I'm tempted to say that this place is awful so it doesn't get sold out all the time and the price goes up. But that would be wrong. So.... I will be honest and say that we absolutely LOVED staying here! The Madison is an old Victorian building, right off a major street on a quiet tree lined avenue in the heart of uptown TO. Everything is close by. University of Toronto is steps away so a lot of the pubs, bars, restaurants are full of university kids. To me, this is part of the charm of the Madison. Around 10 PM, the street out in front of the hotel was full of students dressed up for a night out, waiting to get into the pub next door. I won't say it's the quietest place, but happy voices of tomorrow's future leaders give me a sense of being on vacation!
As far as the hotel itself goes, it's an acquired taste. When you walk in the front door there's a stunning staircase that leads to rooms one and two floors above. There's no elevator, but there's an incredible charm to the building. It's very homey, it's very well decorated in the period of its time, and the room we had with a king bed overlooking the street was clean, spacious and comfortable. I literally felt like I had stepped back into 1910! You could almost feel the spirits of people who have stayed there in the past, even to the point of a door that occasionally rattled a bit... (maybe the ghost of a house keeper from the past??) It's truly a real gem, and for sure we'll be back! LOVE IT!