Maxwell NYC

This hotel is an absolute dump.

I stayed here in the summer not too long after the rebrand. At the time I got an absolutely tiny room and decided never to return.

Well, fast forward to today — with 8 expiring SNAs and a confirmed reservation at a Four Points, I noticed a cheaper room pop up here and figured I'd reserve and see if SNAs would clear into a one-bedroom suite. The Citi concierge screwed up my Marriott number, which I promptly noticed and emailed my ambassador to fix and apply SNAs. The SNAs were applied for just the one-bedroom suite, and cleared at the 5-day window. The loyalty number did not get fixed, and with multiple follow-ups to the Ambassador team, they assured me it'd be fine at the property.

Arriving here, surprise surprise, they had no record of me having any kind of loyalty, and the SNAs had cleared me into a deluxe queen room (which we had not requested, we only put in a one-bedroom suite). A 30min conversation with the manager on duty led to a request to have the Ambassador reach out in the morning, and that they were sold out and full for the night, but that they'd move me to the correct suite in the morning.

The next day, the suite was even worse than deluxe queen room, with a HVAC panel literally hanging off wires off the wall, a bathroom so tiny the toilet bowl was physically touching the shower curtain, and still only a small queen-sized bed.

To his credit, the manager on duty was fairly friendly and attempted to make things right. After coming back down to show the issues with the new room, he managed to give me the highest-category suite, which was sizable, had a king bed, and enough bathroom space for two adults.

So, overall, it took some prodding and the service recovery took a while, but I am now happily settled in for the rest of my stay. Unless I can snag one of these top suites again, I won't stay here again — the regular suites and base level rooms are just too small.

One thing to note is that this hotel is in bad need of refurbishment. It's literally falling apart. All the furniture is extremely worn. The elevators have had technical issues on both of my stays. You can clearly see it's still a W with a "Maxwell" sticker over the old logos.

Onto the positives: the lobby bar exists, the gym has nice equipment. The rates are generally cheap.

One bedroom suite falling apart.

Bathroom in One-bedroom suite. A total joke.

Penthouse Suite living room. 

Penhouse suite room. Not pictured: giant outdoor patio. Would be super nice in summer, but useless in rainy winter.

Broken audio system in Penthouse Suite.