Good hotel, but think carefully about location if lower manhattan is for you...
So i'm just reading the reviews post stay and think some have been unnecessarily harsh on the property - some folks I guess take things harder than others. Here's my thoughts and I can be a tough critic sometimes. As a Diamond was upgraded to a Junior Suite on the lower floors (level 5) was told they only have their suites on the lower floors. I thought bah - it'll be a suite, so i'm fine. Actually this was great, because like others have said. My gosh the lifts - they actually have 3 not 2, but yes I can understand why someone could wait 15 minutes for a lift! I always used the stairs - so perhaps if you do have some status go for a room on a lower floor as a suite. Given two bottles of water at checkin. The breakfast in the restaurant was REALLY bad, i mean it's the worst doubletree breakfast i've ever had. The selection was basically hampton inn standard. I was looking forward to an amazing breakfast but was very let down, and the staff in the breakfast room were quite unprofessional, ask if I wanted any juice, I said grapefruit, they said you can go and get it yourself. So much for asking. They also tended just to chatter amongst themselves and how little work they had to do rather than focus on the guests. I thought it was really unprofessional. The checkin staff were very helpful. Location wise - if you want to be in lower manhattan or the business district this is of course ideal, but otherwise it is certainly a long trek up to midtown, so think wisely if this is for you. I found the room very dark and dingey and like others have said the bathroom was like being on a cruise ship it was very small indeed with no space to put anything. The decor was modern and nice and had two LCD tv's. Although asking for a quiet room away from elevators, I guess they compromised and gave me the junior suite. What I didn't enjoy was they put a 1yo kick next door who cried all night and I got very little sleep. Not much you could do. Overall I don't think this is a 'bad' hotel - it's new, modern, clean, but it just has a few rough edges. And sadly because the location was not ideal for me - I'd rather be midtown, but the rate was good and everything in midtown was sold out on a saturday night, it was a compromise. I'd give it a 4/5, but because they really could have done so much better than a hampton inn style breakfast, i'll keep it at a 3/5. If the breakfast was improved it would get a solid 4/5.