I stay at the hotel for a whole week.
While the position is simply stunning (you gotta love the Lower East Side!) and the roomas are great, the customer service of the hotel is poor to say the least.
The problems are the following:
1) the reception NOT being on the ground floor
2) the unfriendliness of the the doormen
3) the awful bar on the ground floor
4) the breakfast and waiters
So here's my experience.
The staff at the front desk is polite. I asked for a different room, even offering to pay more, but they gave me a free upgrade. Besides this, even though I stayed for a full week, their attitude wasn't anywhere close to "friendly". Also, no one takes your suitcases upstairs, when you get to the hotel. Which I find rather odd considering the price of the rooms, not very far from those of the most famous 5 star Manhattan hotels such as The Plaza or The Pierre.
1) so, the fact the front desk isn't on the ground floor means the doormen are perfectly unguarded and can act how they see fit. If you need to go to the airport, they will try to get you in a "private car" (not a cab, or a black car) that'll take you there. And the minute you say you'd rather take a cab (especially if you're a woman travelling by herself) they'll start being seriously rude and basically, insisting you do what they say. I don't know what's up with that. I found it most unpleasant.
2) the bar, The Feast I think it's called, gets seriously crowded on weekends, to the point that if you get back at 3 am you have a hard time getting to the elevator. Also, depening on your personal taste you might find the crowd terrible. It's mostly drunk twenty year olds. The music? Super loud dance tunes. The good thing is that if your room floor is high enough (I was at the 7th) you won't be bothered at all.
3) the breakfast id BAD. Especially if you are in for a long stay like I was. They basically have only bagels, boxed cream cheese and a few croissants. If you want orange juice you have to ask for it: it's free, but you still have to ask for it and the waiters barely speak any english (though most of them are pretty nice). What's preyy annoying, though, is the "a la carte" service: the choices are quite limited, but most of all the dishes come after 20 minutes you ordered and won't respect your order. I asked thrice for running yolks eggs and three times I got them hard boiled (I eventually sent them back, the third time).
On the bright side, and to be fair, I must say that the rooms and large, well furnished and extra-clean. For one, the maids are precise - even if they still knock even if there's a "do not disturb" sign.
Still, I will totally choose some other accomodation when I travel back to the fabulous NYC.
hotel reviews