Ramada Minneapolis Northwest Hotel & Water Park, Minneapolis

For $210 we got an old, outdated room in which every single noise in the hotel could be heard -- even though I had asked whether the room would be noisy. We paid $20 extra for a "private" patio -- uh, private in what sense? We got a table in front of our sliding glass door, until it mysteriously disappeared. Then we just had worn green carpet. The water in the park and the regular pool was cold -- the second day it was absolutely freezing. The water park is not well maintained -- areas were roped off and barricaded with yellow plastic "Caution" tape. The dumping bucket dumps without warning (unlike other water parks) so 2-year-olds are doused, and they don't like it. Slides are not monitored by lifeguards (and I only saw one lifeguard) and kids pile up and crash into each other at the the bottom Never again!

I'll keep is short & sweet.... We did enjoy our stay and would reccomend this hotel to others! Very centraly located -- although you will find no reason to leave, I'm sure! Great food, and definatly great fun!

Pros: It had a water park. Cons: It was very apparent that these are renovated rooms; however, they cut corners and left old wallpapper on the room. It was like putting lipstick on a pig. There are no coffee pots, microwaves or refrigerators in the room. Kind of contradictory since they are supposed to be catering to families with young kids. Instead, you have to buy expensive coffee, or spend money on overpriced mediocre food in the restaurant. The water park was fine, but once again, it was like going through airport security getting in. The floors in the tiny locker rooms were slippery, the lockers were all full and there were towels all over the place. The general manager was walking around the hotel our whole stay and I don't think I saw a smile on his face once. I think that says a lot about the place, needless to say, we won't be back, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.

The water in the childrens area was freezing cold! When we complained, the receptionists said, "Yeah, we think a boiler is broken." They didn't offer a refund, which they should have because it was much too cold for little children to play in. It was absurd!

This experience was really great! I was really not sure what to expect, after reading the negative ratings, but I loved it! The park was fun for me and I'm in my 30's. I did not get tired out until 3-4 hours into it, and then we just took a small break to eat lunch. We ended up staying for 6 hours! I really was surprised at how beautiful the decor was. they did a great job! I think this would be fun for an adult night as well, because they let you have cocktails right outside the park, up in the bar. I would go early and leave around 4-5 if you are not wanting to see that, because they were letting people drink poolside. The food was a bit spendy, but any "amusement" park is going to be like that. We rented a room and then could not use it because of change of plans, so I could not get my money back as I did not give 48 hour notice, but I dont care! I will be able to use it within 12 months and we are already planning our next visit!!!!

I have been in the wedding industry for almost 10 years, and this is one of the best service related venues I have EVER worked at! They treated me like GOLD, and I didn't spend a dime there. I can imagine that the clients were treated like ROYALITY! Sure, when I checked in, there was a line, but I was expecting it. My goodness, it was 4 pm when check in was beginning. Of course there is going to be a line....duh! The management was great to work with, especially Brent Snyder. This guy will bend over backwards to make sure your stay is fantastic!

We went to Grand Rios for my sons birthday party. We did not reserve a birthday party spot in the resteraunt area becuse they require 10 people minnimum and we had 8. When we got to Grand Rios we were told that it was closed to the public and that no one was allowed in at this time. I asked when we could get in and they said they have no idea. I had all these kids wanting to swim and we couldn't. I ended up having to rent a room for $170 so that we could get wrist bands and go into the waterpark. Needless to say, we didn't stay in the hotel room, and for 8 people I paid a lot of $ for a couple hours. I was informed that they can close the park to the public at anytime, so if you are planning on going I would call and make sure you can get in.

I was so disappointed in this place. I made a reservation to take my kids to stay overnight at Grand Rios. It was to be their reward for good behavior while my husband was out of town. They didn't behave well, and about I made the mistake of issuing an ultimatum.... so I needed to reschedule. I called to reschedule for the next day but they were having some $10 waterpark admission special which meant it would be really crowded and my kids don't do well with crowded pools, so I figured I would cancel and reschedule for another week. I call and am told that I can't cancel because they have a 48 hour cancellation policy. When I made the reservation, which was less than 48 hours before the arrival, I was not informed of this. I say that, and the clerk says "we tell everyone". I said no, you don't tell everyone because I wasn't told. In a snotty voice: "well what do you want me to do about that?". Then she says that I can reschedule, but I can't cancel. Insert more snotty comments from the clerk, yada yada yada. So I reschedule and then call back an hour later to cancel the new reservation. This person says that I have to pay either the one night rate if it's within 48 hours, or to cancel any reservation before 48 hours is a $25 cancellation fee. ????? Now there's a $25 fee too? What else don't they tell you when you make the reservation -- do they charge for towels and sheets?? When I originally made the reservation, I was asked for a credit card to "hold the reservation". If the cancelation policy is anything other than the standard 4 or 6pm, I think the hotel should inform the guest at the time of the reservation. In addition, the rude and snippy attitude I got from the first clerk was so outrageously rude that I can't reccomend this place at all. The second clerk did give up on the $25 fee and said she would cancel my reservation without charge. She did not, however, apologize for the lack of communication or the rude behavior of the first clerk. My kids LOVE water parks and we live 15 minutes from this hotel, but I will drive 4 hours to Wisconsin Dells rather than be treated this rudely in the future!

I just returned from Memorial Day Weekend at the Grand Rios with my wife and two children. Pros: -Nice medium-sized in-door waterpark with with good activties for toddlers to teens. -Waterpark was not crowded at all- no lines for slides. Clean and new-looking hotel room. -Great arcade with good interactive games from toddlers to teens. -Nice weekend brunches at the main restaurant with pleasant waitstaff. -Well appointed convenience/gift store. -About location... while the hotel is located in area that is somewhat run-down (lots of big empty warehouses for sale), it is only a few miles from the Arbor Lakes shopping district in Maple Grove. This is a huge shopping area with tons of places to eat and lots of high end shopping. The stores are situated along a nice pedestrian brick street that is a lot of fun to walk through in the summer time. Cons: -Poor, poor, poor main desk service. When we checked in, the person at the main desk checked us in for June 27, not May 27th which was the date we had reserved and the day we arrived. This led to us being locked out of our rooms twice out of the two days we were there. Those of you with young children will realize how frustrating this can be when you return from the water park with your cold, tired, and wet family to find you have been locked out of your room and have to trudge back to the main desk, stand in line, and wait in wet trunks while the irritated staff try to figure out what went wrong so they can rekey your cards. AND this happened twice! While I understand that no matter how fancy the computer system is, people can still make mistakes, what I had a real problem with was that the staff had no remorse, no compassion, and no apologies. In fact, initially they tried to blame the lock-outs on us saying we had reserved the wrong dates. Luckily, my wife had brought our on-line conformation print-out along that showed we had reserved the right date... they had just checked us in wrong. If you have read other reviews of this hotel, you will realize that this was not an isolated instance... the main desk staff are just incompetent. Fortunately, the hotel amenities, the other hotel staff, and the reasonable rates make this a fun and worthwhile experience.

I booked a birthday party for last Thursday and it was a total disaster. When I first arrived I was told I had to pay for all parents that were sitting in the balcony area overseeing their children. When we were there in December we were allowed to stay up there for free and I had no idea I was going to have to pay extra for each adult that showed up. Besides paying full admission for them to sit and do nothing they did so in the total dark and the cafeteria wasn't even open so I could feed them. After talking to the head supervisor (which was extraordinarily rude) I had received no accommodation or even a "Sorry". The order for the food at the birthday party was supposed to be taken by 5pm (per the Grand Rios employees). At around 5:10pm I had to find the people who were cooking our food and ask them if I could place our order yet. They said it would be another 10 minutes. Finally at 5:20 we placed our order and it was finished around 5:30. If there would have been another birthday party after ours we wouldn't have even had time to eat since our table was only reserved until 5:45 not to mention the kids were starving by then and begging for me to run to the store to buy something for them to snack on. The table with the balloons was covered in food from the previous parties and it didn't look like anyone had cleaned those tables for days. I had to have all the kids move to an undecorated table to eat, only to realize my cake was missing. By the time the cake was found the kids had scattered back to the water park and the snack bar was closed. I then realized they had only given me 6 plates for the cake (I paid for 10 children) and no knife to cut the cake. There was no signage with my childs name on it (like the website said there would be) and the whole birthday party per se was a disaster. I would have been better off just paying for the admission of the kids to the water park because the birthday consisted of nothing extra for the money I paid (except maybe the food). I ran the party and had to continuously guide the employees to do what should have been done. I would suggest anyone thinking of booking a party at this place to strongly reconsider.