Who is giving this place 4 stars? I have never written a review before. I travel a lot, but I have never been more compelled to warn fellow travelers.
Room DOES NOT look like any promotional photo I've seen anywhere. Where are the rooms in the pictures? I literally teared up when I saw the room and realized we wouldn't have time to change hotels before we had to get to an event we came to town for. I asked the bellman if there were some other rooms that had been renovated and maybe my room was one that had not? He said it had been renovated a year and a half ago? I asked if there were any nicer rooms or if they were all like mine with dirty carpet, walls, etc. and he said they all looked like mine, but some rooms on higher floors had new headboards. Um, the headboard was the least of my concerns.
Out of fairness I would try to balance this review with the positives, but as far as the room is concerned, there were not any. I will post some pictures which pretty much speak for themselves. We wore socks the entire time, i used a dog blanket from the car instead of the duvet which had no cover on it (and i'm sure is not regularly washed), i took a shower standing on a towel! thank goodness i had some anti bacteria wipes in my purse so I could use the remote control and wipe down a few things.
I don't drink, but i had a drink with dinner in the hopes i would pass out and not have to think about how grossed out i was sleeping there.
Check-in was a pain too. We checked in at 5pm. i reserved 2 beds. Didn't want to share a bed with my mom, thanks. I reconfirmed the 2 beds a day or 2 prior. Get to the desk and they want to put me in a king. I ask how long the wait might be if we decide to wait for a double room to become available? She doesn't know. I ask if a room is expected to be available that night? don't know. then she says they are "low" on double rooms. They weren't even out of double rooms and shes giving me a hard time. So I asked if I could have one of these available rooms and she had to ask a manager. that takes a bit of time. the people behind me are annoyed. i think there was only one other person at the front desks. So finally we get the room but really, what are they holding on to the rooms for? Obviously this was no VIP room they needed to keep open.
A little more about the room before i sign off-- no duvet covers on the very thin, beigh/tan comforters. At least with covers, you kind of feel like there's a chance they wash those every once in a while. But I doubt these comforters are washed regularly just because it isn't practical and especially in a place like this. Carpet spotted, stained and dingy. Dreary color scheme. brown, tan, off white and then there is the nightmarish abstract "art" on the walls. just black and white splatters. Very cheerful. Not. Really brightened up the room. not.
I just looked at the promo pics again. they show rooms with duvet covers, throw blankets at the foot of the bed, reading lights in the headboards, desks, desk chairs. My room had NONE of these things. How's that for bait and switch.
Somewhere in the written hotel description they use the word "tranquil". Um, no. The fact that there was some sort of band playing outside until 2am is not the hotels fault, but they also shouldn't imply that the noise from the city is magically blocked out. They do not have any special noise reducing windows, etc. I have no idea where the music was coming from, but from the 35th floor I could make out the lyrics word for word. It was that loud.
I'm really sooo disappointed. I do not understand how a hotel gets away with such a bait and switch. I book a lot of travel for people at the financial company I work at. I'm so glad it was me that found out about this hotel. If I had sent my bosses to a hotel like this, there would be repercussions.
The room really affected the quality of my trip to NYC. While we were away from the hotel, I was dreading going back. And even though I'm home in my nice clean house, writing about this is even giving me the creeps.
6/30 - It's 2 weeks later now and the experience still bothers me every time I think about the trip. I did my research before booking this hotel. I saw photos. My mother rarely travels and so I wanted her to have a nice time--not to have to worry that she forgot and almost got out of bed without putting socks on before her feet touched the floor.
I emailed the concierge about 7-10 days ago to ask for an email address of someone in management that I could forward this review to. I have not received a response, but I'm not surprised.
Just today someone asked me about that trip (FYI Millennium, she also books tons of corporate travel to NY) the first thing out of my mouth was how horrible the hotel was.
Last week I booked travel for some of the people in my office. The hotel they normally stay at was booked and they wanted something close to our offices in NY and near enough to the park for jogging. If I had a good experience at this hotel, I would have booked it for my Team in a minute. So on top of leaving me with a bad memory, the hotel lost out on a 3 night stay for 7 people. 21 rooms. As well as any future business my office could have given them. Hope the money they save by not cleaning, getting rid of ripped sheets, changing ruined carpets, removing spider webs, etc. is worth the money, the loss of business, and their reputation. I will never stay at The Millennium Broadway New York or any affiliated hotels again.
