Stay Report - 5/10 - 5/12
Location: Pretty much every hotel between 35th and 55th Street in New York adds the words "Times Square" to their name. This hotel is fairly close being located on 6th Avenue between 38th and 39th Street. Across 39th Street is an entrance to the 42nd/6th Avenue Subway Stop (B/D/F/M/7 Lines) and on 40th and 7th two blocks away is an entrance to the Times Square (1/2/3/A/C/E/N/R/Q/W/7/S Lines) stop. Penn Station is a half mile walk away. Around the hotel is a Pret a Manager, a Chick Fil A, a local deli and on 40th and 7th is a 24 hour CVS. Location wise it's pretty good
Hotel: The hotel is a 25 story high rise brick building which is in decent repair but ill suited as a large family hotel. There's a tiny lobby with a single public computer and small snack shop. On weekend mornings it's overcrowded easily. The 3rd floor has a bar and restaurant which serves dinner and breakfast and is again quite crowded. Waits for the elevator can be long too and on weekend mornings it was almost impossible to squeeze onto cars going down because by the time they got to me on 19 they were full.
Check In: I was asked "points?" and that was it as far as elite recognition. Still, I was able to confirm a 4 PM checkout and the agent was nice enough to direct me to where I could buy cheaper snacks than at the lobby marketplace
Room: I had picked this hotel because I was traveling with my girlfriend and her child and I wanted a larger room. It was larger than some NYC rooms I've been in but still really small for a RI. The bed and couch take up about all of the available space and the bathroom was shockingly small. While the kitchen was nice it's not really usable for anything but storing stuff in the fridge. We also had to call to get things like towels (we were originally given all of one).
Breakfast: As I mentioned above it gets really crowded. There were scrambled eggs, sausage, waffles and grits plus breads, fruit, yogurt and cereal. The second day I just went to Pret A Manger to skip the crowds.
The hotel goes for 35,000 points a night and for being in Midtown it's a good choice, but it's not much of a Residence Inn.