Graduate by Hilton New Haven — Hotel in New Haven

Let's get this out of the way: the hotel has a nice vibe with friendly staff and it's very clean. Three really important things I look for in a hotel.||As a Hilton Diamond member, I prioritize staying at Hilton properties. In past visits to New Haven, I stayed at The Study (right next door to The Graduate). I won't be staying at The Graduate again and here's why:||The building is cute and definitely vintage. Think of a place where your grandparents would have stayed when bringing your parents to college way back in the day. However, in updating the rooms and building, the developers and designers made a few poor decisions. The flooring on the fifth floor is janky and sloping. I felt like I was on a ship in the middle of a storm, as the floor was so uneven and sloping, it was near disorienting. And it's not subtle. It's quite extreme when considering modern building construction. ||The suite I was "upgraded" to was nothing more than a single room with the most uncomfortable wing-back chair and couch I have ever sat on. But to make matters worse, there was absolutely no power available at the desk. None! The two available plugs were tucked-in behind the desk and both in use. I had to plug in my laptop and phone on the nightstand. And with the plugs built into the side of the nightstand, any movement of the pillow would knock the laptop power plug onto the floor. People, it's 2025!!! Multi-plug stations at desks are a must. We all travel with laptops, tablets and phones to plug in. ||Most importantly, the room doors on the floor were not level, leaving an inch-plus gap at the bottom. Personally, this is a HUGE safety concern. Thinking of solo female travellers (of which I am not one), I would not want my wife or daughters in a room where people can see their presence through the space at the bottom of the door. Regardless of modest privacy, one can clearly see if the lights are on or off in the room, and even see the feet of people walking in the room, if they happen to pass by the door. I noticed this when I checked-out this morning, seeing someone behind the door at the end of the hall. Major issue, IMO. ||The WiFi in the room was decent, but down in the lobby (a really enjoyable place to people watch!) where I chose to work was abhorrent. See the SpeedTest in the image attached, which shows a download speed of 8 Mbps. Again, it's 2025!!! Enough said. ||In closing: Nice and clean hotel with friendly staff, but the issues above are red flags. It's back to The...

We visited New Haven primarily to try this hotel after reading so many great reviews about it. However, and after a 4-hour exhausting drive, we got there and were told that there was no reservation with our names, despite having called the day before to confirm. That was very weird especially that we had reserved our room through their website, had called twice to confirm and we had a confirmation email from them sent just one day before.

Initially, the front desk employee told us there might be an issue with the system and that she cannot check us in if the system doesn't show our names. She then suggested that they help us book a room in a different hotel. After we refused and asked her to check again with the reservations department, she did and was told that there is indeed a reservation for us. She then explained that there is an issue with the reservations system and that some reservations aren't getting through to them. After more than a hour of us waiting in the lobby, she offered to give us the only available room (as they had double booked our King room) with two double beds, and a free coffee the next morning.

While we did love the hotel (which is exactly like the pictures, to be fair),

1. The issue took an hour and a half to resolve and had we agreed to go to a different hotel, the front desk employee wouldn't have even called reservations to check if we really had a reservation or not.
2. It is unacceptable that a reservation booked through a hotel's website does not get to the hotel. This was not a reservation through a third-party.
3. A free coffee or a free beer or suggesting to reduce the rate after a wait of more than 1.5 hours in the lobby with our bags does not make up for the uncomfortable situation we were put in after an exhausting day.

For a hotel that is this beautiful, in a location this ideal (and for a rate of 270$ per night), your reservations system needs to be fixed and your customer service should be better. I expected so much more...

Stay somewhere else. Furniture is broken (legs broken on chair so unusable), a toenail was found on the first day on the carpet, and deep stains are evident throughout the room. We requested a working chair but never received a response (chair remained broken). Was told we would receive a call by management the day after checkout but had to call almost two weeks after the fact at which time management threatened us by email with claims of photos of our room and belongings taken without our consent, claiming we had left the room in disarray every day. Simply not true and never once mentioned throughout our weeklong stay. Not sure if this was said just to scare us, but either way it's horrifying that a hotel would threaten us with photos of our personal things. ||They also claimed the chair wasn't fixed because we had the do not disturb sign on....but our room was cleaned every day. Thus, this "explanation" for a broken chair isn't true.  This all seemed like a cover-up (over a broken chair). Major red flags. I'm not saying this will be everyone's experience, but if this is how a hotel handles minor issues---to accuse guests of damage/dirt with claims of unconsented photos---it is a major cause for concern. ||Never experienced such an inappropriate response, claims, and threats by management. For a fairly new hotel, this was beyond disappointing. We simply asked for a working chair. The response demonstrates something fishy because we were met with disgusting accusations only mentioned several days after our stay for a fairly easy-to-fix complaint. If you care for your safety, avoid. There are better options very close. ||New Haven has consistently been a rude, prejudiced, and unsafe place to visit and sadly our experience at this hotel only adds to this sentiment. Previous reviews also mention poor management. I should have listened.||Other issue: A/C barely works so the room and everything in it (including our own...