Location

We split our trip into 3 nights near Central Park and 3 nights near the World Trade Center. During our Central Park stay, we chose the Mandarin Oriental New York because of the great reviews, views and pool. Yes - it has an indoor pool!! It is one of very select few hotels in the city that does. And the location can not be beat. Walking distance to Central Park, it is also attached to the Shops at Columbus Circle / Time Warner Center including a Whole Foods. Super convenient!

Check In

Service from check in to check out and everything in between has been flawless. Upon arrival, we were greeted by the doormen where they collected our luggage and directed us to the 35th floor for check-in. At check-in, we were given an upgrade to a Premier Central Park view room on the 45th floor by friendly front desk staff because we booked through a travel agent that had access to MO’s “Fan Club” rates. She explained all the perks of the rate at the MO like upgrade at check-in, complimentary breakfast for 2 people, and $100 food or spa credit. 

Room

There is a separate elevator bank that take you to the rooms near the spa. After 7 pm, you have to use your key card. All the rooms at the MO are the same size but with slightly different layouts (except the suites - but they don’t generally comp upgrade to suites, so you gotta shell out money for those). Anyway, since we were there for our kiddo’s birthday week, they gave us a rollaway bed at no extra charge (which was greatly appreciated). There were a couple books in the room for the kids to use during our stay that we were able to bring home too. The king bed room was the perfect size to add a rollaway and we still had space to stretch out a tiny bit. The room is big for NYC standards and had a separate bathtub and shower. Online said they had some bathtub toys for kids, but when we called they didn’t have any - just bath safety items (whale themed nonslip mat, knee pad for the parents, spigot cover, drain cover, and thermometer) which was nice too and appreciated. We hardly heard any hallway or outside noise during our stay.

Dining

We chose to eat at in-room dining for our breakfast and one of the dinners. The food is always excellent, but they sometimes forgot to bring certain items though they were quick to send them up when we called back. As for coffee - no, there are no coffee makers in the room. You can either buy coffee through room service OR if you call guest services, they will bring you an old school coffee maker and coffee grinds (the maker and coffee arrive separate) so you can make your own coffee. These are not pods, so you kind of had to experiment a little with water and amount of grinds. For us, 2 bottles of drinking water and the entire bowl of coffee brewed the perfect cup of Joe.

Amenities

Another perk of the hotel is its complimentary house car available to all guests on a first come first served basis within about a 10 block radius. We had the same driver when we went to Times Square for the M&M store and then again a different day to Nobu Fifty Seven. It was such a great service to have a friendly and professional driver available for these trips. He was awesome! Nice small talk conversation and even gave us some helpful tips for our visit. There are also water bottles and wet wipes in the car. Don’t forget to tip - these guys deserve it! Really refreshing, especially after experiencing some not so friendly or professional uber drivers. FYI - the MO car service doesn’t pick back up though, only drop-off service.

And last but not least, the pool and fitness center on the 36th floor. It is open to all guests. It’s not huge, but quite adequate. Attendants check you in on your first visit and then remember you the rest of your stay. There is a fruit tray right outside the pool and an infused water dispenser in the fitness center. The pool is a long narrow lap pool that starts at 3.5’ and ends at 4’. The attendants are also lifeguards so they watch you while you swim or play. They even had a couple kick boards, pool noodles, and toddler life vest you can borrow during your swim. They also check to see if you need any water bottles when you leave. We were super impressed with the amenities and the staff.

Overall

Overall, we could not have asked for a better introduction to NYC. The Mandarin Oriental New York was the perfect 5-star hotel for our stay. We are now continuing our stay near the World Trade Center and wish we were back at the MO. The staff, service and amenities just cannot be beat! Thank you for a great stay!

We booked a 3-night stay at the Conrad for my son's spring break birthday trip to NYC. I had emailed the Conrad New York ahead of time to make sure that our stay would be kid-friendly, fun and perfect for the purpose we had planned.

Check In

Things started going wrong at online check-in. We had been upgraded to a river view suite as a Hilton Diamond and we were checking in for a room on the 15th floor in the app. As I was attempting to check-in, it timed out and crashed. I had restarted the app and the room was gone. Instead it was putting me in a room on the 7th floor. I had contacted the front desk and the were able to assign me a room on the 11th floor, but my originally selected room was gone within a matter of minutes (not sure what happened unless someone booked the same room?). We lost a few floors in view, but not the end of the world. But then as I emailed to confirm that I had my requested preferences, I was told that the room does not have a bathtub and was shower only. With young kids, a bathtub is a must-have! Clearly the people in charge of assigning rooms here have no clue. (They suggested putting an infant tub in the shower for my 4-year old - which absolutely would not work.) Or I can downgrade back to my originally booked room with no view to get a bathtub (Sigh). As I was already en route to the hotel, I decided to just deal with it in person. When I arrived, the front desk staff explained the same thing, or I can pay to upgrade the 2nd and 3rd nights to an executive room during my stay (as it was sold out the 1st night) for an extra $190/night which does have a bathtub. Note to all Hilton Diamonds - even though this is an all-suite hotel, I asked and was told that they do NOT offer complimentary multi-category upgrades to luxury suites or executive suites or beyond. Anyway, my app was showing a nor1 upgrade to the Conrad suite for an additional $200/night so that wasn't much of an accommodation at all! She proceeded to tell me to just book the app upgrade because she can't offer anything better. So we took the app upgrade and paid extra to take the Conrad suite. (It had to be manually processed, because the front desk had "checked" us in so nor1 couldn't get applied.)

Room

The Conrad suite itself is huge and having all the space is so nice with kiddos, but there were a few things wrong when we checked in. The whirlpool tub was showing an error (which we had to call down to fix), the TV in the bathtub is missing a remote so cannot turn on (which we had to call down - but they didn't have the remote, so it remained off the entire 3 nights), the blinds in the office are broken and cannot be pulled up to open, the powder room toilet clogged (which we had to call down to fix), there are only 2 thermostats for multiple rooms so we could never get the temperature right in all of the rooms, the lights randomly turned off (we assume there is a motion sensor somewhere, but we never figured out where).

This is the floorplan of the Conrad Suite. The door next to the double-sinks behind the bed actually leads to a separate shower room.

View of another building with a glimpse of the water from the Conrad Suite.

Some Room Pics:

Service

As the welcome amenity, we received one still water, one sparling water, and a small box of chocolates as a Diamond. (I've seen photos of fruit trays, but we never received one.) They also did send a birthday cake, but for some reason told me they couldn't send it due to our nut allergy because the mix is made offsite. I informed them of the nut allergy a week ahead of our arrival, but they waited until the last night of our stay to let us know. We did work it out so they could send it up to us (birthday boy doesn't have the allergy - another child does), but they sent a carrot cake. For a kid turning 5. I've seen photos of red velvet birthday cakes and chocolate birthday cakes - not sure why they thought carrot cake would go over well with a 4 year old turning 5. It didn't. Oh well, guess it's the thought that counts. (It seems like there sure are a lot more misses than hits here.)

Dining

Also, as a Diamond, breakfast is included as part of the package. They had buffet on the weekends and a la carte on the weekdays. Our Saturday buffet was uneventful, all the food was fine. Nothing really stood out. However, there are no made-to-order eggs (i.e. no omelettes) as part of the package - you'd have to pay additional at the a la carte prices. However the Sunday buffet - omg, was a nightmare. The guy at check in was not friendly at all and were quoted a 20 minute wait for a table. We asked if we can wait back in our hotel room (since we had small kids with us) and was told no. Once we finally got seated way past the 20 minutes, they were running out of food and did NOT restock. Our waiter took pity on us and gave us a fruit plate when there was literally no fruit left in the buffet (thank you for the gesture - it was greatly appreciated). I understand they were busy. There is no exec lounge at this Conrad, so all the Hilton gold and diamond people end up at the restaurant. However, this is still supposed to be a high end restaurant at a high end hotel. This exact scenario I would expect at an Embassy Suites or maybe a Hilton (although I've had much better experiences at both ES and Hilton properties before), but not a Conrad.