, so there was fun lighting and music in the rink. Everyone had a blast, and it was low stress for me! I did ask for a few parents to stay to help serve food and drinks -- and tie skate laces! That worked well. Overall, it was the least stress I've had for a birthday party, and you get a lot for a reasonable rate....