The Meetings Collaborative is a global community space for meeting planners to review hotels and service providers, discuss issues and needs and share best practices. http://meetingscollaborative.com Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:27:17 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://meetingscollaborative.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=534&Itemid=#jreview_520 High marks for food & beverage - creativity, quality, quantity, pricing, variety and willingness to work with special needs. This property also gets high marks for sleeping rooms (clean, convenient layout, comfy bed, nice size bathroom), housekeeping service, meeting space and location (walking distance to many dining & shopping options, plus close to rail that leads to Twins ballpark and Mall of America). With the exception of one individual, staff was always friendly and ready to help wherever needed, with excellent response time.

Low marks come from one staff member who seemed troubled to do some things, and did not respond promptly. Also for some breakouts we had to put attendees in elevators which can be scary for a large group. Meetings were held on three different floors but we were prepared and they seemed to flow OK.

Their restaurant and room service were excellent - try the homemade potato chips or the fries with balsamic ketchup. Across the street is a good restaurant called "Fire Lake" which had excellent food and a nice atmosphere.

I would not hesitate to bring a group back to this hotel and actually hope to have the opportunity again.

]]> jenmerkel Minneapolis Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:30:13 +0100 http://meetingscollaborative.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=531&Itemid=#jreview_105 We have an annual conference for our independent magazine publishers. Group size is 80 - 100, and this is a hip crowd. The Graves 601 Hotel was a perfect boutique hotel that exuded the hip atmosphere we were looking for. Rates were also great for our group since they have lower budgets than the bigger publishers. The staff at the hotel, especially our salesperson, Andrew Koven, was absolutely fantastic. Even though they had other groups to work with, we felt as if we had undivided attention. They were also just extremely pleasant to work with.

My only gripe about the hotel is that you need to go up one set of elevators and then get off to get to another set of elevators that actually go to the sleeping rooms. And then you need to swipe your keycard to press what floor you're on, which is a bit of a pain if you're trying to meet people on a different floor.

Other than that, I recommend this hotel to anyone looking to do a small meeting there. It's really first rate in terms of service and ambience.

]]> tynee Minneapolis Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:14:24 +0100