My partner and I stayed here last evening. The Astor is a very charming and comfortable old hotel. We had a corner room on the 8th floor, with great views West and North. It was clean and comfortable, with flat screen TV, and free WiFi. Overall, the furnishings (furniture, carpets, paint job, etc.) in the Astor did seem a bit "dated" to us, but that is also part of its charm and attraction. Would we come back to the Astor? Yes, definitely! We visit Milwaukee frequently, and It was such a refreshing change from the "sterile" environments of the downtown hotels.

The Astor Hotel is a charming, vintage hotel in a great neighborhood. While it could use a lick of paint, it's clean and comfortable. The staff were friendly and helpful. The room had a new flat-screen TV with Dish.

My husband and I love old hotels, and make an effort to stay in them whenever we have the opportunity. We went with another couple for a quick overnight in Milwaukee to see a band and were looking for an affordable place to stay in a walkable neighborhood. Unfortunately, we were sorely disappointed by the Astor.

The lobby is tired, so tired that it's hard to tell if it's even clean. The air feels stale and the lobby had to be at least 85 degrees when we were there. We checked in, and we went to our 9th floor room. Our friends joked that we got the "penthouse" while they were on lowly floor 7. In the end, it seems we had the shorter end of the stick.

Our room was very, very old. Between the excessively worn carpet, the cable line running through a hole in the window sill, and a bathroom that looked like it could have been in my 1950s-era dorm, it was hard to even appreciate the clean sheets on the bed. All of this may have been tolerable, had the room not been at least 85 degrees - without any temperature control that we could find.

It was so warm and uncomfortable, we tried (unsuccessfully) to open the windows, and even tried propping open our door. (No luck - the hallway was just as warm.) We had returned from the concert very late - about 2:30 a.m., so it didn't seem worth it to try to switch rooms. I woke up at 6:00 (no small feat given how late we were up and how much I had had to drink the night before) so I could bolt from the room to find some cool relief. We donned our coats and waited in front of the hotel for an hour until our friends woke up to join us.

Our friends summed up their experience as "old world charm without the old", but their room had been refurbished, they had an a/c unit to fight the temperature, and they could open their windows. Our night was unforgettably uncomfortable so maybe you could avoid our fate by asking for a room that has been updated?

Also, while finishing a cocktail in the hotel lobby at about 2:30 a.m., we met one of the residents of the Astor. Besides hotel room, the Astor has extended-stay and permanent residence. He was at least 70-80 years old, and I wondered if he was representative of the older residents. That may help explain the excessively warm, fuggy internal climate of the Astor?

I stayed here the last week of August. I agree with bits and pieces of all prior comments. The carpeting is dirty and so are the hallway walls, but the beds and bathroom is clean. Yes, the air conditioner is a wall unit, but it kept the room cool. The closet didn't have a door. Our room had a 32" flat screen TV with great reception. The neighborhood was safe. There weren't a lot of restaurants in the area, but there was a Subway and a nice Greek restaurant. You rack this up to you get what you pay for. If you want luxury, don't stay here. If you want a clean bed, then don't hesitate to stay her.