Do you need a car when visiting Mall of America?

Here's a question I have seen a lot when it comes to Mall of America.  Do you need a car when visiting Mall of America?

The answer is no, but you should keep a few things in mind.  You can easily access Mall of America by metro.  The metro also connects to the airport, train and bus stations.  So I would recommend staying at a hotel that is by a metro station.  The metro provides decent service (about every 10 minutes) 7 days a week. Alternatively you could also pick out a hotel that is near a bus route.

An even simpler option is to stay at the Radisson located at the Mall of America.  Also there is another Radisson which contains the Water Park of America and offers good shuttle service to the Mall of America.
Be careful though with hotels that claim to offer shuttle service.  We made the mistake of staying at the Four Points By Sheraton Minneapolis Airport.  While they claim on their website to offer 24 hour shuttle service when we were there we experienced anything but 24 hour shuttle service.  They only made one trip to Mall of America every 2 hours and didn't even offer this all day and night.  Despite our complaint about this, they are still advertising a "free 24 hour shuttle", which I seriously doubt they are now providing.  I would not recommend staying at the Four Points by Sheraton Minneapolis Airport.