Amanda L.
Yelp
For the most part we had a very pleasant stay with just a few minor (or maybe not minor to some) issues. First, the hotel location can either be fabulous or not so fabulous depending on what you are looking for. It is just a few blocks from Times Square on a less busy street, so you are close to things like Broadway, but not right smack in the insanity. For us that was good. It is still a VERY bust area of town and for some that may make the location bad. Keep that in mind if you are looking for a more quiet neighborhood.
Our arrival was great. We arrived around 4:30pm and the doormen helped unload and get us into the lobby. The lobby is small, but well decorated and clean. The restaurant Ortzi is located in the back and you can see the little robot Alina hanging out behind the desk. Check in was smooth and front desk staff very nice. Our room was ready and we received what was expected - a higher level floor suite.
The room was very nice. It was clean (a few small stains on the carpet, but smaller that a quarter and hard to not end up with on light tan carpet). We have some severe allergies in our family, so I have to wipe down surfaces in hotel rooms that we will be touching, so when I say clean, I mean it is really clean because I will see if I wipe up dirt and grime. After a few days I did notice there was a little spot of mold in the shower edge floor, but it is a shower and preventing a little mold can be difficult. The beds were ok. Not uncomfortable, but I felt like ours was a little lumpy making my back hurt.
Housekeeping - well, the room was super clean, so that says good things about housekeeping. We ran into a few small snags with them though. On the first day, we asked for the sofa sleeper to be made up and turned down for our kids while we were at dinner. We left our west coast home at 3:30am with 2 young kids, so as you can imagine we were all pretty exhausted. When we returned from dinner the sofa sleeper was not unmade. No problem, I'll just pull it out myself. Well it had no sheets and there were none in the room. So we called and asked for some. Took almost an hour to get sheets and I finally went down to tell the front desk in person. This happened the second day too when I asked for extra hand towels. So seems the communication with housekeeping for certain requests is a little lackluster. Otherwise, they did great.
The robot feature was fun. My kids really enjoyed the delivery of little treats here and there.
Staff was helpful and nice our entire visit and the rest of the hotel grounds were well kept.
The only other thing to be aware of that is not the hotel's fault, is that if you are a light sleeper or need to sleep early, maybe request a room that does not face the front Street of the hotel (no idea what the back of the hotel faces). There is a little court yard across from the hotel which provides a gorgeous view from the rooms facing front. However, on Tuesday until 10pm and then on Friday until almost midnight (when we had to get up at 4am for a flight) there was a band playing LOUDLY on the other side of the courtyard. Even on the 26th floor with a sound machine blaring and ear plugs, we could not get to sleep over the music. It was terrible. Again, not the hotel's fault, but be aware if there is any chance you need to get to sleep at a certain time. As far as traffic, I could only occasionally hear a siren over our sound machine. So in that regard, the 26th floor is fabulous for standard city traffic.
Even so, if I needed to stay in NYC again, I would stay at Luma again just maybe on the other side of the building.