There are so many bad bad things about this hotel, my impulse is to say AVOID AT ALL COSTS. But I'll be generous and give you the upsides as well.
First of all, I was scheduled to arrive the day Hurricane Sandy hit. My flight was canceled and I had to reschedule. Despite the hotel's written policy that I'd have to pay for the FULL reservation (not just one night) if I did not cancel over a day in advance, they graciously let me move my reservation without penalty. But the new days I was planning to stay were significantly more expensive because they coincided with the marathon. The person I was speaking to on the phone was so so so flustered. I could barely understand him because he seemed very rattled. I found out later, that it was how he always communicates. He (the manager) is a very difficult person to deal with. Treat this man with kid gloves. He's temperamental and overly defensive. He might actually mean well, but his demeanor is unpleasant. Because of the weather, my flight was cancelled again and although I called and explained, it was not noted or changed. Luckily, one of the other employees called me when I didn't show up when they expected me, and I got the new reservations straightened out.
The website states that the rooms start at $149.00 per night. But I was paying a whopping $358 because my trip got pushed to marathon weekend and everyone else was sold out. This is more than I've paid to stay at the Plaza Hotel in NY. And the room they gave us was a horror show. Check the pictures. It was microscopic. It had a very very small bed for two people. The bed was shoved against the wall. It was HARD AS A ROCK. The pillows were too fat and also hard so I couldn't use them at all. After trying to sleep for 3 hours with no luck, I got a towel and tried to use it as a pillow. It was pretty hard as well. I would have been more comfortable on the floor, if there had been any room. The next day, I went to Kmart and bought my own pillow.
I also felt itchy in the bed. I haven't looked this hotel up on the bedbug website, because I'm actually afraid to know. But I suspect. Oh do I suspect.
The bathroom was so narrow that your shoulders will touch the wall on either side of the toilet. I never even looked in the shower. There was no tub. The toilet made a very loud flushing type noise every 30 seconds or so. All night long. It was like loud waves crashing.
The hallways are not carpeted. They actually have nice, inlaid wood floors. But this amplifies every noise that occurs in the hall. We were near the elevator and we had to hear every drunk person who stumbled in all night long. And in the morning, there was the cleaning staff having long, loud conversations for our entertainment.
I think they gave us the worst room they had for the highest price.
I spent the whole night agonizing about what to do. Should I ask for another room, or should I ask for a reduction in price - considering the marathon was canceled. Ultimately, I politely and meekly asked for another room. The manager was very offended, and treated me very rudely. But he did give me another room. He had me "pack up immediately and bring all my bags down". He couldn't tell me when the new room would be ready, so we had to spend a whole day without having had a shower. When we returned much later in the day, he had the bags in our new room. It was of a decent size. It had the same, small, hard bed, but at least one of us wasn't smashed up against the wall. And the toilet didn't run, and it had a tub. So it was worth the base price of $149.00
If you must stay there for whatever reason, try to get the larger size room, and try not to pay more than $149.
The small horrible room was room number 608. The larger room was room number 312.
I'm including pictures of both. As promised, I'm listing the upsides (as well as reiterating the downsides)
Upsides:
-The hotel had free wifi, but I don't think the rooms on the west side had a good connection because there were always people sitting in the hallway with their computers. We had no trouble in our rooms, both of which were on the east side of the hotel.
-Excellent location if you love the Upper West Side and the Park, as I do.
-Free coffee in the lobby
-Flexible on changing reservations
Downsides:
-Manager
-small, rock hard beds
-small rooms
-iffy wifi
-old carpet
-possible noisy toilets
-tiny bathrooms
-hard pillows
-possible bedbugs
-noisy halls
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