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| - I will write this for people looking for a hotel, not a rooftop bar.
The pluses: beautiful location a couple of blocks North of the old Memorial Union, an icon in downtown Madison. The Union is currently under construction, but I look forward to its coming back on line. I stayed in this hotel when it was the Dahl Campus Inn. Back then, it was still location, location, location. Madison, especially near the lake, it a great place. The hotel is optimally situated.
To some the rooftop bar is a plus. Meh. It is nice, but I don't go to a hotel for a bar. Really. There are a lot of bars in Madison, many within a short walk on State Street (1 block away). If you are coming to the Graduate for the bar on the roof and not the hotel, no doubt you will be pleased. Nice views. If you are coming for the hotel, you want strangers coming into your hotel, taking the elevator up to the 7th floor, and drinking? The first night I came in and rode up the elevator, a guy got on the elevator with a high class hooker and went up to the bar on 7. Really, no kidding. Not what I look for in a hotel.
Second, the management, whom I had asked for the quietest room, put me on 6: right under the bar. The sound insulation in the hotel is poor, and the worst has got to be the 6th floor. You can hear chairs scraping on the floor above all the time. It's open until 2 am. Not good. And then you hear them moving chairs around in the morning as well.
The rooms are smallish, but what do you expect in a downtown hotel? This ain't in Maybury. The upgrade and new owner are a plus. Sort of. I was amused by the hipster decor, and I was greeted by a genuine hipster-bearded guy, complete with plaid shirt, at the desk when I cam in. I almost asked whether he used the microbiome from his beard as a starting culture for artisanal microbrew. Lots of irony and cynical cool all around. Kind of fun, but not a score driver.
Like the old Dahl, this building still smells musty. I guess a cosmetic change can't alter structural problems. But, worse, I now smell cigarette smoke in the halls and elevators. Maybe from the bar? Beats me. Still, terrible thing to find in a hotel: musty and ashtray in the halls.
Bottom line, it is only rescued to a three star rating by the location. The management change doesn't alter the bad choice (for people on the 6th floor at least) of putting a bar on the roof. Though rooftop bars are fun and this one is decent. They've got to do something about the smell of cigarette smoke in the elevators and halls, but sadly probably can't do much about the mustiness. Oh, and the stinky hipster bath products were a turnoff. I don't want heavily perfumed "rum soap" (or if I do, I'll bring my own). Some people don't want to smell that way, and some are sensitive to heavy-handed smells. Hotels should be going for innocuous in most regards.
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