My two daughters (22 and 18) and I stayed here for 4 nights (26-30 Oct 2010). We’d asked for two adjoining or interconnecting rooms. On our first night we were put on two different floors! After a little insistence, the guys at the front desk did a bit of shuffling about with their bookings and managed to get us two interconnecting rooms on the 17th floor, which was more than satisfactory. So they get Brownie points; but why weren’t we given that in the first place, as we’d made our booking weeks in advance?
I would generally concur with most of the points made by other reviewers: it’s quite a good hotel, but lacks that ‘extra something’ which makes a good hotel excellent; and for the price, I would expect something a bit better.
On the plus side: service was generally good, polite and attentive, even though the hotel was evidently very busy (in fact – we were told – full). The location is good: Subway station next door; very easy to get to shops (especially important with young daughters!); within a stone’s throw of Central Park and the “Museum Mile”; and right next to Carnegie Hall.
Rooms are generally well appointed, and quite a good size for New York. Bathrooms a bit pokey though, and need sprucing up (cracked tiles, loose fitments etc). Beds perfectly comfortable and spacious. Old fashioned TVs in rooms (though quite serviceable). Wi-Fi in room over $16 a day (at these prices, that should be included in rate). Very expensive and touch-sensitive mini-bar: just remove a bottle from the shelf and you’ll be charged for it, even if you put it back unopened. At least the guy on the front desk warned us about this – and even advised us to buy our own drinks from the nearby store (I won’t name him, the hotel would probably sack him!).
And the minus side? One major gripe we had was that residents evidently do not get priority for breakfast. The hotel is open to non-residents for breakfast, and we were told we had to wait 25 minutes for a table, since we had no reservation! I have NEVER had to reserve a table for breakfast at a hotel where I was a guest. That’s quite unacceptable. We only had breakfast there once (it was not included in the room price – why not?); and though it was good, it was expensive (reckon on nearly $100 for three). You can breakfast for less than half that price – maybe not as refined an experience, but more than satisfying – at the various delis within yards of the hotel front door. The Carnegie Deli on 7th Ave / 55th St is particularly good.
The swimming pool was a disappointment – small and crowded, so we decided against swimming there in the end. NB if you want a sauna after your swim, you have to go all the way from the 41st floor where the pool is, to the lower basement (two changes of lift) where the gym is, and pay a $10 ‘access fee’.
The bar at the hotel is a long corridor leading out to the 57th St entrance on the other side of the building: it has unpleasantly loud music and never any room to sit. There is no restaurant at the hotel apart from the burger joint, which is much as described by other reviewers: incongruously (and self-consciously) a spit-and-sawdust affair hidden away from the marble columns of the hotel reception by a large curtain (felt a bit like going into a strip-joint!); heaving with people queuing at the steaming kitchen bar where you place your order; burgers served à la McDonalds in paper bags to be eaten with fingers at the wooden tables (assuming you can find a seat). But, having said that, truly wonderful burgers that McDonalds would fail to comprehend.
While I can’t say the Parker Meridien is a bad hotel, it doesn’t compare very favourably even with other Meridien hotels I have stayed in (such as the Meridien Kuala Lumpur, which is outstanding). It is not cheap, and for the price, I would expect something better and a bit more classy – it evidently caters for a possibly uncritical business clientele, given the number of corporate functions that seemed to be going on when we were there; and I suspect relies on this ‘package’ trade to keep it going rather than paying attention to the needs of individual travellers and families.
Overall, I think there are better places in New York for the money.
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