Red Arrow Park

Free ice skating!!! (If you bring your own skates)
Lockers are $ 2 and they take your ID until you are finished.
Cute little rink in the middle of downtown. Plenty of people to watch me do all of my hard earned tricks. Starbucks attached to warm up (fireplace included)
This place is winning.
Only bad part is parking but isn’t that everywhere downtown?

The ice-​skating here is fun and the rink is small but cute. It’s always crowded so expect a line for skates, but I’ve found it moves quickly. Skate rental runs $ 8/​pair for adults, but you can skate on the rink for free if you bring your own.
My main complaint with this place is how rough the ice gets. They zamboni the ice once every… hour or hour and a half? Its not enough and you end up skating on what feels like the surface of the moon. After a while, you don’t really skate, you just kinda stomp awkwardly with no forward momentum. If you’re looking for a smooth and well-​maintained ice rink, I’d recommend checking out the Pettit National Ice Center (although you’d lose the charm of this rink, which is especially beautiful around Christmas when twinkle lights are strung on nearby trees).
Pro-​tip: If you get tired of dealing with the throngs of teenagers here on dates (even though you’re probably on a date but c’mon, you’re an adult and far less obnoxious about it!) you’ll be stumbling distance to plenty of great bars.

Had a great time ice skating! It was just my price… Free! (If you bring your own ice skates!)

Red arrow park recently became national news. I used to associate this with red arrow infantry division active in WW1 and WW2. Soldiers were from state of Wi and Mi. The parking not very convenient. It’s a small urban park. With not much to do here. facilities are close to Starbucks they have a skating rink. This park made the news earlier this year. Some kind of shooting incident. They take parking seriously. Pay your meter or you can pay a ticket to your favorite city. My only suggestion is please be respectful and be yourself. Unless you’re an ass hat then be someone else. Come and protest peacefully. And stay off the road it’s for your safety. Also be aware they have video surveillance so mind your manners.
We had an UYE here when mobile Sprecher biergarten was here and someone bumped my truck Thx ass hat! You suck!
¹¹⁰⁄₂₀₁₄

I love Red Arrow Park. Yes, it is tiny. Yes the ice skating rink is only open when it is cold. But, there are lots of awesome things that take place in Red Arrow throughout the year. There’s Downtown Employee Appreciation week, Starbucks, assorted food trucks on Fridays in the summer, prime people watching and now the mobile Beer Garden. I am not a beer drinker at all. I know. shame on this hometown gal. However my co-​workers wooed me over to a bench table and from there I had a pint of Sprecher Abbey Triple. This beer was described as light and fruity. It was light, but I did not get the fruit notes in the taste at all. I am not sure if I can leave my wine to play around with beer just yet. But I’ll give it another shot in the near future. Overall, i enjoyed my first beer garden experience.

There are more pot holes at this ice skating rink than a street in mid town Manhattan. I truly wonder when was the last time they gave it a fresh coat of ice. If I didn’t almost brake my neck I would have less complaints. The service at the skate rental was on point, and to use the rink its free.

Recommendation: Go when the rink opens in the am & bring your own skates. Skating for free (come on…) That’s my advice, and you should have nice time. Don’t expect a pro rink (My husband was a longtime hockey player). The rental cost for skates is pricey, lines long, skates crappy. You can get used skates at Play It Again Sports for kids, for under $ 15. My husband & I went with our 3 & 4 year old on a weekday and a weekend. Arrived shortly after the rink opened. We brought our own skates the second time! Both visits there were mostly families with kids that were well behaved, in attendance. We had no problems, people were attending to their children and being considerate of others. Bring your own skates… So worth it!!! Now we can swing by anytime the rink is open and skate for as long or as short as we like… guilt free!!!

For an outdoor city rink, this is a great place to skate! It does have that magical Christmas feel, but can be super busy. Still, my winters are not complete without skating here at least once!
There is a small rental shop with skates and lockers to rent (for a fee); the building is shared with a small Starbucks. The rink is well maintained by a zamboni and they seem to do a good job. Parking can be found in the surrounding streets, usually not too hard to find.

It’s not quite the same in July, but that’s when I’m here so that’s when I’ll review.
Under the tall buildings in downtown, this small block of green space is a great spot to enjoy your lunch or perhaps bring your coffee from the nearby Starbucks. You can lean against the railing that surrounds the ice rink and imagine what it will be like in a couple of months when the snow is on the ground, your summer clothes are back in the attic and there’s some actual ice in the ice rink.
Until then, enjoy the warm weather and the green grass.

This USED to be a fun spot to go ice skating in the winter. I went with a friend last night & she needed to rent skates (I have my own). We waited in line for 50 minutes to rent skates. FIFTY MINUTES! Ridiculous!
The people working at the skate rental counter were all extremely rude and couldn’t have seemed less enthused to be working there. My favorite employee, however, would have to be the woman with the giant hickey on her neck! Nothing says professionalism like a hickey!
Also, someone needs to be out policing the rink — there were people doing all sorts of shenanigans out there that was making it an unsafe environment for other skaters. They also have these 5 gallon buckets now — which you would think would be for the little kids who are learning to skate, but instead adults and teenagers were using them to do tricks & push each other around on. The buckets also really do a number on the ice — creating excess shavings and ridges everywhere.
Skip it — and go to Wilson, Eble, or the Pettit!

This park is so small that it took years for me to even realize it qualified as a park. The skating rink is a nice touch in the winter and Starbucks keeps the people who work nearby happy and caffienated.

If you’re looking to have that magical Christmas feeling, head on down to Milwaukee’s Red Arrow Park Ice skating rink.
The park itself is snuggled into Milwaukee’s downtown and lend’s itself to be Milwaukee’s ‘blue collar’ version of Madison Square Garden, complete with beautiful landscaping and an excellent ice rink. The ice rink is really the main attraction, being tended to lovingly by the good ‘ol Starbucks Zambonie every couple of hours. Consequently, the quality of ice is excellent. The rink isn’t too big, so it can get crowded easily, and tends to get bombarded with families with very little kids, so if the combination of steel blades, lack of balance and toddlers freaks you out, it’s probably best to hit it up on the off hours.
One major tip is to bring your own skates… because it’s free! Otherwise, crappy-​looking dull skates can be rented for $ 7 and lockers for $ 2. Speaking of which, the warming shelter is nice, equipped with a fireplace and a Starbucks. Yeah, surprise, surprise, a Starbucks. How the hell did Starbucks land that contract in a city with about 20 independent coffee roasters? I digress.
Don’t worry about the weather, the rink is equipped with an underground cooling unit, making the ice frozen in temps up to 50 degrees. Good old fashioned fun that won’t cost you a dime.