The wife and I spent a night at the Utica hotel and were very pleasantly surprised. The hotel is 100 years old but has been nicely refurbished and shows quite a lot of it's earlier splendor. The lobby is beautiful, lots of marble and a piano. Hotel also offers a nice bar and resturant. Tried the bar but not the resturant. I would definately stay again.

Got engaged to my wife in this old dame...unfortunately, some of her beauty has faded (the hotel's, not my wife's). Needless to say, there's plenty of atmosphere & charm, including tiny creaking old elevator, high-ceilinged bar, and cool mezzanine area with places to lounge and read books. Many famous power brokers of yesteryear have stayed here, and ghost sightings are common, although we didn't see or hear anything strange. Our room and bathroom were both huge, almost dwarfing the swanky old furniture. In fact, it was hard to see the TV, it was so far from the bed. Hotel is right downtown, walking distance to bars, restaurants, and the local brewery. Lots of conferences come through here, and it's easy to see why. Yummy complimentary breakfast buffet was included, as was free parking.

Located in downtown Utica - it must have been something in it's day. The lobby boasts 8 huge chandeliers, towering marble pillars and a mezzanine. We appreciated it's history and were therefore willing to overlook some things. Our suite was huge - so big in fact that the kind size bed looked like a twin and it was clean....dated but clean. Our complaints were - check in is too late - 4pm, the drapes were half hanging which let in too much light first thing in the morning, the parking lot isn't big enough to accommodate all guests - we had to park around the corner which was unsettling as it's not in the best part of town and it needs more lighting for that same reason. On one of our two night stays - the guests in the next room over let their 4 children run back and forth in the hallways screaming and slamming doors for hours. We thought it was best to let the staff handle it, but after calling down to the front desk and waiting for more than an hour - we finally had to say something to the parents which didn't go over too well. Not cool being forced into that situation. All in all - we'd stay again - but only if we found a special discounted rate.

On our way to visit family in New Hampshire for the weekend we wanted a room around the half way mark to break up the drive. I had mapquested to Hampton Inn in Utica, but drove right by it as it is tucked off the highway, so I ended up downtown, something I normally would have avoided, but curiosity drew me in. In her day, this was a grand hotel centrally located in what was once a thriving downtown full of interesting and historic buildings, and hard to miss as it stands out against the cityscape. So, I decided to stick my head in and check it out. All in all, it was fine. The bathrooms have been nicely updated, and everything in the room worked, although one of our rooms had the darkening drapes missing. The breakfast buffet was OK, potatoes were cold and rubber, but bacon and eggs were fresh. I'm not sure what the point was with the tiny plastic juice glasses. We walked down the main street looking for dinner, but it was deserted. Not the hotels fault but Utica itself is definately in decline. One minor annoyance at checkout was that the one person on the desk had to finish taking a group reservation before looking up to help us, but once we had her attention, she was very efficient and pleasant. This hotel is in a classic catch twenty two, trying to be profitable with declining guest count. A sad casualty of the decline of the U.S. rustbelt.