Radisson RED Minneapolis Downtown — Hotel in Minneapolis

I want to first say that the staff is amazing, and nothing we experienced was the fault of the staff. They did their best within the confines of the corporation to make our stay positive.

Buckle up, stay in your car, keep driving, find another hotel, or seek an exorcist and stay at your own risk.

Let’s start with our first room. Upon arrival, it smelled like a combination of gym shoes and a restaurant dish pit. It was muggy and cleanish. I decided we’d stick it out and see if the air handling would fix it while we were out. It didn’t. Fine. We stayed; after all, we are midwesterners who don’t like to cause trouble. Then the room next door had some very suspicious and loud activity for the ENTIRE NIGHT! The male guest left at 7 a.m., and as he was leaving, she stuck her face into the hall as we were also leaving. Clearly tweeking. None of us slept well, and when one of us did manage to fall asleep, those sleek nifty frosted glass bathroom doors caused another issue. These doors do nothing a bathroom door is supposed to do: Block sounds? No. Block smells? No. Block light? No. If anyone used the restroom at night and turned on the light, the entire hotel room would be illuminated, in addition to hearing the dulcet tones of bathroom usage.

I spoke to the front desk. The staff was kind and understanding. I was given a small refund, and we were moved to another room.

Room 2. This room was clean, dry, and smelled like it should. We moved in that morning and headed out to the museums. We had a blast at the Science Museum and then to the Walker. My husband has been waiting 30 years to see the exhibit they had there, and we were having an amazing meal at Cardamom when a man walked in, jumped onto the bar, and began grabbing bottles off the shelf and chugging them. As he was dragged down, throwing bottles into the dining room, he spit into the ice. So we were delayed, but that was ok, as we were watching a thunderstorm roll in over the sculpture garden. (You’ll understand why I included this story later.) Finally, I told my husband to just go to the exhibit, and we’d catch up. As the server was going to get our bill and my husband set his first foot into the gallery, lightning lit up the sky, the museum was hit with a double power surge, and the museum went dark. That’s right. At this point, we were feeling a little crestfallen and… cursed?

We headed back to our new room, took off our shoes, turned on our TV, and attempted to watch Night At The Museum. This is where I should mention that this hotel does not provide live TV or traditional cable. Your only choice is to stream from your devices. This requires each TV to have an individual QR code. This TV will turn on, but that function is not available. I went down, told the desk, and was informed that they would have an engineer look at it. Did they say when? No. Did anybody fix it? No. So we watched on my laptop with speakers so tiny as to be useless. We mostly read the movie as the scent of someone smoking devil’s lettuce down the hall wafted in under the door. Later, as I was in the bathroom and the red mosaic in the shower was staring at me, I started to feel a little odd. I am sure that mosaic is supposed to be some take on a logo or something, but honestly, it looks like Beelzebub is staring at you during some strange initiation as you strip to get into the shower. Later, as I was hanging my towel, it occurred to me that the wallpaper with the red letters on it was less eclectic and more… Kubrick. Then I realized this place is called Red, and the rooms are Red Rooms…

Back in bed staring at the blank TV, the mural behind us was reflected back, and it was then that I saw that there is an astronaut in that mural screaming into the void. Why is that in a hotel room? Who thought this whole scheme through?

Will we stay here again? No. Is this building perhaps a conduit to the netherworld? Yes. Do with that information what you will. I am too busy saging our luggage and laying a salt line at our front door. Does anybody have a...

We had to travel to Minnesota on a whim this past weekend due to a family emergency, and we booked this hotel.

Pros: The hotel itself is really cute and modern. I loved the vibe all the way down to how the room numbers were printed on their respective doors. The staff members were helpful and friendly. The rooms were small, but not tiny, and I while I didn’t use the gaming area nor the gym, it was nice to know that they were there.

Cons: When we got to our room, I used the bathroom. There were stray pieces of hair peppering the bathroom floor, and there was a strand on the sink. The handle on the bathroom door was also — idk — greasy? The towels that they gave us had yellow and black stains on them, too. After seeing the bathroom and the towels, we got the vibe that the rooms at this hotel weren’t fully inspected/cleaned after each guest. That thought was solidified by the fact that our TV wasn’t working. You’d think they check everything out before marking a room as ready. Someone had to come and turn it on for us. Downstairs there’s a restaurant and they have a cooler with drinks to purchase. They don’t sell normal water. We had our daughter with us and had accidentally left her big gallon in the car, and we didn’t want to have to walk to get if we didn’t need to. My boyfriend was informed that they only had sparkling water. That’s crazy to me considering most people drink water regularly as it is needed to survive and not everyone likes sparkling water. In addition to that, parking was all sold out when we got there, but that was a blessing in disguise because parking was $32/night at the hotel. Meanwhile, the lot across the street was only $18.

Oh, I forgot to add this: There was no microwave in the room. I know at some hotels you can request one, but we neglected to do so. It was super late when we ended up needing one. We DID use the one that was downstairs, however, and it was FILTHY.

All in all, the hotel was cute. It works if you’re trying to avoid spending a ton of money on a place to lay your head. It’s more for a staycation or a quick couples trip/friends trip. I wouldn’t stay here again with my little family.

Another thing that may or may not be of consequence to anyone reading this: they do have carts, but they don’t have a bellhop. They don’t have valet either. The...

Pretty poor place to stay especially for the price. The good points are that it's close to the US Bank Stadium and the rooms have a modern clean feel. That is where I would stop however. There was not a spot to park and check in because it was time for the Vikings Gameday, something I understand but there wasn't really a place for guests specifically either. So we had to drive about 3 blocks away to check in. We chose their hotel because they had parking which works out great for going to the football game, after walking to the hotel for 3 blocks to check in, we were informed they had no parking left. Had I known that I wouldn't have spent the extra money to stay at the hotel in the first place, their isn't a "spots are limited" on their website so I didn't think to try and see what we had to do to get those spots. Now we are more frustrated because we have to drive a half mile away from the hotel and walk our bags. Parking is only for 12 hours, so now, after the game, I will also have to walk back to the car find another parking spot then walk back to the hotel. Guests ahead of us were having issues with he elevator so we went to inform the front desk that the elevator was not working, she informed us that you have to use the key to scan then press the level. After taking the elevator again we saw a sign but since there were guests ahead of us the first time we did not. Not being from the city I feel stupid for not knowing that, but I assume that there are other people that run into the issue (like the couple ahead of us) so that would have been nice to know at check in. The elevator makes a loud knocking noise on the way up that is a bit frightening, I have not heard that in an elevator every once we got to our room, I went to use the safe to put my things in before the game, which did not work. The rooms say they are 65, but they feel much warmer, I might give them the benefit of the doubt and it could be that I'm just angry.

This has been horrible and not worth the price at all. I am currently writing this in the room I am so mad about the entire experience. I want to leave but unfortunately I paid the expensive price to stay at this horrible experience.

If you are looking for a hotel for the Vikings game, do...