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Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel (was Sheraton NY Hotel & Towers) [Master Thread]

Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel (was Sheraton NY Hotel & Towers) [Master Thread]

Old Apr 6, 2017, 1:01 pm
  #331  
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
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I'm not Platinum, so I can't comment on that, but the last time I was there (April 2016) the FD clerk I was chatting with told me the hotel averages 75% elites so I would not expect any upgrades there. Then again, you might get pleasantly surprised.
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Old Apr 7, 2017, 5:53 am
  #332  
 
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I have stayed here many times and have never gotten an upgrade of any sort worth mentioning. I think only this is the only Starwood property I've ever booked two beds at cheapest rate available and not able to get upgraded even to a King.

That said I like the location and the club lounge, while crowded at times, is not bad when traveling alone and needing a quick place to grab a snack. They do charge for alcohol which surprised me one night as I forgot I wasn't in Asia where alcohol seemingly is always free.

I pretty much only book here when not w family, when rates low, and when Indon't expect to spend a lot of time in hotel.
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 9:51 pm
  #333  
 
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Location: Bay Area, CA
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That's good for us since we'll be mostly out exploring and have reserved a king bed. We already have a few shows and restaurants we want to try and friends we want to visit, too. We're taking in a few days on Nantucket part way through our stay since we've never been there and it's a quick flight.
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Old Apr 10, 2017, 4:12 pm
  #334  
 
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This hotel offers in my view a great value in New York if you are looking for a full service hotel in the area of Times Square. Not a great hotel but I've stayed in worse. It is competent and they worked with me when I had some issues that were really their issues. Very good service for New York where the bar is incredibly incredibly low.
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Old May 17, 2017, 11:07 am
  #335  
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3 stays in a Club Room--mixed feelings for a convention style factory hotel

Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel

Map| 2 Reviews | 50% Recommended

Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel

811 7th Ave New York, NY US 10019

3 stays in a Club Room--mixed feelings for a convention style factory hotel (9 Photos)

Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel

I had business in New York with several of my client groups, and room rate and SPG affiliation made me choose the Sheraton Times Square for the first time. I had 3 different stays at the hotel in March and April 2017.

This hotel is a monster. A massive convention style factory of a hotel. 

Check In

Check in surprisingly didn't take too long for any of my 3 stays--though the first stay had problems. They took a little time to sort it quickly, and then that was that. 

Considering how big the hotel is, the SPG Platinum line really helps with check in and check out. Otherwise, I might have had to kill myself. 

This is when you also discover the crazy elevators: the ones that require you to input the floor you want, telling you which elevator to use. It's annoying, it gets crowded easily, and it's frenetic pushing through people who still are trying to figure it out. I hated them, my clients hated them, and other guests we met hated them. 

Room

My rooms were always...fine. Nothing too nice. Nothing too impressive at all. Nothing that made me think I was being upgraded at all by the hotel, either--despite being SPG Platinum 100 nights, and despite always booking 10-20+ rooms for each stay. Just a regular NYC hotel room...though perhaps a bit larger than average?

The photo below has the shade pulled FYI. The view is below.

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The view wasn't too shabby (when the blind wasn't drawn!), with Central Park in the distance:

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The air con worked like a charm for all of my stays--surprisingly. It did turn off when I wasn't in the room, but the small room size did allow it to cool down to 67 F in no time. Shower pressure was adequate, but not impressive. 

The sales manager did leave me a wondeful welcome amenity:

20170307_191517.jpg

Service

Service definitely was an issue here for me.

First, there never was any water waiting for me in any of the 3 rooms. As SPG Plat, that should be a foregone conclusion: 2 bottles of water in every SPG Plat room. The sales manager had made sure that I had a welcome amenity...but there was no water? Really? On the other hand, the valets downstairs always were generous and just gave me water when I mentioned the oversight to them--all 3 times. They were great!

Second, when things did go wrong, the hotel was piss-poor in responding. One of my client rooms was supposed to have 2 double beds for 2 persons...but had only a queen bed. It took over an hour to get that sorted...and the repeated calls and transfers between departments made me pretty furious.

On the other hand, the valets were wonderful--as mentioned above. Once, I had forgotten or lost my umbrella...and a valet lent me one without asking for my name or room number. I was very surprised by that wonderful gesture. 

Staff were all friendly and definitely trying to please. But they often had such a nightmarish bureaucracy to handle that it wasn't always very pleasing to me.

Dining

I never dined at the hotel. But there is a Starbucks cafe in the lobby that was very popular!

Location

Although I despise being in the vicinity of Times Square, it is convenient for my business. The Sheraton is 5 blocks north of Times Square--so very convenient if you want to be that close. It's also just 6 blocks up to Central Park. So a very convenient Midtown location it is, assuming you want to be in Midtown!

Overall

The hotel isn't so bad...but it's just way too impersonal and massive for my tastes. I hated it, even though there was nothing wrong or problematic with my room. For the price point, it can be an excellent deal...but I am not sure that would lure me back again with my groups.

Certainly, I would never choose to stay here individually. The lack of even a possibly nicer, more spacious upgraded room category--all room categories pretty much being 250 sq. ft., after all--means that there's little incentive to book here as a Platinum. There's just nothing nicer here, barring a suite. Disappointing.

 

EDIT: Following my stay and posting of this review to TripAdvisor, the hotel apologized for the service misses and posted 5,000 SPG points to my account. This was in addition to 15,000 SPG points previously posted to my account for issues related to the group details for my stays (which I did not include in this review). 

3 stays in a Club Room--mixed feelings for a convention style factory hotel

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Old May 17, 2017, 3:55 pm
  #336  
 
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This hotel has the rudest front desk I have ever dealt with - have stayed there a good amount and this remains consistent. Night and day compared to the great desk staff at the Sheraton Tribeca
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Old May 17, 2017, 3:57 pm
  #337  
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Originally Posted by uscjeff
This hotel has the rudest front desk I have ever dealt with - have stayed there a good amount and this remains consistent. Night and day compared to the great desk staff at the Sheraton Tribeca
I never encountered any rude front desk staff (Platinum/Gold line, anyway). I certainly had a surly woman once...but she was never rude.
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Old May 18, 2017, 5:46 am
  #338  
 
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Originally Posted by uscjeff
This hotel has the rudest front desk I have ever dealt with - have stayed there a good amount and this remains consistent. Night and day compared to the great desk staff at the Sheraton Tribeca
I've never had issues with rude front desk staff! I recently stayed at the Tribeca property and the staff was nice but I will pass on the property in the future because the rooms seemed almost identical to the room decor at the 4 Points Midtown to me and the location just wasn't great. At the Tribeca property the rooms were also ridiculously small....probably the smallest I have had in NYC.
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Old May 18, 2017, 1:03 pm
  #339  
 
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I stayed there this week and genuinely got upset. There's no freakin' reason that it should take 30-40 minutes to check into a hotel in a supposed gold/platinum line. It's brutal. There is no hotel in the system where my stay would be so improved by electronic check in. I remember the golden years when Plats could check in upstairs at the lounge.

I will second the comment about the need to police the club. I was there on Tuesday morning at 10am and it was a zoo. Many tables filled with conventioneers talking extremely loudly. To add to the din, they had both TV's on with volume in a form of competition.
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Old May 18, 2017, 7:51 pm
  #340  
 
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I didn't see any window in the pictures of the room by bhrubin. Did I miss something or is that common at this hotel?
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Old May 18, 2017, 10:34 pm
  #341  
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Originally Posted by rbAA
I didn't see any window in the pictures of the room by bhrubin. Did I miss something or is that common at this hotel?
Sorry! I had the shades down when I took the room shots, since I like privacy in NYC--so the photo shows only the shade. There was actually a decent view for all my stays...

Photo added. Decent view!

Last edited by bhrubin; May 19, 2017 at 12:23 am
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Old Sep 5, 2017, 6:41 am
  #342  
 
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Has anyone ever been able to check in early at this property? We needed to be in this neighborhood this past holiday weekend, otherwise we'd probably be at TriBeCa or one of the hotels near Port Authority where we get to check in early more often than not. But this Sheraton always tells us "we were at 100% last night", even though when I checked on Friday afternoon there was lots of availability.

I don't mind waiting until official check in time. The luggage guys are friendly and we can keep busy, I just don't like being lied to.

And then when it was time to check in they had our reservation info wrong. I shouldn't have to print out the details to "prove" to them that I booked a King room, should I? And when I show it to them *THAT* is what gets me the King room, not just my sayso?
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Old Sep 5, 2017, 10:48 am
  #343  
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Originally Posted by Out of my Element
Has anyone ever been able to check in early at this property? We needed to be in this neighborhood this past holiday weekend, otherwise we'd probably be at TriBeCa or one of the hotels near Port Authority where we get to check in early more often than not. But this Sheraton always tells us "we were at 100% last night", even though when I checked on Friday afternoon there was lots of availability.

I don't mind waiting until official check in time. The luggage guys are friendly and we can keep busy, I just don't like being lied to.

And then when it was time to check in they had our reservation info wrong. I shouldn't have to print out the details to "prove" to them that I booked a King room, should I? And when I show it to them *THAT* is what gets me the King room, not just my sayso?
Why not call and speak to the reservations or front desk manager? Then have them email you.
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Old Sep 27, 2017, 8:21 am
  #344  
 
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Quick news on club lounge

Staying here now for the week. Booked a traditional room on points and was upgraded to a premium view room on the 50th floor. Room is clean and everything functions, no water though, you have to go to the club lounge to pick that up.

As as of Monday this week the club lounge moved out of the 44th floor and down to the lobby in the south west corner. The views are good and the biggest plus is they have really upped their food game.

Breakfast offers hot items like hash browns, bacon, scrambled eggs and oatmeal as well as cereals, pastries and fruit. They now also have a cappuccino machine. The evening is the most dramatic change. Now hot entrees are offered as well as amazing desserts amongst other new items. The space is also large enough it never gets crowded. A very solid improvement IMHO.
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Old Oct 3, 2017, 12:33 pm
  #345  
 
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Originally Posted by djkyyc
As as of Monday this week the club lounge moved out of the 44th floor and down to the lobby in the south west corner. The views are good and the biggest plus is they have really upped their food game.
Is this move permanent? I always loved the views of Central Park.
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