5th Avenue Inn and Suites

Simple breakfasts and polite staff, and my room looked very clean. Could it have been cleaner? Sure, but even expensive hotels have filthy rooms. It’s a comfy little no-frills place right in the heart of the Mayo campus. For the location, the price is exceptional. I’d check in here next time I need to be within walking distance of Mayo and want to save money.

The rooms are big, and it’s a good price for a great location, an easy walk to the clinic. Still, we hope to stay somewhere else next time. The rooms are incredibly dark: all the lights were on and I still had my mom shine a flashlight so I could make her coffee. Bring a bright bulb or an electric lantern if you choose this place, the darkness was unacceptable. The hair dryer is attached to a wall in the main room, not in the bathroom. There’s a mirror nearby, but you have to move a big table to get close enough to use it. The TVs are small, and the visible screen area is even smaller. There’s no way to access the display menu to adjust the settings.

Mayo is perfectly located for this hotel, but the rooms are dark, dated, and poorly cleaned. There’s no coffee pot in the rooms, despite what the website says. The towels are barely bigger than hand towels, so bring your own. The sheets didn’t cover the mattress, and there were no fitted sheets, so we slept on a scratchy surface. For five days running, the beds weren’t made, even though we repeatedly told the front desk. The rooms weren’t cleaned all week either, housekeeping only left clean towels. The night desk guys struggled to answer the phone, and when you walked in they wouldn’t speak to you or look up from their phones. It felt like the owner or management didn’t care about the property.

We were prepared to make compromises when we booked Fifth Ave. Inn and Suites as a value hotel for appointments with specialists at the nearby Mayo Clinic. Instead, we found our go-to place for future surgery and follow-up visits. We stayed close enough to walk the five minutes to Mayo, even borrowing one of the Mayo Clinic wheelchairs from the hotel entrance. There were shuttles too. Several familiar restaurants were a mile away, with distinctive downtown restaurants and shopping just blocks away. Our spacious room had a king bed, recliner, microwave, and refrigerator. The carpet, chair, and everything else were clean, and the room was very comfortable. The staff were friendly too.