Ajani C.
Yelp
This hotel is absolute garbage.
It is the worst hotel I have been to anywhere in the world, and I have travelled worldwide for decades.
I have been to hostels that are exponentially better in every way than this hotel.
The only benefit to this hotel is the location.
Beyond its location, this hotel has no redeemable qualities.
Their staff is horrible; according to reviews featured here, the staff consists of thieves, and based on my personal experience, the staff consists of liars.
Avoid this hotel at all costs.
Whoever owns the hotel should either invest in renovating it, sell it to a developer willing to renovate it, or have it demolished so that something more useful and aesthetically pleasing is built in its place.
Ideally, this venue should be burnt to the ground; it is a cancer in New York City.
I arrived in an exhausted state at the hotel last Monday, October 9, 2023, and nothing in my room worked.
The cleaning lady in the hallway had to let me into my room because my key cards did not work. Things were already going wrong before I entered my room!
If the key cards at this hotel are anywhere near a cell phone, they will stop working. This was something that the staff that handed me the key cards should have informed me of before my cards stopped working.
Then, when I entered my room, the safe was not working, the phone was not working, and the TV was not working.
I was furious and had to spend money to call the front desk since the room's phone did not work.
Eventually, my key cards were recalibrated, and the employee I spoke to at the front desk claimed that some technicians would be up to my room to fix everything, but after waiting for over an hour, no one came.
I went for a long walk throughout Manhattan to clear my head, and when I got back to my room, there were two technicians in there, attempting to fix the safe.
I received no call beforehand, stating that technicians would enter my room, and to make matters worse, they could not fix the safe.
They also mentioned nothing about the phone or television, and eventually, I was moved to another room, which was exhausting to move to, given how tired I was.
Then, the hotel staff slipped a handwritten letter under the door of my new room. I have included a photograph of that letter here.
Among other things, they claimed I would receive a refund of $120.48 USD.
When I checked out, they claimed the refund was sent to my Visa debit card.
When I returned to Toronto, I checked the account associated with my Visa debit card, and there was no refund.
The refund they promised me in writing is still outstanding; thus, they are liars.
I called this hotel twice yesterday and once today for an update, and I have received no updates on the refund I am owed.
It is also worth mentioning that the hotel is old and worn, and everything is falling apart.
The photographs of the hotel that exist through various booking platforms need to be more accurate. In person, it is orders of magnitude worse than one can imagine.
So much so that, as I walked to my first room before moving to my second room, I was unwilling to leave my laptop and passport outside of a safe.
Finally, on my last night at the hotel, I was in line to speak to the concierge about extending my check-out time by three hours.
Before arriving in New York City, I had asked the hotel staff if extending my stay by three hours was possible, but no one responded to my e-mail. It was my first time not getting a response from a hotel by e-mail, and I should have taken that as a red flag.
As I was waiting in line, the gentleman in front of me was furious, and he showed me why he was angry on his phone: the water coming out of his hotel room's sink, bathtub and shower looked like it was laced with feces, and he had not showered in over 24 hours.
The couple in front of him was speaking to the hotel staff about the fact that the air conditioning in the room was not working, and it was a sweltering October night in Manhattan.
As terrible as my situation was, their situation was worse.
