My wife and I are seasoned travelers and know the difference between a hotel that delivers a first class experience and one with the pretense to. Graves 601 fails to deliver on the most basic of hotel experience, the guest rooms and guest relations.
The hotel common areas are quite nice, the hotel staff is friendly.
We paid extra for the "executive floors". We checked into our hotel room and it was surprising in a bad way. What in a hotel is more basic than a clean, well appointed room? The list of deficiencies is very long but includes; extensive marking on the walls (black marks, scrape marks, etc.); extensive marking on the woodwork; wood paneling coming off the wall, the wood writing desk askew at about a 10% angle, a tear in the settee, film of dirt on the faux-leather seat, mixed-match wall paint and painted un-sanded plaster; the window shade coming apart, and probably most disturbing a rather dingy-grey condition of the pillows and comforter under their outer casings (discomforting to say the least).
I called the hotel manager. He came and looked at the room with the maintenance manager. They acknowledged all of the items I pointed out but tried to tell me that the last hotel guest probably had caused all the damage (I don't think so unless they stayed there for about a year.) He even sat on the writing desk to show me why the desk might have gotten to be at that skewed angle (Do I care?)
Management now says that they offered to move me- they say that they wrote that in their notes- I can tell you that they didn't. They offered to fix the deficiencies the next day but I was stuck in the room sick with flu- what a disaster.
When I reserve a hotel that promotes a first class experience, I absolutely do not expect to go in and have to point out deficiencies in my room. That is their job, not mine. I do not expect to have to fight for another room or have to negotiate compensation in the form of a reduction in rate because the hotel has failed to provide the level of service that was expected and promised- that is what a manager does, that is the essence of hospitality.
A couple of other things that irked me about the property; I was not informed that parking was $30 per night (seems more like Chicago or San Francisco than Minneapolis) and that web access was $14 per day (these days what hotels don't offer this for free.)
Kirk E.
San Francisco