Mermaid Event and Entertainment Center and Mounds View AmericInn Hotel and Suites

Great food and very friendly service! They did an awesome job decorating and making sure every thing I needed was met!

We had our reception in the Coral Bay Ballroom. The room looked beautiful with their black table cloths and purple fabric napkins. We were able to choose black or white cloths and napkin color to match our wedding colors. Since we got married on a Friday, they threw in a lot of things for free like a champagne toast and mirror tiles on every table, as well as upgrading from white table cloths to black ones (usually 3 dollars a table) The cake cutting fee and split plate fee were also waved... Getting married on a Friday definitely has its perks :)

We did not have a positive experience. We had problems with our guests calling to make hotel reservations and the staff telling them that there was no reception under our names. It was very confusing for my guests. The day of the reception we arrived and were greeted by the head of the serving staff, we instructed them to start serving dinner. They said the would start plating right away and start serving shortly. We went in to cut the cake and greet our guests as we did not have a receiving line. We cut our cake and got pictures and were starting to mingle when I noticed the cake starting to lean. I went to a server to tell her that they should probably get the cake she turned to look at it as it fell over(one of their preferred vendors, Buttercream). They took care of getting replacement cake. We were up and about greeting our guests waiting for the food to start being served. After over 45 minutes of waiting we questioned a server and were told that they were waiting for us to sit down. We had asked them to start serving the food they never said anything about us sitting down. We told them again to please start serving. After we ate one of my bridesmaids approached me and said she was unable to check into her room, I had reserved it for her with my cc and told them that the reservation was for someone else, they said that they needed my permission to give it to her. So I had to go to the desk and ok it, the strange thing was that I had reserved another room for someone else and only she had problems(not sure if it had something to do with the fact that she was hispanic?). We also heard later from some of our guests later that the pop that was served with the meal was flat(We paid an extra $1 per person for the pop.) Another of their preferred vendors RJ Kramer did some of my centerpieces and they were not what I had ordered. The next morning we were supposed to get a room for gift opening. My family went and asked the front desk which room we were using they instructed them to a room on the second floor above the ballrooms. They hauled the gifts up to find all of the doors locked, we went and asked again at the desk and someone said they would be right up to unlock the doors. After waiting quite a while again we were able to flag an employee down and she was finally able to get someone who was able to tell us that our gift opening had been moved to one of the rooms in the bowling alley back on the first floor. So we had to haul all of the gifts over to the new room. We used the garden tent which is their biggest space with the highest food/beverage minimum, so we spent A LOT of money there. All in all our experience was not great they seemed very disorganized and we weren't happy with some of their recommended vendors either. Natalia did negotiate a very small partial refund for us. I definately would not recommend the Mermaid for a large event even though other people have had good experiences they are obviously not very well organized or consistant in their services.

Working with The Mermaid and Carol Back in particular was one of my greatest experiences while planning my wedding. She was not the first planner that we met with or signed on with at The Mermaid, but stayed with us through the year and our event. Carol is excellent at her job, and really made us feel like The Mermaid wanted our business. They made certain exceptions to their rules and helped us in more ways then I thought a reception hall ever would. For example, when our church would not allow us to get in until 1 hour before the ceremony, The Mermaid offered us two rooms to get ready in so that we could just leave our stuff and cars at the site and get them once we were done getting married - two rooms for only $100 rented from 6am-9pm! This saved us tons of stress moving people around, we were able to have our transportation pick us up at The Mermaid before the wedding and then return there after - no cars to shuffle, no bags to haul. It was wonderful. The Mermaid was our favorite vendor by far and we would love to work with them again. As far as the catering, the food was from what I hear, some of the best the guests had ever had at a wedding. I didn't get to eat a whole lot, but from what I tasted at the wedding and tasting, I knew it was good! Kudos to the whole Mermaid team, each person did a wonderful job at helping us get through the wedding day without any snags. A++++

We worked with Carol at the Mermaid. I think she was our top favorite person to work with through the entire planning process. Carol helped us understand things were didn't think we would ever comprehend. We had our wedding on a Friday night and saved lots of $$. Carol did a WONDERFUL job walking us through every detail, and still there were times I was confused or couldn't visualize the setup. I knew we were doing something a little non-traditional having the ceremony and reception at the same place, but having our guest sit at tables. When I came into the tent on rehearsal night, I was blown away!!!! Carol did an EXCELLENT job putting things together! The day of our wedding, she was there and was able to help with any last minute details. She even held the door as I walked into the tent for the first time. The food portions at the Mermaid were ridiculously large. My husband and I til this day are sad we couldn't eat any of it (who eats on your wedding day, I thought it was a myth, but we seriously couldn't).The hotel room was great and we appreciated the bottle of champagne and card left for us from Carol. I have to give the Mermaid 5 stars, because our ceremony, reception, rehersal, hotel room, guest rooms, food, and staff were amazing!! There was one thing out of anyone's control. Who would have thought that the first snow fall would come on our wedding night, 10/09/2009, which meant it was pretty chilly!

The Mermaid was great! They did all the decorating, catering and bar tending

We had our reception at the Mermaid, Coral Bay Ballroom. It was absolutely beautiful. The food was tasty, and the facility was supurb. The staff at the Mermaid was always helpful and listened to our needs and wishes. They worked with us to make our day special, one we will always remember.

From the very first interaction, I was very impressed. I mostly dealt with just Natallia and she was very good. Prompt to respond to any questions I had via e-mail or phone. She would always clarify everything and never assumed a thing. They gave us girls the hospitality suite to get ready in for a measly $25 clean-up fee!! The room was large enough for me, my 3 BM’s and my mom to get ready in, get our hair and make-up done in. It worked very well! They gave Russ and I a BEAUTIFUL bridal suite for FREE for the night of the reception. It was huge and gorgeous and had a fireplace and Jacuzzi tub. The food was delicious and we received many compliments on the meal…especially from parents whose children ate the delicious kids meals consisting of chicken fingers, french fries and apple sauce. The hors d’ oeuvres we selected were rampaged, so they must have been good (didn’t even get a chance to try them). A LOT of people asked us on multiple occasions how we stumbled upon this venue because they loved it. Several people even mentioned loved ones that they knew were getting married and how they were going to recommend the Mermaid to them.We also hosted our rehearsal dinner here. There was no room rental or minimum for the RD, which was nice. We took the opportunity to do something a little more fun and got their “Stadium Buffet” which was grilled chicken breasts, brats and hamburgers. It also came with potato salad, coleslaw, corn on the cob, all the fixings for the burgers, coffee, tea and cookies. It was wonderful! The meal was very “us”.

Our reception was amazing. We got a ton of complaments on the food, the room looked beautilful, the bathrooms were nice. I definataly recommed this venue.

Everything I ever dreamed about! My wedding was so amazing you can pick from 3 different room to hold your wedding I did my ceremony and reception in the same room. There food was awesome, service was good, my wedding coridnator there was so helpful, she stayed until she knew everything was going perfect! I couldnt have asked for a better wedding!

With the wedding package they have, it made planning my reception effortless. The staff was professional and attended to all my needs.