The Edgewater Hotel — Restaurant in Madison

Checked in to this hotel on 4/3/25. We had booked through Expedia and when the person checking us in confirmed our phone number, which was nothing like our actual number, we were told, 'Expedia seems to just assign numbers to bookings' - I mention this as it will be important later in the review. Our stay was fine, the room was clean, although the blinds on the round windows did not keep out much light so it was difficult to sleep with so much light in the room. Prior to that, I was pleased to see they have a 'pillow menu' so I called to request a lavender one. After about 20 minutes, someone brought the pillow, but after they had gone, I realized there was no smell of lavender at all on the pillow - absolutely nothing - just a regular pillow. I called again and was asked 'do you want another pillow?' Half an hour went by with no pillow, so we headed out for dinner. Someone from the hotel had messaged us to check all was good with the room, so we mentioned about the pillow and a replacement lavender pillow was provided at some time during the evening. Fast forward to check out time, a little before noon on 4/4/25. We had prepaid through Expedia and on check in had been informed that the only charge to be paid on check out would be for the self-parking, which we expected. As we checked out, the employee suddenly mentioned that a 'resort fee' would also be added. We had not been told of this at check in. A manager came over when he heard our conversation and quickly pinned the blame on us. First he said that Expedia doesn't let you know about the resort fee. We pointed out that the check in person knew full well that we had booked through Expedia, given the issue with the phone number. Then he said that we should have read all the fine print when we signed at check in. There is a LOT of print and I feel that the check in person, while informing us of the parking fee and the hold on our card for incidentals should have also made us aware of that (given they know that Expedia don't inform customers). We asked what is covered in the resort fee and were shown a list which includes wifi (listed as 'free' on the hotel's own website under amenities. 'Pandemic preparedness response' is also listed as something we get for our resort fee (really!). Two bottles of water. We would have brought our own water, rather than pay over $10 per bottle. Car service and airport shuttle were other things listed. Basically we did not use anything on this list - we hadn't even drunk the waters. We politely requested the fee be waived since we had not known about it in advance and hadn't used anything available. We were told very firmly 'no'. The manager said he had no authority to remove any charges. We had already told them we had enjoyed our stay and had not only planned to return when next in Madison but had started to recommend the hotel to friends and family. What would have been a 4 star review has ended up being a 1 star - what would have been definite repeat custom has turned into us never returning - all this could have been handled so differently, all for $24.16 resort fee. Even if they had offered to remove half of the charge, they would have had repeat customers, but it was clear the manager was not willing to make any adjustments, even to have us return in future. One staff member changed our entire experience from great to terrible by their non-customer-friendly attitude. For others planning to stay here, be aware of this resort fee charge - it is exceptionally difficult to find on the hotel's website - you have to go through the entire booking process and you can easily hit 'reserve' without scrolling down to see this charge. We would not return in future, since if there was another issue with the room or anything else, we would not feel confident in the management's willingness to try to resolve it. Edit: 3 months later I received the standard response below, inviting me to email the hotel directly. I spoke to the manager on the day, directly, what would be the point of pasting my review...

(Bridesmaid for a wedding held here.) Beautiful location but extremely poorly managed. Everything happened in the end but it was definitely not stress free, which is surprising given the reputation of the venue and beauty offered. Thank goodness for wedding planners and parents of the bride handling and saving everything!

Some bridal party rooms weren’t ready for 4pm check in on time, despite the staff being aware we were needed at an event hosted in the edgewater within an hour of check in. They didn’t have the getting ready suite for us despite reserving a year+ ahead of time (I heard mention of double booking?). Then they moved the getting ready rooms we had been provided (they gave us just three normal rooms) during the welcome dinner, AFTER we had all been given keys and dropped off our bridesmaid dresses/materials for getting ready wedding morning. We arrived back at the hotel ~11pm to find out they had moved all our belongings in the bridal getting ready rooms to a new set of rooms and they had given 2 of the 3 rooms for other people (not in the bridal party) to check in to. To make matters even more confusing, I arrived at the getting ready rooms we had been provided keys for the following morning (I missed the text about changed rooms) and was still able to access the room despite us being moved to different rooms! Fortunately, the room I had key access to was the 1 of 3 that was not occupied.

And another room mess up, the bride’s family had originally been offered and booked the getting ready suite that was across from the spa where we would get hair and makeup done, only to find out closer to the date the edgewater had decided to make that suite a community room which led to the mess of other rooms mentioned above.

The WiFi is non existent (they only have public wifi for all their rooms), but the cell service in the building is also non existent (I think because it’s an older building and right on the water, not good service reception). I had between 0 and 1 bars the entire stay which, as you can imagine, is stressful when trying to contact people in the wedding and organize. Also, at the reception, their microphones kept cutting in and out so it sounded like all the speeches were under water.

The room themselves are quite spacious, with a lovely view of the lake, which is why I upped to 2 stars. However, even then, there is a slightly off smell to the rooms (thinking the windows have been opened too many times over the years) and, annoyingly, we were woken up at 9am Sunday (our check out morning) by a man asking if he could start room cleaning, despite check out being 12pm and our room being listed as part of the bridal party. Why is there a need to clean our rooms at 9am after the wedding held at your venue when we weren’t even able to check in at the normal 4pm on Friday night? Another member of the bridal party didn’t have working AC in their room.

Location is prime, a block away from the capitol and right on the lake. The front desk receptionists are quite nice (they just can’t help much with any of the above mentioned problems, that’s a management issue). The rooms all serve L’Occitane a French body care brand that is divine. A picture perfect looking place for a wedding.

But be warned, management does not make it easy. And the hotel is split into 2 towers which makes it inconvenient going from say your rooms in one tower to bridal rooms in another tower and just the logistics of running around during the wedding weekend. This could have been solved by management either 1) providing us the original getting ready party rooms or 2) blocking rooms so the bridal party were all in rooms next to each other (we spanned both towers between the 2nd and 10th floors).

If you have extremely good, best of the best, wedding planners, you can make this work and when it does work it is absolutely beautiful. Best wedding food I’ve ever had, most spectacular sunset and cocktail hour and reception I’ve ever been to. The venue just made a lot of unnecessary...

BRIDES BEWARE!!! While the location of the Edgewater is hard to beat, the service provided leaves MUCH to be desired. Let's start with the spa: I had intended to have not only my hair & makeup done onsite but also my entire wedding party and several family members. I opted to have a trial done and I am glad that I did. I had pictures of what I wanted my hair & makeup to look like and what I left the trial looking like-not even close. I did contact the spa, and they rescheduled another trial with someone else, the results were better but still NOT what I wanted. I paid the $250 for the trial, and brought in my own hair & makeup team. Location: Beautiful, hard to beat. Service: Friday-we had the rehearsal onsite then went on a Betty Lou sunset cruise. Upon returning to the Edgewater, half of my wedding party was in one of the onsite bars. Upon approaching the bar, we were stopped and told we weren't able to go into the bar-as there was a VIP in house that didn't want to be bothered. I just wanted to hang out with MY wedding party the night before MY wedding! I could care less who was at the bar. Saturday-I had the Edgewater cater food for both the girls room while getting ready as well as the guys room. The staff never came back to collect the remaining items of food, rather just left it all to rot in the room. When they finally did go in and clean up, sometime during the ceremony. My diamond earrings also left the presidential suite either as an honest mistake and they were thrown in the trash or perhaps taken by a member of the staff. Regardless, I reached out to the hotel to make them aware. The response, "you do realize that the Edgewater is not responsible for that." All i really wanted was an apology, they were insured, I had to pay my deductible, and will never be able to regain the sentiment that was attached to the "misplaced" earrings. The final straw came when four months after my wedding, my credit card was hit with an additional charge of almost $10k! It appears that the contracts that the Edgewater has you sign mean nothing. My contract clearly stated that I had 15 days from the commencement of my event to pay all final charges due. There was ZERO communication after the event from the Edgewater, they just charged me 4 months later! When I called them to inquire why I had a charge show up indicating that I checked in 4 months later, they said they had staffing issues. Staffing issues do not change the terms of the contract! I would NEVER recommend the EDGEWATER as a wedding venue to anyone. The services provided by the spa were an over priced joke as it their venue! If you plan on getting married at the Edgewater, do yourself a favor...spend the $250 for the hair & makeup trial. Read, reread your contract, but beware....you've...