Graduate by Hilton Columbia, S.C. — Attraction in Columbia

The hotel itself presents as very fun and it is decorated very nicely. The details is where this hotel fails. My daughter and I checked in on Friday for a bridal shower we were helping with and attending on Saturday. My daughter had her own reservation (or so she thought, she had her own confirmation number) under her own name for one night. When I checked in they gave me her reservation and her mine...that started a series of mishaps that the hotel could not seem to get straight. I was supposed to be in a king room for two nights but they gave me her double queen room for one night. We were supposed to be close together (something we confirmed the day before) and we were on different floors. We went back down to the desk and they switched it for us but they still have me the double queens and her the King. And the rooms were a block apart. Back down we went to the desk and they told us they corrected it but on Saturday I was locked out of my room and they had to work through it again. When we got home my daughter had three pending charges on her credit card and I had two on mine and not for small amounts. When I finally got in my room there was garbage left in the trash can from the last guest and zero water in the refrigerator even though the sign on the frig said there was complimentary water for the guests. It was late at night and I had to go all the way down to the desk to find water. When I spoke with the hotel they offered a very weak apology and nothing else. The manager was not available (again) and the supervisor I spoke with didn't seem to be concerned with the series of failures we were put through. We spent the entire evening setting up in their event space for the bridal shower and the room was set up incorrectly so we had to move all the furniture on our own...the person that worked for the hotel that takes care of that had gone home for the evening. The event space was dirty and we ended up cleaning it ourselves. When my daughter, who is the maid of honor and was working with the mother of the bride for the shower, voiced her concerns to the person she was to work with at the hotel, Tyler, he didn't bother to call her, he high-lighted in red his excuses and no apologies for the state of the room - very poor service recovery on an email. He said that he didn't know we were setting up on Friday night even thought the event specialist for the hotel, Krystie told my daughter that we could set up the night before. They told us the wrong size tables so the table cloths we bought were too long and we were concerned people would trip on them. The room was so dirty we ended up cleaning the counters and wiping down the front of the cabinets as there was coffee and tea spilled down the front of the cabinets. My daughter ended up vacuuming the entire space - again - Tyler argued that it was a mess we created so ..... really, paying a large sum of money to use the space and no one is on site to help with the event. So basically, we paid them to clean their space. You need a fair amount of time to set up there as they don't offer table cloths, silverware or the basic things that most event spaces have available - we had to bring it all. When the event was over we bussed all the tables cleaning up all the dirty plates, cups and serving platers. It seems like there is a disconnect between Krystie and Tyler. Tyler's arguing with paying customers is just poor customer service. You might think that this doesn't matter to your business but over time if things continue to be this difficult for your paying customers word will get out. A simple apology goes a long way. Arguing as to why you are right and it is okay to cause your paying customers to run all over the hotel trying to fix their reservations and getting them incorrect time after time after time and then offering them zero for their wasted time and energy is very poor service recovery. We will be traveling back to the area for the wedding in the spring and we will not be staying with The Graduate Hotel. What a...

This was the worst experience I’ve ever had at any hotel in my life. I had picked this place when they were in the middle of the remodel for my wedding party. That part was fine since it turned out nice and everything looked great. However we booked a room block for my whole party through the sales representative named Carrie. She confirmed with us 2 months prior that my party could all book and check in just using one card since I wanted to pay for my party. She never responded to anyone in my wedding party to book a room in the block so I had to book them all. Except one because she booked though the hotel and not Carrie, so I asked them to move her to my block but they had already saved her card info. Then the week before she says that the full amount has to be there to place a hold on the card when we check in. Not only that she also told us we won’t be able to check everyone in on one card because the bank will see it as fraud and decline the holds. We then had to spilt it between 3 cards and they checked them all on the wrong cards we asked. They had all the rooms and card info so messed up we just had them pre check everyone in on Friday October 25. Later that night we get to the hotel and realized they had already charged us for ALL OF THE ROOMS. It was not a hold at all plus the one that booked through the hotel got charged on her own card even tho she wasn’t checking in til the next morning. Plus when one of my other bridesmaids went to go get a key for her room they tried to charge her again when all the rooms had already been charged. My fiancé had been there earlier to get our room key he took one and left the other at the front desk for me to pick up when I went there that night, and they had lost it and had to give me a new key. We were at the front desk asking Miss Kimberly who was working the desk that night what went wrong. We asked her to call Carrie since we could not get a hold of her and when she finally gets Carrie on the phone she refused to speak to me directly. I never received an apology from her and she never got in contact with me at all since then. The day of my wedding when I was coming down the staircase getting photos done by my photographer, some employee working there wearing the hotel logo, was continuously taking photos of me without my permission and proceeded to tell my family he was going to use it as advertisement on social media for the hotel. That same employee also proceeded to tell my sister to “relax her day will come” when she was getting everyone together for photos and she is already married. Finally when my bridesmaids all went to check out on Monday October 28 hey realized that the rooms had not been clean thoroughly, for their skin was all breaking out from the dirt on the bedsheets and they saw black marks...

If I could rate no stars I would. Upon checking in everything was fine. Until my husband got the parking pass to put on the car. He went outside to place it in the car while I sat on the chair in lobby. That’s when I heard the front desk receptionist on her phone talking about me and him, she assumed I went to the room. Because as soon as he walked back in. She stopped talking, that’s when I got up and told her to finish what she was saying because I heard everything. That’s when it all turned verbally confrontational. She came front behind the desk through a side door at at this point I was ready to fight because of what she was saying. I explained to her it’s not what you do but how you choose to do things, and being on someone job and in the hospitality business that's something you should save for when you get home if you want to talk to your boyfriend about guest. This was the day after Christmas and my husband just wanted to do something special for me and get me out the house because this past week and Christmas Day was hard with 2 death in my family. I asked her can I speak to a manager, she stated they was all out of town and she is the supervisor. Then to add insult to injury she had the nerve to call me her sister and say we are the same meaning skin color, but so what even if we both black that’s still sad cause it’s your own kind who act like she did. So packing and coming here and only staying 20 minutes we asked for a refund and proceeded black to...