Madison Taipei, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel — Attraction in Taipei

Tldr; best located hotel, lovely staff including the delivery robot. Oasis room is best. Serious HVAC concerns related to our health/ well being.

The Good

I love the Madison hotel here in Taipei. I can’t think of a better located hotel than this particular hotel. Away from the chaotic Xinyi district but still not too far. 5-6min Uber. I have even had a nice run to 101 from Madison. And there is so much to do in the area of Daan, my favorite district. The convenience of everything/ everywhere is the key to this hotel.

My family and I have basically lived part time at the Madison every year since 2021. I love the staff here. Especially our usual cleaning staff. Our go to member knows exactly how we like our room. We also love the delivery robot! So clutch and great amenity for the guests here. Also with 2 young kids, the bed is big enough for us all! Their king bed which is like 2x full/ queens beds combined can probably make Shaq happy. We usually request a crib but now our 2nd has officially outgrown cribs, and hates being in them.

Also the Oasis 08 stack is the best room because of the large layout. Other rooms waste space with narrow entryways, awkward semi walled rooms etc but the Oasis rooms are basically just one large rectangle.

Big bathroom/ shower tub combo

Parking space available.

The Bad:

The breakfast here is okay but there is just better food outside of the hotel. It’s Taiwan! Go enjoy! No comment on their restaurant, never tried it.

Their gym is sad. I don’t even bother. I rather run and explore Taipei vs their treadmill. And 2 short blocks away is Fit Plant Gym which is literally Gym Heaven! Every machine you can imagine, and it never gets crowded!

No pool/ sauna.

Why do the rooms face Dunhua street? Huge miss not having them face with a 101 view the other way.

Cost has gone up per night.

The Ugly:

Us as a family would honestly keep staying here and continue to make this our home base in Taiwan. But our recent stay has let us question the building’s integrity and maintenance.

Maybe its the recent room we stayed in 1008 oasis stack. But literally everyone in our family and anyone who visited and stayed over a few hours has gotten very sick. Something is up with this building. We stayed here in late Spring after their major earthquake and noticed a lot of cracks on the ceiling and the walls. At that time okay gotta give them to repair. We have now stayed at Madison all of November and it is still the same cracks with no repairs done.

Also back in April, my daughter had a severe allergic reaction to this hotel and a particular room. Had to go to ER. We consider this maybe a one off as she is sensitive to dust, but that’s what this hotel has so much of.

Fast forward to November and everyone kept dropping like flies. Everyone caught a mysterious throat inflammation where we all cough very hard and uncontrollably and also had mucus built up. No fever, no common cold sickness. Just sinus and throat. And just wouldn’t go away. At first we thought there was a bug going on around Taipei. But everyone in our family got hit. And anyone who visited our room for at least an hour also ended having sinus issues.

We couldn’t blame the hotel just yet, but we left 12/2 to go to Bali for a family vacation. It was in Bali where we all magically got better. And now that we are back in Taipei to finish the rest of the family trip, in a different hotel, we haven’t had issues.

So now this goes back on Madison. Something is wrong with the HVAC of this building. Also if you look at any of the rooms, why on earth are there so many air vents!? It’s literally all around the ceiling of the room and the bathroom. I poked a swab into the vents and came back with dark grey dusts which means they have not been maintaining the HVAC very well. It is now has gotten to the point where people are getting sick.

I hope management reads this and takes this seriously. Luckily we were fortunate to book our December stay at another hotel. We have had no health issues. Would love to come back but don’t want to...

I recommended the Madison to my visiting family initially because of the central location and what seemed on the surface to be a luxury hotel. My dad had been thinking of going to the W or Hyatt, but the Madison is closer to where I’m staying; so I figured the Madison would be more convenient overall.

Where to begin. First off, the attitudes of the Front Desk is amateurish at best. Whenever I would walk into the hotel, I would be eyed up and down. I of course thought I was just being paranoid, but multiple friends I had invited to visit my family at the hotel had the same awkward experience. Just smile, or don’t stare, it’s really not hard.

I asked the Front Desk to call us a cab to go to the zoo. They seemed to not understand what I meant and after 10 minutes of waiting I just grabbed some from the street. It’s not hard to dial a taxi hotline number.

My sister’s room on the second stint had no heating and was freezing cold. Rather than offering a new room or a discount or something, they put in a space heater. If you’re gonna give us a pathetic space heater, give us drink coupons to warm up another way. This isn’t supposed to be a Best Western.

My dad, my girlfriend, and I went to the hotel bar on New Years Eve to have a drink before dinner. They were putting on some event, but it hadn’t started yet. We simply asked to be seated at the bar and served a quick drink. We were the only customers at the time. They put three stools at the bar and we took our seats. 5 minutes later, still no bartender or menus. 10 minutes later, a bartender walked over, cleaned some glasses, and walked off. 15 minutes later, we walked off disgusted. They asked my dad why we were leaving and if there was a problem. My dad doesn’t speak Mandarin and informed them in English that we were staying at the hotel, that we were given no service, and the entire experience was unacceptable. The staff couldn’t understand, so my dad resorted to giving a thumbs down motion before leaving. This was met with a staff member trying to fist-bump my 60-something year old father in response….

I thought a thumbs down motion indicated bad things, but I guess not. I’m not lying about any of this.

So, he was a bit upset and I recommended he email the manager or whoever was in charge of things. I drafted a quick email and we went to dinner. The response was completely tepid. It promised better training and other assorted nothings. This disappointed me more than anything, because I was expecting famous Taiwanese hospitality and service, and ultimately something to turn our stay around. Maybe something personalized, some kind of feeling that a real person was listening to our complaints. Instead, just a robot response. Further, I felt genuinely bad I recommended this place to my family. There are so many great hotels in Taipei, and I sent them here?

Now, obviously, relatively speaking these are small things. In the grand scheme of things, at least we have a roof over our heads and a mediocre hotel breakfast every morning. But at the same price, you can stay at a variety of other fine hotels. If you want to stay in the same area, I highly recommend the Eclat hotel. It is directly across the street from the Madison, my family stayed their last time and they loved it. Closer to 101, you can’t go wrong with the W, or the Hyatt. These are all in a similar price range and I have experienced nothing but great service from all of them. There are also of course Marriott, Radisson, and other large chain hotel offerings. Lastly, there are tons of well-run and awesome Japanese hotels throughout Taipei.

So, in sum, avoid this hotel, don’t bother with the restaurant, the bar is garbage compared to other great ones around the neighborhood (R&D is down the street and great, and the W hotel bar is great, to name a few), the rooms are okay but not incredible, the service is not good bordering on terrible and snooty at times, and you’re paying a relatively high price for all of this given the excellent alternatives. Pass hard on this...

We stayed first for 1 night, and then 4 nights.

Rooms are spacious and very comfortable. I want to point out though the bathrobe that was provided. It was probably the most luxurious and comfy bathrobe ever.

Location wise, excellent. There's a family mart right behind the hotel. Plenty of breakfast places around you within 5 mins walk and great coffee nearby (Congrats Cafe) and also bars at night. Not too far from MRT stations as well.

We only did buffet breakfast once. It was good for once but I personally would skip breakfast and just go to the local Taiwanese breakfast places for far less money.

I want to specifically point out the impeccable customer service at this hotel. I've had a few less than usual requests and they took it on with zero fuss.

Change of beddings. My husband is allergic to feathers. They made sure to change all bedding to pure cotton upon request. There were a few places that straight up didn't even bother. There was something I needed to buy in Taiwan. Unfortunately, there wasn't a physical store and all online but it's zero delivery fee if delivered within Taiwan. So I asked the hotel if they could receive my package, likely arriving before I check-in. They said no problem. First time, not sure what happened, they couldn't find me on the system so it was rejected. I called them again and they noted down everything again, pointed out that maybe it's because their online booking system changes the confirmation # when it enters the hotel's system and took note of everything and the second attempt was successful. When I checked in, my package was already in my room We were travelling to Yilan for a night and I asked if I could leave my larger bags at the hotel to pick up the next day and they were happy to do that I asked for a scale to weigh our bags. They provided it no problem. I also asked for scissors and masking tape for packing and they also provided it no problem They sent me an email after I checked out to notify me that I've left something in the room (we didn't need it anymore tbh) and provided options to ship it back to me

Anyways, all in all, the attention to detail in the customer service they've provided is unlike any other hotels we've been in....