Zack V.
Yelp
We booked a one bedroom king suite for beginning of July 2023. Due to our gold Hilton status, we were upgraded three floors to the 22nd floor and given a "city view" room - which, in actuality, was a view of the sides of buildings. Was it an upgrade? Ehh, I guess that depends who you ask.
From the instant we walked into the hotel lobby to check our bags before walking the city before our room was ready, there was a lack of direction, lack of greetings from the hotel staff, and overall lack of 5 star guest care.
The room was well appointed with relatively modern furniture, good lighting, and two smart tvs; one in the living room, and one in the bedroom. The bathroom is quite large with a large waterfall shower. However, the bathroom also showed the room's age with black mold growing along the crevices of the shower, along with water mineralization. And a small thing but the speed at which our sink drained was extremely slow - it's not that hard to pour some draino down the sink every once in a while! Additionally, we noticed there was no seal on the bottom of the shower door, which after a ten minute shower, created heavy leakage, (I.e. water flooding the floor almost to the point of reaching the bedroom carpet). We had to use several of our towels to attempt to keep it dry, which was quite disappointing to see. Also on that point, most of our towels had holes in them! They looked raggedy and used. I'm not sure I've ever been to a hotel that gave guests towels with holes - not even motels, let alone 5 star hotels. Not a huge deal, but a noticeable inconvenience and lack of attention to detail.
In terms of service, this is where the hotel really struck out for us. From the overall lack of attention to guests, to the lack of attention to detail that distinguishes a four star from a five star, these differences really stood out - not in a good way. For example, we noticed that each day when our room was serviced, the bed was not properly made, soaps/shampoos were not neatly organized, nor were extras left behind, trash wasn't emptied, vacuuming was clearly not done as there remained balls of lint on the floor throughout our stay, etc. Further, we used the Hilton messaging app multiple times, where there was one instance where requests we made were not answered, and another instance where it took 4 hours to receive an answer. Not good. Further, we noticed on our first day that there was still macaroni and cheese from a previous guest in our fridge. Nasty! It took us until the final night before we threw it away ourselves. And listen, in the grand scheme of things, these issues were no big deal - but when you're paying for a 5 star hotel in Midtown Manhattan, the little details make all the difference.
Overall, the hotel was good. Good location and relatively well appointed rooms. However, the lack of attention to details in room service, to lack of attention/prioritization of guests, this hotel didn't wow us, as we were expecting from a five star hotel and lacked the luxury element. I think, based on our experience at this hotel, and from other hotels we've stayed in, this hotel is an ambitious four star, at its best. For our next trip to NYC, if we decide to stay in another luxury property, we'd likely look elsewhere.