Merry Main Street

I moved to the Mesa not too long ago and have been getting to know the area. Merry Main Street is their annual holiday event that includes several activities that take place up and down Main Street in Downtown Mesa. Merry Main Street goes on throughout the month of December. Many activities in Downtown Mesa include an outdoor ice skating rink, pictures with Santa, the Temple lights, outdoor movies, live music and a market. In the center of the main plaza is a large Christmas tree. You can check out the schedule and hours of these activities on the Downtown Mesa website. The Valley Metro light rail runs through Downtown Mesa. On the weekends, the fare is free to ride the light rail between Country Club Dr. and Gilbert Rd. They call it Mesa's Merry Main Express and it gives people a chance to partake in many of the activities on Main St. without having to walk far. I love ice skating this time of year and we enjoyed skating the ice rink. I think it is way more affordable and less hassle than some of the other pop-up rinks around the Valley.

While visiting family in Phoenix for New Year's, my 3 year old wanted to ice skate! Found this small outdoor ice skating ring in downtown Mesa. There is a small parking lot behind the skating ring. Parking was free. We visited on 12/30/23. I purchased tickets the day before, which I highly recommend. Tickets were $10/person. Upon arrival, they had a stand by line and a pre-purchased ticket line. There were a lot of people waiting in standby, as tickets for this day were sold out. Tickets are only needed for ice skating. There is lots of room for family/friends to watch and hangout while you skate. After checking in, we were given tickets that we exchanged for skates. They only had hockey style skates. Note, the small size skate is an 8T (toddler). So if your toddler has a smaller foot they give them foot skates, which attach to the bottom of kid shoes. There was plenty of seating to sit and put shoes on. We went with family so they held onto our shoes, otherwise you would have to rent a locker to keep items in. Next to the skate checkout stand were ice skating assists (plastic walkers for young kids, see pic). These were an additional $5 to rent, WORTH IT! There were several employees constantly brushing the ice. On this particular day the sun was warm and the ice was melting a bit, so they had to keep brushing the water, but this didn't interfere with our skating. We enjoyed the ice skating. Cheap and fun family outing. There was an AT&T pop up tent nearby so we checked out the booth where my kids got to jump in the snow globe! So fun! There was one dessert food truck also, and I saw online that they had other trucks coming and other fun events. Definitely worth checking out!