Jorf Jorferson
Google
Allow me to air my grievances.
I travel for leisure and for work (~15 times/year) and this hotel was genuinely the worst value I have seen for the money.
When I checked in I learned that 1) the wifi and TV services were down and 2) they charge $15/day for parking. I’ve stayed at four seasons hotels and I’ve stayed at Quality Inns that are literally attached to gas stations, and I’ve never once had to pay for parking. When the room rate is $200+/night, that’s some nickel-and-dime scumbag behavior, especially since they don’t advertise this on their website. Moreover, the front desk attendant assured me the wifi would be up and running “definitely before midnight” and that turned out to be a lie. Not ideal when you have work to catch up on.
After one night I went out to my car and I had been ticketed for parking overnight- an $80 charge even though I’d given the hotel my license plate number. I brought this up to the front desk and they were very rude about the whole situation- they said they would waive the fee and they took the physical ticket from me so hopefully I won’t be charged but we’ll see.
Onto the room itself- tiny but decently clean with a little balcony attached (with a few cigarette butts lying around). Also pretty quiet- I occasionally heard my neighbors or people talking in the hallway but nothing unreasonable. My complaints are as follows:
-The air conditioning is a disaster. It was loud, clunky, and seemed to be on its own schedule as it turned itself on and off every 3-5 minutes through the entire night.
-The mattress was extremely firm and lumpy, which made it even harder to sleep as the asthmatic A/C gurgled and whirred all night. At least the linens were clean- one point for that.
-The shower was all over the place in terms of pressure and temperature. The first day it was perfectly fine but the next few days it had so little pressure it was essentially dripping, and it would alternate between scalding hot and lukewarm while making a VERY loud vibrating noise. I could hear the vibrating coming from other rooms as well- it sounded like someone was drilling into a stud in the room above mine.
-Instead of a regular coffee maker they provide a dinky hot water kettle and cheap plastic packets of instant coffee. The quality inn that was attached to a gas station (in rural Montana no less) had better in-room appointments.
-My room had two beside lamps with built-in outlets- one was broken while the other only worked while the light was on. If you stay here I hope you don’t need to charge your phone while you sleep because that’s apparently too much to ask for.
Most of the staff members were very friendly and helpful (besides the two who handled my parking ticket) so kudos to them- combined with the clean linens that bumps my rating up to two stars.
There are so many alternatives in Tempe, and since I travel here often I can say with confidence that I will never stay at the Graduate again. It boggles my mind that they charge so much money for such inferior accommodations, and you would be wise to avoid this place at all costs. The parking ticket further confirmed that they lack attention to detail and give little thought about their patrons. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
tl;dr- this is a shoddy, poorly-run, nickel-and-diming establishment that you should avoid at all costs.
