Excellent hotel for family
Recently stayed at the Affinia and was here before and during Hurricane Sandy. The good: Check in was quick and efficient, and I especially want to commend our porter who was the friendliest and cheeriest porter I've ever met. He was also our porter upon check-out and I was quite glad to see a smiling face in the midst of Hurricane Sandy. We had a studio suite which I found quite large and the kitchen was very convenient especially since we used it a lot to heat baby food, etc. Housekeeping was efficient, the room was always nice and neat everytime we got back from a day out shopping. The location was fantastic, so close to all the shopping and Times Square. Our room was relatively quiet since we were on a high floor (25th floor).
The bad: the lobby really needs updating, the carpets there were worn and dirty and the lighting was so low but not in a luxe sort of way, I'm not sure if it was deliberate to hide the dirty carpets. The room although updated still felt a bit 'old', but I was really happy with the space and the kitchen that it doesn't matter that much. Our bathroom was quite small and did not have any extra hooks or towel rail for the towels... we ended up hooking our towels on any vertical space nearby, not ideal. The wifi is not free, at least for the rate I got. It is free in the lobby though. I found one staff at the concierge desk on the grumpy, cranky side. She was not that helpful when there was a french family ahead of me asking about booking a taxi to the airport (she just told them to wave outside and shout 'taxi'... hello???) and she was quite curt to me when I asked about leaving a package for a friend. I can imagine the rooms on the lower floors to be quite noisy since the windows are not double glazed.
Overall a good stay in the Affinia, if you don't care about how the lobby looks I would recommend this to families but if you are averse to noise or have a baby that needs quite I recommend a higher floor or a room at the back of the building.