Good hotel with faults
Let me start off this review by stating I am a frequent visitor to the United States and have visited New York on several occasions, each time staying in a different hotel. My girlfriend and I stayed at The Strand for 10 nights during August 2012. 
When originally booking the hotel I left a comment asking if they could give us a room facing the Empire State Building. Upon check-in to the hotel I was told there were no rooms with that view available, so our view for the whole 10 nights was... (drum roll) a large water tower. I understand that it is impossible for the hotel to meet all its guests’ requests, but we had booked for 10 nights, longer than average in NYC for tourists, and the staff member on the front desk did not attempt to look on his system or see if anything could have been done to accommodate our requirements. 
During check-in they asked to swipe our credit card for any possible incidentals or room charges we might incur. What they didn’t tell us was that they actually hold/reserve $50 per night for said incidentals. In total $500 was held on my girlfriend’s credit card by the hotel, making her small-limit card maxed out and unavailable for her additional usage during the trip as planned. This caused a major inconvenience for us as she had to phone the bank back in the UK on a premium number which ended up costing her $70 in international call rates. The whole situation could have been avoided if we had been informed by the front desk at check-in that they reserve the money. After speaking to the bank and discovering this is what the hotel had done I went to the front desk and spoke to a different member of staff about the situation. The staff member was rude, condescending and unprofessional with his responses. I checked the booking confirmation e-mail from the hotel (3 pages worth) where he said it would have information and it doesn’t say anywhere that they hold funds for incidentals. Please let your future guests know about this practice as not everyone has a $5,000+ credit card limit! 
When I travel to the US I take the majority of my travel money as American Express traveller’s cheques and have never had any problem using them at other hotels. Most mornings I would go to the lobby and exchange a $100 cheque for cash. A female front desk staff member looked at me as if I was exchanging Monopoly money. My girlfriend and I always felt like it was a problem and a burden to them to supply us with cash in exchange for the traveller’s cheque. A smile would have been nice.
The roof top bar has a great view but it is a shared bar available to the public and the hotel’s residents. Beware of the daylight robbery prices. Hotel residents get no discount on the over-inflated prices. So after paying over $2500 to stay at The Strand I’m now paying $10 for a cheap imported bottled beer and my girlfriend is paying $15 for a cocktail which is 50% ice cubes… Don’t forget the tips! 
We also found a waitress who worked in the roof top bar to be very abrupt. We had just ordered two $15 cocktails and after sitting down we asked the waitress if it would be possible to have one glass of water. She said “Sure”, and then took orders from two other tables, served them their expensive wine and spirits (taking percentage in tips of the expensive orders) and had ‘accidentally’ forgotten about our water. I called her over again asking for water and eventually we got it 10 minutes later! I can’t help but think if I had ordered a $100 bottle of wine with her receiving a healthy tip the service would have been good.
The ironing board supplied in the hotel room is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Even carefully packed clothes will require some ironing after been in a suitcase for a 3500 mile trip. We were surprised to find the mini ‘ironing board’ had 4 inch legs, which would have acceptable and useful if I was 1 foot tall. I ended up ironing with the board on the floor crouched over on my knees as there was no other surface to put it.
After checking out of the hotel I was given a TripAdvisor business card and was asked to leave a positive review of our experience at the hotel. I was informed that guests who leave positive reviews are rewarded when they next return by a free bottle of wine. This is bribery and shows a lack of class.
Other Negatives:
- The air conditioning is the loudest I have heard in a hotel. We had to turn it off so we could sleep in peace.
- The free wi-fi is unreliable and we were unable to use it during 2 days of our stay. Do not rely on this if you are staying here for business purposes and need a stable connection.
- We found long brown hair in our fresh towels several times after the maid had cleaned our room. We both have blond hair.
- Very small room, smallest room I’ve stayed in NYC and in the US. 
Positives
- Very good hotel location.
- Large comfortable king-sized bed
- Good HD TV with good choice of TV channels.
- Good iPhone/iPod alarm clock dock
- Good secure pin-lock safe for valuables
Overall, the hotel itself was nice but the inconveniences mentioned unfortunately outweighed the positives. This was the most expensive New York hotel I’ve stayed in and unfortunately it ended up being my least favourite. Although some of the staff members we spoke to were rude and unwelcoming, others were very friendly and professional. Most notably, Antoine, who worked on the front desk was always very helpful and gave us 2 free drink vouchers for the roof top bar after hearing about the credit card inconvenience.