Just not for everyone.
The moment my husband and I arrived at this hotel which our travel agent had been raving about, we quickly realized that it was not the kind of place we wanted for our romantic 20th anniversary holiday in the Big Apple.
We arrived at the W hotel from a red eye flight; needless to say we did not look "put together" which was the first sign of us not belonging in this trendy mecca. The yound lady at the reception was very friendly but difficult to hear over the loud music playing all over the 7th floor lounge. As we quickly realized, this lobby was more of a night club than the traditionnal hotel lobby which is fine if you are looking to meet someone, not so much when you are trying to get help or information.
I pointed out to the young lady that we were celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary (which she should have seen from the booking notes...) and she was very proud to let us know that she was upgrading us from a "wonderful room" to a "spectacular room". The spectacular room deserved the name because of the spectacular view on Times Square from the 29th floor!!! But that's where the "spectacularness" ended; this upgraded room was very disappointing. I was expecting at the very least that we would have bathrobes and a coffee machine. We did get complimentary bottled water: one small bottle per day and, oh yes, a complimentary copy of USA Today. At no point during our stay did anyone from the many staff members congragating around the hotel and chatting amongst themselves ever cared to ask us if we needed anything or if we were enjoying our stay. That also included the person at the desk when we checked out who simply said: "No extra charge, everything is covered by your group (we weren't in a group...) Goodbye." I was almost expecting him to tell us not to let the door hit us on the... well, you know.
We decided that all this shouldn't matter much because it was a very well located place to sleep and we would still enjoy our time in New York... with a little help from the hotel concierge! We have travelled quite a bit in our "long" life and everywhere we have been around the world we have learned that the person with the pulse of the place is the hotel concierge; this wonderful person can usually get you tickets to anything, they take care of people's needs and are a big part of their organization's reputation. Well, the "W" concierge turned out to be a very unhelpful "Googler" who couldn't suggest or get anything for us! In fact, he quickly suggested that we should simply go to the computer behind the reception desk and look things up for ourselves. The underlined message seemed to be that people like us shouldn't be wasting his time. We would have been very discouraged had this been our first trip to New York; luckily we knew what to do and where to go and did not rely on this person's knowledge or lack thereof... thank God!
Don't get me wrong, we had a fabulous time in New York despite the disappointment! We actually never complained because we are not the kind of people to do that; instead we kept trying to find the positive in all of this. This hotel just isn't for everyone and we were clearly made to feel that way from our arrival. I had read a lot of reviews about this hotel prior to booking and we were expecting a lot more; but we would have been happy with just a little bit more respect and courtesy. Needless to say as we are planning our next trips anywhere in the world we might try to avoid the W hotels altogether.