December 28, 2018

Baby, you can drive my car.

Beep beep’m beep beep, yeah!

For December’s blog post, I am going to move away from food, drink, and other convention fun and focus on how to get around town.

Most attendees will fly into the Gerald R. Ford International Airport just outside of Grand Rapids. From there, you have two options to get to the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel. Metro Cab is the official taxi service for the airport. They charge a flat $33 per car for a ride to the hotel, and they do not charge for extra passengers. If you can fit two or three into a cab, this can prove quite economical. Your second option is to use Uber^®or Lyft^®. These rides can cost between $22 – $25 per trip, depending on the time of day. Taxi pick up is located at the curb in front of the terminal; Uber^®and Lyft^®pick up is the next lane out, the commercial lane.

What I do not recommend is renting a car. You will not need one.

Most places you may want to visit in downtown Grand Rapids—the restaurants, the brewpubs, the museums and other attractions—are within walking distance. I have walked from the hotel to Founders Brewpub in less than fifteen minutes, and that’s about as far out as you are likely to go. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, you can use the Downtown Area Shuttle Service, or DASH.

DASH is a free, hop on-hop off shuttle service that runs from 6:30 am to 10:30 pm on Wednesday, 6:30 am to 1:00 am Thursday and Friday, and 10:00 am to 1:00 am Saturday. DASH has a stop just outside the hotel lobby on the corner of Pearl and Monroe. A DASH bus—you can recognize them from their vivid pink color—stops every eight or so minutes. DASH has an east-west service and a north-south service. As an example, the north-south line takes you as far south as the Downtown Marketplace (very cool and well worth the visit), which is located one block from Founders. This free ride will save you about twenty or so minutes of walking, round-trip, if you decide to visit that famous brewpub. I strongly suggest you familiarize yourself with this service by visiting their website http://downtowngr.org/get/dash.

If you want to venture farther out, perhaps to Brewery Vivant (located in an old funeral parlor and home to some of Grand Rapids’ best brews), you can still utilize Uber^®or Lyft^®. 

This is why I recommend against renting a car. By either walking, hopping aboard the free shuttle, or hitting the ride-sharing service, you can easily and economically get anywhere you want during the visit to Grand Rapids.

StokerCon™ 2019 is quickly approaching. I hope to see you all soon!