Graduate by Hilton Princeton — Hotel in Princeton

We stayed here Sunday to Tuesday in April 2025. We booked a King room and were excited to have a new hotel in town to try out after many stays at the Nassau Inn and the Peacock Inn.

I concur with prior reviewers about the strangeness of some of the decor choices. For example, the furniture in our room has fake drawers that do not open.

We also suffered from the HVAC system shutting itself off on its own. Both nights around 2am the air conditioner, which we set at 67 for sleeping, shut off. The room then heated up to 75 on its own and we both woke up too hot to sleep both nights at 3am. We had to get out of bed and turn the system back on manually both nights to get the room cooled down enough to sleep.

We had a poor check in experience. We arrived at 1pm and I had noted in the Hilton app that the rate available today was lower than the rate we had prebooked. The front desk agent refused to adjust our rate to the current rate - I have done this so many times before and have never had a problem - saying they cannot do so and that if we canceled our reservation to rebook the current rate, we would be billed for one night of the old reservation in addition to the new charges. Then the agent told us that there was a $50 early check in up charge because we had arrived before 4:00 p.m. and our choice was to wait for 3 hours to check in or to pay an extra $50 to be able to get into our room which was already ready. I asked them to waive the early check in upcharge and they said no they were not able to do so.

When we got to our room on the 5th floor, it was tiny. There's no room for our suitcases, and the closet is so small there is no room to hang full length clothing. We literally have to step over our suitcases to get into the bed.

I called down to the front desk and asked them if they had any larger room available and they told us that all of the king rooms were exactly the same size and the only option was to pay an extra $500 a night to upgrade to a suite.

All of the rooms being the same size doesn't match the pictures of the hotel layout that I can see on the back of our door, but at this point I was not in a mood to argue with them as we tired from traveling and at this point everything that I asked them for was met with an answer of "no" so it seemed as if there was no point.

On the positive side, the public spaces are nice and as with the other Graduate properties that we've stayed at, someone clearly spends a lot of time trying to customize the property to the local college look and feel.

When we arrived, the main lobby seating was full of what I assume are Princeton students taking advantage of the Wi-Fi, so there was not really any room for hotel guests to hang out.

We appreciated our room key which looked like Brooke Shields' Princeton student ID.

I went downstairs to the health club, which is in the basement and which is accessed via a separate small industrial elevator hidden next to the bar not the regular hotel elevators, and the workout room was large with an industrial feel and with several treadmills and a few weight machines but there is no steam room or sauna or jacuzzi tub or showers which is what I was really hoping for.

So all in all I would say that it's nice to have an alternative to the other two hotels here in Princeton and hopefully more competition in Princeton will help all of them raise their game. Just be prepared for very small rooms and pack accordingly.

Updated: so strange the Hilton social media team pastes in the same generic reply to every review. Do they actually share these reviews with hotel management? Does hotel management look at reviews on their own? I bet not since everyone seems to run into the same issues.

I did go to the link provided by the social media team and I pasted in this review plus my contact info - a week has passed and total silence from this hotel or Hilton despite a promise of 72 hour response time. As other reviewers have posted here, a total...

We stayed here Sunday to Tuesday in April 2025. We booked a King room and were excited to have a new hotel in town to try out after many stays at the Nassau Inn and the Peacock Inn.||I concur with prior reviewers about the strangeness of some of the decor choices. For example, the furniture in our room has fake drawers that do not open.||We also suffered from the HVAC system shutting itself off on its own. Both nights around 2am the air conditioner, which we set at 67 for sleeping, shut off. The room then heated up to 75 on its own and we both woke up too hot to sleep both nights at 3am. We had to get out of bed and turn the system back on manually both nights to get the room cooled down enough to sleep.||We had a poor check in experience. We arrived at 1pm and I had noted in the Hilton app that the rate available today was lower than the rate we had prebooked. The front desk agent refused to adjust our rate to the current rate - I have done this so many times before and have never had a problem - saying they cannot do so and that if we canceled our reservation to rebook the current rate, we would be billed for one night of the old reservation in addition to the new charges. Then the agent told us that there was a $50 early check in up charge because we had arrived before 4:00 p.m. and our choice was to wait for 3 hours to check in or to pay an extra $50 to be able to get into our room which was already ready. I asked them to waive the early check in upcharge and they said no they were not able to do so - a clear lie since another reviewer here has said they were able to check in early with no fee. ||When we got to our room on the 5th floor, it was tiny. There's no room for our suitcases, and the closet is so small there is no room to hang full length clothing. We literally have to step over our suitcases to get into the bed.||I called down to the front desk and asked them if they had any larger room available and they told us that all of the king rooms were exactly the same size and the only option was to pay an extra $500 a night to upgrade to a suite.||All of the rooms being the same size doesn't match the pictures of the hotel layout that I can see on the back of our door, but at this point I was not in a mood to argue with them as we tired from traveling and at this point everything that I asked them for was met with an answer of "no" so it seemed as if there was no point.||On the positive side, the public spaces are nice and as with the other Graduate properties that we've stayed at, someone clearly spends a lot of time trying to customize the property to the local college look and feel.||When we arrived, the main lobby seating was full of what I assume are Princeton students taking advantage of the Wi-Fi, so there was not really any room for hotel guests to hang out.||We appreciated our room key which looked like Brooke Shields' Princeton student ID.||I went downstairs to the health club, which is in the basement and which is accessed via a separate small industrial elevator hidden next to the bar not the regular hotel elevators, and the workout room was large with an industrial feel and with several treadmills and a few weight machines but there is no steam room or sauna or jacuzzi tub or showers which is what I was really hoping for.||So all in all I would say that it's nice to have an alternative to the other two hotels here in Princeton and hopefully more competition in Princeton will help all of them raise their game. Just be prepared for very small rooms and pack...

This hotel may be more of a gimmick than a property that meets basic Hilton standards. I have been a silver, gold or diamond member for more than ten years. I was dismayed by what’s is now acceptable at a Hilton brand. I know this hotel has a captive market but here’s what you are getting yourself into if you stay here. ||• The property uses “smart” thermostats. When I arrived, the room was 76 degrees. After an hour, the tiny room was still 76 degrees. I tried to call the front desk, but dialing 0 left me disconnected. Calling the local number on the Hilton app to try to reach the front desk also ended up in my being disconnected. So I went down to the desk and was told that the “smart” thermometers can sometimes take a while! Since the phones weren’t working (something they did nothing to redress), they eventually sent up an engineer. Jaylen was terrific! And he offered—not to be sure why the front desk couldn’t have done that initially since it was already after 9 pm. No upgrade and only Jayle apologized. ||• The next evening the phone again didn’t work when another service issue arose, neither the in-house nor local number. Another trip down to the front desk.||• When I needed help with luggage—I several bags—I dialed 0 on my house phone and requested help. No one came after more than 10 minutes, and I called again. That person said they will check and get back to me. I asked them to look in front of them and see if the luggage cart had moved. That’s when he conceded he was not on property—and probably at a call center in southeast Asia. So I started to take the luggage downstairs myself. And what do I find! The front desk manager and two associates chatting! The bottom line: there seems to be no way to access in-house customer service in the hotel without physically going down to the front desk.||• The room is small, which is, in and of itself, not a problem. But the furniture makes it even worse:||a. The refrigerator is on the floor of a tiny closet.||b. The space in the closet for long hanging items is about 6 inches.||c. The desk is a fake—the drawer won’t open. And the height of the chair relative to the desk leaves you ridiculously below the height to the desk. A completely impossible arrangement to do any work at all.||d. There is nowhere else to sit in the room beside the bed.||e. There is no luggage rack built in. There is no luggage rack in the closet—in fact it wouldn’t fit. ||f. There is no coffee making device. There is a kettle with no automatic off (does that possibly meet fire code in the hotel?) and low-quality instant coffee.||• Other minor items||a. The gym is set to 72 which is much hotter than most gyms and has no windows. ||b. The entrance to the hotel is overcrowded because large SUVs don’t fit into their lot, so they park them in front of the hotel entrance. It is incredibly tight to maneuver. I was concerned about my car getting hit just while it was waiting to get moved (valet staff was great). Also, it is impossible to believe this meets fire code because it seems unlikely that an ambulance let alone a fire truck could get to the entrance. ||The hotel did ask me what would make me happy and eventually did comp two drinks at the bar I had already paid for but as the frustrations piled up, they didn’t proactively...