Nathan Hale Inn & Conference Center

The hotel had rooms reserved in advance for a wedding we attended. The shuttle to take guests to the wedding was scheduled to leave at 3pm, and the hotel, grossly underprepared as it was, refused to let guests check in before 3pm despite being told numerous times (in advance) by guests and the wedding party that guests obviously needed time to prepare before the shuttle. Front desk staff Zack, Venus (?), and Missy were all dismissive, rude and totally unwilling to even attempt to accommodate this very reasonable request. Us and a large handful of guests missed the beginning of the ceremony because of the hotel’s serious oversight and total incompetence in dealing with the situation.
Instead of letting us check in early they outrageously suggested we use the pool bathroom to shower and change/​get ready. The bathroom was wet, filthy and smelled like vomit.
The rooms were overpriced and very mediocre — will absolutely never return.

Rooms are clean, there’s a indoor pool & u can’t beat the location. Staff is nice. Plenty of parking. A little pricey.

Very nice hotel, staff very friendly and helpful. Pet friendly. On University Of Connecticut campus, so if you have children attending there, you will be very close to them. Rooms were very nice, bed was very comfortable. Nice hot tub and pool.

Location, location, location… good thing they have it on campus because that is their only saving grace! My wife and I wanted to explore our old Alma Mater and wanted to park the car and forget about it. Other positives about our experience were the staff who all seem to go out of their way to be nice and helpful. The rooms also seemed very quiet. Breakfast was quite good, though not included was fairly priced.
Now the downsides, the hotel is apparently changing ownership with the university supposedly buying it. They had two very slow elevators but only one actually worked. The stairwells were unfinished concrete and littered with small trash and quite dirty. The walls in the common areas were all stained and in need of painting. Our room was a basic with two queens that were pretty comfortable. The HVAC unit was noisy and we decided not to run it. The bathroom and room door did not shut easily and you had to slam them to shut them, surely waking up anyone nearby. Another item was parking, they charge it as a ‘tax’ so when you book you aren’t aware of the additional fee that will greet you on check out.
We did have a great time visiting UConn but I probably would not stay here again since its priced at a Marriott grade hotel but gives you a Motel 8 experience. Maybe the university will improve this but given their bureaucracy, not betting on that.

Decent facility, good location on campus.

Check-​in was quick, room was clean, and hotel is super convenient for visiting UCONN.

It’s nice, for sure, but it’s also hella expensive. I guess if you have a monopoly on campus (and within 5 miles) for high-​capacity hotels, you can get away with charging that much, but $ 125+ per night? Really? The closest alternatives include Best Western Regent Inn in Mansfield (6.5 miles away), Altnaveigh Inn (2.2 miles away, but only 2 rooms available), the equally expensive Fitch House (4.2 miles away, but only 3 rooms available), and the budget-​conscious options of Rodeway Inn (7.7 miles away), Passport Inn & Suites (6.5 miles away), and Hop River Motel (6 miles away).
They do have a nice bar — the True Blue Tavern — which makes for a nice, sophisticated hang-​out spot (no drunk undergrads), and you can oftentimes catch celebrities here after they perform at the Jorgensen or at some other on-​campus venue (I may or may not have startled Bernadette Peters on her way back to the hotel with a couple of friends).

The staff is welcoming and supportive of your quality of stay and the facilities are clean, neat and orderly but it is a little out of date as people have said before. There is a nice little pool and hot tub that makes the stay enjoyable. If you’re on UConn’s campus and looking for a good place to sit down and have some wings or burger, look no further than the True Blue Tavern in the lobby as it really does highlight a great UConn visit. My fiancé and I always stop by when we return to campus and we find It to be a nice change of pace from the bars on the other side of campus. Cheers!

The rack rate for a standard room is over $ 250, which would seem twice what would be reasonable. My room felt dated and needed cleaning. (I would have been a little embarrassed if my shower at home were that dirty for guests and the elevator lobby needed vacuuming at 9 am.) The TV was a flat screen, but a free-​standing dorm fridge whirred away next to it. On the plus side, the bed was comfortable, linens were new, and WIFI was free. Unfortunately, there is no real competition, so I’ll likely be back.

This hotel is beyond awful. Now it’s deceiving, because on the drive up to it the building seems modern and decent. Inside, it’s stuck in 1989… a quick Google check shows it was renovated in 2001, but it doesn’t seem like it was enough… I’d hate to see what it was prior to 2001.
I find the rooms to be old, stuffy, and depressing. My room still had an old CRT monitor, with awful programming and no HD. The internet was at least at a decent speed, but you’re on a college campus, it should be fast.
The bathroom was a walk back in time with wallpaper peeling off, water damage in the ceiling and some low flow showerhead on par with what they offer in a motel or jail. Their offerings for toiletries are a cheap joke, they give you that true cheap motel feel. To further the cheap motel feel they had one of those old wall mounted hair dryers that was effectively useless.
Parking’s a pain, but you’re on a university campus, so it’s expected. I never complain about noise, but my gosh they may have the loudest ice makers in the history of lodging. They have two elevator cars and they’re slow.
Sadly, if you’re stuck in Storrs, you’re at this hotel. Lodging options are limited in this town, so I find myself going to stay at the airport as much as possible and spend as little time at the hotel as possible.
They’re due for a major upgrade. Need to get real TVs, a modern bathroom, modern bedding and modern furnishings.

We just hosted a family event that included a number of out of town guests. There are not many nice options that fit the needs of young cousins-​thru grandparents and this did do that.
It isn’t grand, and there were a couple of things that were irratating.
1^st was one of our guests canceled thier reservation due to the parking– they charge apparently. Which is annoying when you are blocking out 5 rooms and the hotels appears to have maybe two other parties–
They ended up not charging for parking BUT they refused to budge when my Aunt had inquired. Very confusing, and it meant that my Aunt had an extra ½ hr of driving to and from our event. Really could have been more reasonable about it since in the end they didn’t have the parking gate down anyway!
The staff was fine– we pushed some limits with food down at the pool– and they were quite cool about it– they provided us with some plastic cups for our drinks.
I will say that the food in the restaurant downstairs was pretty good.
We live around uconn and finding a breakfast place that is nice and isn’t slamming busy is a good thing.
Most of our party of 6 had the breakfast burrito– which having lived in TX., I was just a little skeptical about… However,[priced at $ 9, it was filling and came with what looked like frozen tater-​tots BUT WASN“T– they were something much better than that. Also– I couldn’t believe it when the waitress said she had Siracha sauce– really? in the thick of New England? at the Nathan Hale Inn? huh! That was a really yummy thing to have for those yummy hash browns. I will be happy to come here for breakfast again.
I wish they had been better about the parking– with it being after all the big events at UCONN, I really think they could have extended that service to my party.

For restaurant only. Came for lunch and had a good experience overall. The waitress was friendly and attentive, and the food came out reasonably quickly. Not many options for a vegetarian, but the caprese salad sandwich was quite good, and the fries were great. Reasonably priced as well. Not a bad place to visit on the UConn campus.

Stayed at the Nathan Hale Inn while I was at UCONN for a women’s basketball game. I feel the need to clarify why I was in Storrs, CT in the first place because as the other Unilocalers have shared, the surrounding area of the UCONN campus is a wasteland of farms, broken down cars in the front yard and pumpkin patches. Classy!
ANYWAY this review is about the Inn (and it’s two restaurants, that share a kitchen) so I’ll try to keep my focus on that. See below my checklist for a successful hotel stay:
Clean Room (check!)
Comfortable bed (double check!)
Decent food (check!)
Reasonably priced (check!)
Location, location, location (check!)
Privacy/​Noise Factor (half a check.)
Friendly Front Desk Service (half a check… maybe.)
Nice view (NO check — oh hi there, UCONN sanitation building.)
Bonus points: complimentary bottled water, large flat screen TV, delightfully fluffy pillows, located directly on UCONN’s (huge) campus.
«Hm, this is questionable/​sketchy» sidenotes: broken front door, slippery lobby due to snow, weird bathroom (with a shower?) in the lobby, locked door in our room (leading to nowhere? since we stayed in a corner room), the table at the tavern could have been cleaner.
We ate at the tavern for lunch and the restaurant for breakfast. Both meals were EXTREMELY reasonably priced (no more than $ 25 for two people), service was attentive and the food was good.
PS It’s not you can’t it’s UCONN!!!

First of all, if you:
(1) can’t crash at a friend’s dorm while you’re in Storrs — and seriously, unless you’re there because of a student (existing or prospective, and the prospectives’ parents should have a car to take them back to civilization), why would you be in Storrs anyways?
(2) bought the campus store out of its seemingly endless supply of instant noodles and frozen foods …
you really have no choice BUT the Nathan Hale. Especially in the summer, when all the undergrads have left.
The hotel itself is not bad. The rooms are spacious, they give you complimentary bottled water, and from a cursory glance while I was bored, their adult movie selection looks pretty standard and diverse.
Unfortunately, the service is really, well, amateurish. I stayed in my room on my last morning there, and two separate times, two different women knockdd on my door trying to come in and clean it out for the next resident. Honestly, they should have known that I hadn’t checked out yet. One even had her card key in the door. =/​You couldn’t even blame this on inexperienced summer student workers, because they were obviously not UConn material — one didn’t speak English and was really apologetic, and the other woman was like 50 and totally blamed me for not checking out an hour before the mandatory checkout time. Come on now.
The restaurant downstairs was just a typical hotel restaurant, at best. I went for both dinner and breakfast:
(1) Chocolate milk for dinner — hey, don’t judge. It’s totally NOT legit to present ovaltine as chocolate milk. Especially when that ovaltine has not been mixed well.
(2) Seafood pasta entreee. For the price I paid, there really weren’t that many noodles. The seafood and broccoli were not bad, and on par with what you’d get at normal restaurants. The big problem, though, was the ungodly amount of pepper that the chef put on. Every bite, I could see — not even tiny — pretty large specks of pepper on the pasta! No dish needs to be that peppered. It completely overpowered the (what I think was) wine sauce — but the sauce was pretty bland to begin with. All in all, it was not worth the ~$ 20 I paid for it.
(3) Peanut butter pie dessert. This dish was a winner! It’s homemade and worth every one of its $ 5. The crust is like what you’d find in a soft cheesecake base, and the peanut butter flavour is so savoury and has a hint of chocolatey goodness. By far the best part of my meal.
(4) Breakfast panini. Pretty standard I’d say. The home fries were a little on the soggy side but seasoned really well. There were also random bits of fruit — one small slice each of canteloupe, watermelon, and honeydew. Like, if you’re gonna give me fruit, either give me more or don’t put it in at all. That was kinda ridiculous. The panini itself is a of a good-​sized portion.
The service was also spotty. The waitress I had at breakfast was really friendly and went out of her way to get me a copy of my receipt from the night before (I’m getting reimbursed by my boss for this trip lol). The waiter I had at dinner didn’t know the menu that well and spent almost all of his time flirting with a girl eating by herself at the back of the restaurant. Thanks, man, thanks. Is it kosher to give his name on Unilocal?*
Overall, you could do worse than the Nathan Hale, and you don’t really have any choice but the Nathan Hale. The hotel itself is reasonably-​priced, but they gouge you on the food. W/​e.

Margot G’s taking her LSAT later today on the UCONN campus and we decided to drive up a few days early and stay the night rather than trying to rush out of NYC traffic and hope that we made it to the testing site on time. It was good thinking. We hit the traffic headed to the Yankees game on Saturday and I believe we managed about 10 miles in 45 minutes. There’s a reason she’s gonna nail this test later on this afternoon…
The Nathan Hale Inn is located on the UCONN campus right next to the alumni residence hall (I’ve never heard of an «alumni residence hall» because by definition, alumni have generally left campus, but hey…). There are neat little signs as you drive into the absolutely deserted place that is Storrs, CT, that will direct you to the Inn because it would literally be impossible to find it on your own. Check-​in was a breeze and they were nice enough to let us know that we needed to park in their secure parking lot to avoid a campus parking ticket (my thoughts were go ahead, ticket my rental vehicle from NYC with a NJ tag… we’ll see how far you get). We opted for the secure parking lot though.
Both the «tavern» and the «restaurant» are insanely overpriced considering the location, but upon closer inspection of the area and the discovery that there are NO other options within a reasonable distance, I figured out that they can afford to do so because people tend to be lazy. As you can guess, so were we and we ate in the «tavern» a couple of times during the stay. Amusing factoid #1: if you eat at the «restaurant,» you will partake in the *exact same* cuisine as you would in the «tavern» right next door. The catch? You’re paying $ 5-​$ 10 more. Suckers.
But the food is tasty. The service is slooooooowwww. The first night I opted for the cheeseburger (it’s difficult to screw such things up), which ran $ 9, and the second night I had a grilled chicken ceasar wrap with a pint of Stella, which ran $ 15. You might be thinking «what’s wrong with those prices?» I’ll remind you that I am not in NYC right now… I’m in a desolate wasteland somewhere in Connecticut. We drove past a pumpkin and strawberry picking patch for Christ’s sake.
There is also a fairly small and somewhat heated swimming pool that I definitely took advantage of. Maybe even illegally. And the jacuzzi? Don’t get me started. I’ll plead the 5^th if I’m asked any questions about that. Amusing factoid #2: the jacuzzi «bubble maker» timer can serve as an LSAT section timer as it will go up to 35 minutes, which is perfect time-​frame to practice one LSAT section. Brilliant. I even got a little territorial over the jacuzzi and when the Michelin blimp dude got in it while I was swimming laps in the pool, I glared at him. Only a little.
The room was nothing special. We did not experience the 7am or 1pm pounding on the door that the first reviewer seemed to experience, so maybe they cleaned up their act from a year ago? The bed wasn’t exactly comfy, and there was no mini-​fridge in our hotel room, which means that Margot actually *gasp* had to throw away her ice cream from last night!!! If you know Margot at all, you know this does not happen.
All in all, it was decent. And Margot has chimed in (upon realizing I was writing a review) that «it was as big as our apartment!» That it was. I prefer our apartment though… there’s an Xbox 360 AND a fridge.

This place sucks some serious ass (as I type from my room there)
* I understand that when the restaurant is busy, room service can take an hour, but when the food is COLD, no ketchup is brought with a burger & they bring the wrong tab to sign, that’s bad.
*A whole maintenance crew shows up and bangs on our door at 7am to fix our sink while we are in our room — uh, no thanks, our sink works fine buddy
* WITH THE DO NOT DISTURB SIGN HANGING FROM OUR DOOR KNOB — the rude bitch pounds on our door «housekeeping». My husband points out the sign and she says «after 1:00, we have to knock anyway — so do you want your room cleaned or not?» with a really snotty tone.
*Those are just a few examples of the shitty service we’ve received here.
Who the hell trains these people on customer service !!! pathetic.
This is the most expensive hotel in the area and the rooms aren’t even that nice. We are checking out early & staying somewhere else. If we are going to have a crappy room with crappy service, we aren’t going to pay that much for it!!!