Moxy Minneapolis Uptown — Attraction in Minneapolis

If you are a nomad who travels with nothing more than the clothes on your back and does not have luggage, a car, or a need for a flat surface to do things like work on a laptop or put your coffee down, then this is the hotel for you. There are positives to the Moxy, which I will get to but this is a challenging hotel for many reasons that I will now call out. Arriving is difficult, as the hotel does not have parking. I exaggerate a little on this because the hotel does have some parking, six parking spots for the whole hotel to be exact (plus one handicap spot). If you have a car that you need to park, you will be directed to park across the street at the abandoned Arby’s. We did park there over our 6-day stay and nothing happened to the car but I would definitely recommend not leaving anything of value in the car and not be seen with anything of value. In fact, your best bet is to have an old beater of a car that you do not mind getting scratched and dented. If you are renting a car, I would seriously consider the insurance. There is also a pay-parking garage about two blocks away that you can use but it is not convenient and can be difficult to get to due to one-way streets everywhere. There is a 15-minute loading zone in front of the hotel on Lake St so you do not have to drag your luggage down the street. Once you get to the hotel, the lobby/bar is sheik hipster designed for those who like dark rooms lit up by pink florescent and loud pulsating music. The good side of this is you do not have to talk to anyone else in the lobby because they won’t hear you anyways. There is a vinyl room off of the lobby, which is fun when you are in the mood to listen to some records. They have headphones you can check out from the lobby desk (I would recommend using your own if you have them). The desk/bar employees were very nice and because this is a Marriott, you do get some standard Marriott check-in amenities like points or a snack from the cooler if you are a member. The room is where many of my personal challenges are. To start, it is small… very small. You get 2 feet on one side of the bed and six on the other (which is crowded by the A/C wall unit, a chair, and small metal stool). You get about four feet at the front of the bed which is shared by the flat screen. The bed itself is a wooden pedestal with a mattress on it. The design is nice that you cannot stub your toes on the bed, but unfortunately it is the perfect height to ram your shins into, and that hurts… a lot… The room does not have a dresser, drawers, or a closet. There are some pegs that you can hang clothes although the point end on the peg leaves an unsavory hump in anything hanging on it. There were also five hangers which limited what we could hang (being two of us in the room). There is not a place to put most of your clothes, especially small things like underwear or socks. Prepare to live out of your suitcase. If you stay on the street side of the hotel you will have a great view of the abandoned Arby’s and the delightful sounds of cars with large mufflers accelerating quickly. If you stay on the other side, it is much more quiet and you have a lovely view of somebody’s back yard. The bathroom was also small; with very little counter space, however the toilet was extremely wide and deep. If you are small or skinny, I recommend hanging on to something when you sit down so you do not fall in. The bathroom also has two windows to the room, one in front of the toilet and one in the shower. The glass is beveled and not completely clear so you cannot completely see the person as they sit on the crapper, but you can kind of see them. The shower is nice and uses the European model of no shower door so the floor will be wet when you shower. Not much you can do about that. There is much more to discuss about the hotel and I would if I had not run out of space. All I can say is if you stay here, pack light, use a car service, and bring earplugs if you go plan to...

DON'T BOOK THIS NIGHTMARE! Loud. Suffocatingly small. Little accommodation. Broken light fixture. Party in the hallway until 4 AM. 5 parking spots for the whole hotel's guests. Careless staff. Atrociously rude manager.

The main level is literally a club with a bar and a DJ on the weekends. It was obnoxious, even for a 20-something. The hallway wallpaper literally flips you off because they hate their guests so much. Just in case you need it, there is an aerial yoga area by the hallway elevator but they also seem to host hallway late night parties that keep you up all night. Just in case you need it, there is a record player in the lobby but not a cup in your room. Just in case you need it, the hotel phone can read you a bedtime story but cannot reach the front desk when you need it. The room is 195 sq ft. The number 195, even sounds larger than the matchbox of a room. Literally 5 parking spots for the entire hotel's guests. Street parking is very busy and not easy to find an open spot. I have literally stayed at Motel 6s with so much better accommodation and a much friendlier staff. The "chairs" in the room will give you a backache in 20 minutes.

I tried to contact the front desk 3 times about the loud people in the hallway keeping me awake for hours. They obviously did not care whatsoever. The 4th time, they didn't even answer at all. I even tried calling from my cell instead of the hotel phone with no answer. The hotel phone can literally read you a kitschy bedtime story, but cannot actually contact the front desk when you need it.

THEN, They tried to charge my card for $200 for smoking. Even after telling the manager, we are far too respectful to ever think about smoking in any Marriott as I have been staying at Marriotts for over 15 years. He went on to yell at me, it didn't matter even if we did or did not smoke that they would charge my card simply because they could whether I like it or not. He proceeded to hang up on me. I am not a complainer or a confrontational person. I never expected to be treated instantaneously like I am a monster from the moment I spoke to the manager. I called back and was immediately transferred to a different person. I told her about the situation as I was on the edge of tears after being berated by the previous manager. She was much more kind and understanding and said they would not try to charge my card again. Still a horrible situation to go through.

I booked this hotel looking at those dreamy photos, thinking of all the cool Instagram photos I could take. I was SO excited to stay. Now, I feel like I deserve a full refund plus compensation for inconvenience and harassment. Yeah, I'm sure that will never happen. I will never stay in any Moxy after this and I will spread the word to the high heavens to avoid them at all costs to maybe save another human being from a horrible experience such as mine. I'm sure I will get a passive aggressive comment to my review from the hotel that does absolutely nothing....

The hotel aspects themselves were as advertised. We anticipated that we would be spending most of our stay in Minneapolis outside of the hotel & we wanted to be in the Uptown neighborhood, so we were not looking for a lot of amenities. I appreciate that there was an affordable, clean, & creative place for us as a couple with a dog to stay. However, the bar was a disaster. I didn't mind the salsa nights (I actually was entertained by them as a spectator) or the fact that the Nespresso machine was broken (I was offered drinks from the cooler as compensation) but on Saturday night, the male bartender with a mustache who I later found out was the bar manager was rude, belligerent, and violent. I walked up as the bartender was taking a shot (not knowing if that was a normal thing or not I didn't think much of it). But then saw him hold up two drinks for customers he couldn't find and when no one claimed them he threw the glasses down to the other end of the bar and they shattered - and he didn't clean it up. After that, he took my order for drinks. He asked who the second drink was for with a highly suspect tone and I explained it's for me & that the beer I ordered was for another person who was coming back from letting the dog out. The bartender said he would not give me the other drink because it's the state law. This explanation may have been permissible if I did not just witness him take a shot and break glass and had he not been curt and suspicious of me - at the time it seemed arbitrary and rude. Then I saw a male customer who had been there for the dancing complain to the bartender about his drink and asked for the manager. The bartender yelled back "That's me!" repeatedly & when the customer refused to take the drink comped because he wanted the correct drink, the bartender slowly turned the drink upsidedown in the customers face and threw the glass down. That's when I realized I needed to leave because this bartender was displaying a persistent pattern of violent behavior. I also saw throughout this time that the other two female bartenders were having to clean up after him (I heard them shuffling over the broken glass), apologize for him, & otherwise avoid him. I realize that this hotel may attract some wild behavior, but if this bartender's behavior was part of that bit, that was way out of line. I feel so strongly for those two other employees who had to deal with his behavior-the moment that he threw the glass, he should have been...