Graduate by Hilton Charlottesville — Restaurant in Charlottesville

I don't even know where to begin with this review. Perhaps with the price since it could have been 2 stars had we not paid more than $600 for the first night of our stay (~$200 for the second night). |When we first arrived with our car, we were directed to the self parking area. I paid for 2 days of in and out parking ($44.00 extra) and was instructed to take the ticket. As I pulled the ticket out of the machine, it ripped in half such that the essential barcode to exit the facility was stuck inside the ancient machine. Needless to say, not the best start. We carried our bags down to check-in where I mentioned our parking issue. The hotel staff kindly told me they could do nothing about the parking and referred me to the valet attendant. This guy had no idea what to do and had to call his manager. After 5 minutes of conferring, he said the only option was to exit the parking garage, re-enter and pay again. After mentioning I couldn't exit without my ticket and wasn't interested in paying double, he said they would refund my money. Still waiting for that refund three days later...Also, as I was trying to exit the parking structure with his help, his card broke and I was left waiting at the gate for 10 minutes, a line slowly building up behind me. |Fine. We went up to our room on the 5th floor and that's when things became ridiculous. Remember we're paying $600 for this room...there's plastic sheeting over the single window and an intense constant drilling sound from construction directly outside the window (see photo below). It was so loud that when I called the front desk to complain, they could barely hear me. We were offered another room which we accepted.|This other room was quieter though I will note throughout our stay there was intermittent hammering and drilling even though it was the weekend. The room itself was extremely mediocre. Stains on the carpet, broken toilet seat, non-opening window, tired lamps standing askew. I should also mention that with the construction, the hallways were full of white dust and debris that then tracked into our room (see photo below). Clearly they weren't cleaining up on a regular basis.|OK, that's not all. The first night after coming back from dinner, there were 0 parking spaces in the entire garage. Again, valet attendant unhelpful and suggested we park in an area labeled 'tow zone'. I wasn't so enthusiastic given he also promised to give me a refund which hadn't (and hasn't) materialized, but we had no other option (car was fine).|Other than that, mostly minor annoyances. For example, the workout room is pathetic. You can see pictures from other reviews--it's a closet with old machines. Two of the three cardiovascular machines were broken and the single working treadmill shook disconcertingly at jogging speeds. Also, any time we called the front desk for assistance (e.g., check out), there was at least a 10 minute wait for the phone to be answered. |There were some pros worth mentioning: Location is excellent vis a vis UVA campus, the staff were friendly and tried to be helpful--for example, when we asked in person for a late check-out, it was happily provided.|However, all in all not only will I never stay at this hotel again, I will avoid the Graduate chain of hotels and recommend to all of my friends, many of whom are doing the college tour thing with their kids now or in coming years, to avoid the Graduate as well. Just not worth it given the price. Extremely disappointing.|The picture below shows the room we were initially assigned with the covered window and scaffolding. There was literally active drilling into the building when we were there--why would you put paying customers into those rooms, particularly as a putative four...

Beware of this establishment; false advertising on their website makes it look cool and hip but it's like one of those paintings that looks great from far away and then complete trash close up. We had a family emergency and I panic booked this hotel in minutes while at the UVA hospital without looking too deeply into reviews and it made a terrible night even worse. When we arrived it took several minutes for the front desk worker to acknowledge us and she did not make eye contact a single time during the process or hardly spoke except to take my ID. She did not state the room number or floor or anything, just handed us the keys. Whatever, poor customer service, but not anything to write home about. Also note that you will pay at least $20 for parking each night, which is a bit outrageous for this area.

In our room, I first noted that the shower was pretty dirty and had tons of loose hairs from the last occupant. I opted to wipe this down myself and not tell my partner because of the situation we were in. He gets in bed and I flip the comforter over and there are large stains in the middle of the sheets. I go down to the front desk and request new sheets (nothing grosses me out more than staying somewhere on visibly used and stained sheets). She states it will take 10-15minutes for the manager to come up. Around 25 we call down as it's now almost midnight and the front desk worker states she is coming up now. She arrives around 30+ minutes and helps to strip the bed. As we are making the bed with her I notice that the new sheets are also stained. We have had a very emotional night and it's so late I am just like whatever. She also gives us a threadbare blanket with a large hole in it.

You know how in some hotels you don't want to take your socks off? This is a wear your socks, full pants and long sleeve shirts establishment. Wrapped up like a burrito in the new comforter with no cover and barely got any sleep trying not to make skin contact with the sheets. Pillow cases also had stains on them. Unable to access an outlet from one side of the bed.

In the morning, we noted that the shower walls and shampoo bottles were also dirty. Our faucet handle was missing the top and the faucet was not even screwed in properly. Felt dirtier after taking the shower than prior. That morning, I received a text asking for a rating out of 10 and gave a low score. They offered to give me a call and I agreed. The man I spoke with was not apologetic and seemed unfazed/apathetic about our experience and was like "Oh the rating is just because of the cleanliness? We will try to do better next time. " Will there be a next time? Absolutely not. Did he seem surprised about the issues? Nope.

Additionally, in the panic booking, Expedia changed the dates of the reservation from the dates I searched to a date several months in advance. I booked the hotel (this is my fault) and realized my mistake and just booked the correct night as well. I asked the desk if there was any way we could cancel this due to the situation and they stated it was on Expedia and made out that Expedia were the bad guys. Expedia said it was on the hotel to decide on the cancellation and had me message the hotel again. I sent them a long message explaining the situation to see if we could cancel or move the booking or anything and just received back: Refund Declined. This part of the situation was my fault but I really did not like that they were dishonest to my face about being able to refund the mistakenly booked night. If anyone wants a free night here, let me know since we can't cancel but we will definitely not be back and I suggest that you...

Graduate hotel group- c’mon!!! This hotel is NOT representative of your brand. I stayed at Graduate Columbia and it was FABULOUS. As an interior designer, I shudder for your designer’s fabulous design intent executed so poorly. First point of employee contact was the valet hustling us HARD for a tip, showing us the QR code for virtual tipping before handing us the vehicle claim ticket. The check in process was seamless, initially. We received our key cards and hauled our tired selves (having toured two college campuses that day) to the 6th floor. Keys didn’t work. I left my son with the bags in the hall and returned to the front desk. The clerk muttered something about new locks and issues with cards, swiped two new cards and said “these should work”. They did NOT, in fact, work. I return again to the desk and the clerk’s attitude was a bit 🤷‍♀️. She said “I guess I’ll have to go up and let you in”. We return to the 6th floor, and as she lets us in I ask if we need to get her every time we want to leave and return. Again, her attitude was 🤷‍♀️. I told her this was unacceptable, her reply was “I guess I can give you another room”. So back down we go, and she gives us another room. We go to this room on the 6th floor, it’s not the king bed room I’d paid for. I leave my son in the room as he now urgently needs to use the WC. The clerk does nothing to disguise her dismay at seeing me AGAIN. I explain the issue and she sighs and says “I’ll give you another room”. She gives us a room on the 5th floor, and before I return to room #2 on the 6th floor to retrieve my son, I go to the 5th floor room and try the keys. THEY. DO. NOT. WORK. It’s now 25+ minutes we’ve been trying to check in. I return again to the front desk and explain that I’ll wait until the manager or someone who can actually fix this problem arrives. She says that the building engineer is actually returning to the building imminently. He arrives a short time later, she hands us two new keys and up we go. Of course, these two keys do not work. The building engineer who was SUPER NICE explains that the rooms had all recently received new keying systems and they’d been having issues. He lets me in and promises to return shortly with new keys. I text my son the new room location and wait. The engineer returns within 5 minutes, new key cards in hand. They do not work, he then reprograms the whole assembly and 6 minutes later we have working keys. Yay. I retrieve my kid and we settle in. First impression of the room, lipstick on a pig. They clearly just tried a spit and polish approach to whatever hotel previously occupied the building. Looks like they painted over the old floor tile. Gaping holes in drywall around the shower base. Dusty. Dirty. Really dirty. The bed? Some weird amalgamation of a queen/CA king bed. I’m 5’2”, I took a picture lying on the bed with my head at one side. The bed should extend 20” + past my feet. It clearly doesn’t. We were so beat by this point that we just freshened up and went out to dinner. Despite setting the AC on 67° on the highest fan setting, the room never got below 73°. There was plenty of hot water the next morning in the shower, thank goodness, because it took twice as long to shower due to the lowest water pressure I’ve experienced in the developed world. The only bright spot in this visit (aside from the wonderful building engineer) was the checkout clerk. I shared a fraction of the issues, she was apologetic and covered our valet parking. Do...