Every December we get the same phone call: “We want to do the Christmas lights thing — but which trolley do we book?” Fair question, because Minneapolis Trolley Tours runs two Holiday Light Rides, and they are genuinely different evenings. One ends with kids asleep in the back seat on the way home. The other ends with your coworkers singing. Here is how to tell which one is yours.
The short answer
Santa’s NICE Ride is the all-ages one: about an hour, families welcome, holiday market before and after, from $30. The NAUGHTY Holiday Party Ride is 21+, runs about two hours, is BYOB, and starts from $75. Same heated vintage trolley, same city full of lights, completely different vibe.
Santa’s NICE Ride: the all-ages one
This is the family tradition ride. One hour, Christmas music, festive narration, and a guide who actually knows which blocks went overboard this year. The best part is a small competitive streak we did not plan for: guests vote for their favorite decorated house along the route, and the voting gets surprisingly heated for a trolley full of eight-year-olds and grandparents.
Before or after, you have the run of the Pillsbury Club Holiday Market — handmade gifts from more than 50 Minnesota artists, which is a much better souvenir than whatever you were going to panic-buy on December 23rd. If you are travelling with small kids specifically, we went deeper on that in our guide to the holiday lights tour with kids, and there are more ideas on our best Minneapolis family activities list.
The NAUGHTY Holiday Party Ride: 21+ only
Leave the kids at home. This one is part lights tour, part rolling holiday party — two hours, adults only, and the energy is closer to a great office party than a sightseeing trip. It has quietly become the default booking for date nights, girls’ nights, and the work holiday thing nobody wants to hold in a conference room. If you are organising for a group, we broke down the logistics in our holiday lights trolley guide for groups and office parties.
What “BYOB” actually means here
This is where we differ from the other BYOB light tours in town, and it is worth being blunt about it. Most of them check you in at a bar or a parking lot, which means you are hauling a cooler down a sidewalk in December, hoping there is somewhere to put it.
On the NAUGHTY ride you bring your drinks straight onto the heated trolley. No cooler relay, no meeting a stranger outside a bar, no standing in the cold while someone checks a list. You walk into a restored 1913 mansion, you have a cocktail if you want one, and then you board. That is the whole difference, and it is most of the reason people rebook.
Where the night starts: a mansion, not a parking lot
Both rides begin inside the Pillsbury Club, the Charles S. Pillsbury mansion at 100 East 22nd Street. Come early. There is a speakeasy-style bar, dinner and appetizers, the holiday market, and a lot of oak panelling that looks extremely good with garland on it. Free parking sits just across the street, which in December is its own kind of gift.
Guests tell us the mansion ends up being one of their favourite parts of the evening, which is a slightly awkward thing to hear about the part before the tour, but we will take it. If you want to make a full night of it, our best Minneapolis date ideas and best cocktail bars lists pair well with either ride.
What you will actually see
Routes shift through the season, because displays do. Depending on the night you may roll past big residential displays, decorated historic blocks, downtown Minneapolis lights, and a good share of the Twin Cities’ most photographed decorations. Nobody is promising an identical ride twice — that is a feature.
If you also want to do some looking on your own, the Armatage / Kenny Holiday Lights Tour in southwest Minneapolis is a self-guided neighbourhood tradition with its own map and set evening hours — check their page for this year’s dates. Meet Minneapolis also keeps a running roundup of the season’s light events. One note if you are working from an old list: the long-running Holidazzle festival has been retired and folded into a broader winter campaign, so do not plan your evening around it.
What to bring
- For the NAUGHTY ride: your drinks, and ID. The trolley is heated, so you are not packing for a sleigh ride.
- For the NICE ride: a camera, and a little cash or a card for the market.
- For both: a coat you can actually get on and off, because the mansion is warm and the trolley is warmer than you expect.
So which one?
If anyone in the party is under 21, book NICE. If the point of the evening is the evening — not just the lights — book NAUGHTY. And if you are coming in from out of town, the mansion district around Loring Park is a genuinely good place to sleep: 300 Clifton is a historic bed and breakfast a few minutes away, and Oakland’s on 9th works if you need something longer and downtown.
December fills up fast and both rides sell out. Book your Holiday Light Ride here, or call us at (612) 900-3220 and we will talk you into the right one.
Keep reading: What to Do in Minneapolis in November 2026