Just got back from two nights at the Thompson Central park with my wife and 9 and 6 year old boys. The hotel is being renovated and they don’t have a restaurant or any true suites right now. But, even considering that, I really enjoyed the hotel.

Pros: excellent globalist breakfast. We had room service and it came quickly and the order was exactly correct both mornings. Location is excellent. Right near a bunch of subway stations and Central Park and an easy walk or subway ride to all the touristy/business stuff. The staff was very pleasant. Checkin was a breeze and unprompted thanked me for being a globalist and explained the globalist benefits and asked if I wanted a quiet two bed room or an upgrade to a junior suite that was near the elevator and wouldn’t be as quiet. We chose the junior suite and were put into room 1416 which had no noise issues from either people in the hall nor outside. The room was not a bad size for nyc, and the shower was pretty nice and the bed pretty comfortable. A definite pro because it was ludicrously hot this weekend; the thermostat was extremely easy to use and we kept the room at 68 F no problem. Valet parking our minivan was a breeze and there was no charge for parking at checkout. The elevator system was quite possibly the best I’ve ever seen in any building. You push your floor on a screen and it directs you to an elevator, and the elevators are routed to specific floors with little displays showing you exactly what you need to know and no more. In person it’s pretty cool and should be how all of elevators work in the future.

Cons: the room lacked any desk or desk chairs. When they brought room service and set the table up one of us sat on an ottoman thing, one sat on the pull out sofa bed, and the boys sat on the floor at the coffee table. The pull out sofa bed was really small, definitely too small for two kids. Fortunately there was a chaise that we had them bring blankets up and made it up for my six year old and that worked fine. I would not recommend one room for parents with two older kids, unless you wanted to get a roll-a-way (which is $50 a night, and there’s not really space for it). I just looked at my bill and they charged me partially for breakfast for adding a tip and they said my kids weren’t on the reservation (they definitely were, I checked the confirmation email to make sure). The front desk associate immediately took the charges off, and it wasn’t really a big deal.

Over the past year I’ve stayed at the Park Hyatt NYC once, the Andaz 5th Ave three times, the Hyatt centric Times Square once, Hotel 50 Bowery once, and now the Thompson Central Park once (we go to NYC a lot). Without considering cost in points or $, I’d rank my preference of the hotels in this order: 1. PHNYC 2. Thompson CP 3. ANdaz 5th ave 4. HYatt centric Times Square 5. Hotel 50 Bowery. When you take amount of points into consideration, I think the Thompson Central Park at 25,000 per night is a far better value than the park Hyatt at 40,000. Now, the park hyatts pool is freakin’ amazing, the rooms are classier with better bathrooms, their room service breakfast was a smidge better than the Thompson, and the park Hyatt has a restaurant. But, the globalist recognition and service were definitely better (and less snooty) at the Thompson, you can put 4 people in a standard room, and maybe when the renovations are done they’ll reopen the pool that used to be there and have a restaurant. All things considered, I think unless it was a special occasion for just the wife and I, I’ll book the Thompson over any other nyc hotel.