I give this hotel a favorable review for the $125 rate we got on priceline (although as a leisure guest, still would have preferred Le Parker Meridien). Check in is at 3pm and we arrived at 2:30pm ready to drop our bags with the bellman and be on our way. The person who checked us in said as much and we said, fine, we can leave our bags. Then she said, oh, no I found a room for you that's ready now, and she checked us into 12??. It was a queen situated in the middle with windows facing a courtyard (i.e., no view, just a square with other hotel rooms facing you). The room smelled horribly like stale/old smoke -- the kind that's in the walls and upholstery. I called the front desk and asked if this was a non-smoking room and was assured it was. They appologized and said that someone had probably smoked in there even though they were not supposed to & did we want someone to come and spray dissinfectant to rid the odor. I knew that would not do any good as this smell was old and deep! She said that there were no king/queen rooms available now and if we wanted to change we'd have to leave our bags. Again I stated that that would not be a problem and I preferred to wait for a different room. Then she said oh, there is something else and said that we could make a switch now. 2nd room was 1008 and it was a king. The whole room was larger then the queen, even the bathroom. The queen was not a bad size at all, but we thought the king very good size by NYC standards. This one did not have any view either but it did face out to the street. It also had no smoke odor whatsoever! The room decor is tasteful, the bed/pillows/duvet very comfortable, the shower had great water pressure and the whole bath was nice with some marble and plently of room for toiletries. There was a huge walk in closet and a safe. The safe was locked closed so we had to ask someone to re-set it for us and they came up w/in minutes of my request. The lobby is ok, nothing special there, but as with the rest of the hotel, everything clean and fine. Someone in an old review mentioned that this was "the chocolate" hotel and there was a huge bowl of chocolates in the lobby and turn-down service with chocolates. That does not seem to be something they do anymore - no turndown service, no chocolates in lobby. There's a bank of 6 elevators and there was always one waiting or available every time we went in or out -- we never even rode in the elevator with anyone else until our last trip out to check-out. Outside noise does not bother me or interrupt my sleep, and there did not seem to be traffic in this area during my Fri afternoon-Mon morn stay, but you could hear outside noise so I do not think that it's very soundproof. Just something to consider if you have sensitivity to noise. When we got our express check-out there were $30 in phone calls but we did not use there phone at all because I knew they charged $1.25/call and we had our cell w/ free service. All the calls were to one 800 number and the desk guy said he recognized the number or something and immediately took it off our bill. I did not look at the workout room that was down in the basement but I know they charged $10 to use. There is not much in the immediate area for bar/food/bagels and the subway is a few blocks away. Overall, nice/fine, if the area works for you it is and added bonus.
