josep

I stayed at the Westin Times Square for 6 nights (x 2 rooms) over New Year's eve: I had been in the hotel in 2003 and I remembered it as pleasant enough to repeat stay.

Unfortunatelly, this time it was very disappointing.

I have no status with SPG as of today, other than Corporate Preferred that seems to be similar to Gold, but anyway, I was not expecting much.

Check-in went smooth and I got two corner rooms in the high floors, which is exactly what I booked (btw, at a rate of $510 each): one in floor 44, the other in floor 33. The rooms were as I remembered from the first time, a corridor leading into the room, spacious enough and OK views.

After dropping all our bags we hit the town and it was not until I returned after dinner that I noticed some details: upon opening the minibar, something wrapped in aluminium paper (a sandwich?) was lying on top of the soda cans, I didn't touch it.
Another detail: by the bed, some pop corn and a couple of M&Ms on the floor. In the bathroom, the paint on the walls was peeling off in several places and the glass door had a brown mark top down, not good for a hotel that was built not long ago.

I could hear the neighbour's TV through the wall.

I thought about calling up Service Express to complain but I was very very tired and after checking that the bed was completely clean, I decided to postpone it for the day after.

In the morning, I raised the cleanliness issues with someone on the front desk: she listened, apologized and told me she'd solve it. The popcorn and M&Ms were gone in the evening but the wrapped thing in the minibar was still there. The day after, I left a written note to the cleaning lady asking her to remove the thing and after that, I gave up: I didn't touch the minibar and I checked everyday, just to make sure the package remained there until I checked out.

I have to say the room in floor 44 was clean at all times, had better views and complimentary water which I didn't get in my room at floor 33, but still, I find it quite a shame that they couldn't get some basics things right.

To top up things, during my stay I asked twice the concierge for a reservation in restaurants: first time the answer was 'you need to book 2 months in advance', second time the day after (different concierge, different restaurant), 'you need to book 3 weeks in advance but you can always try to walk in'. So, basically, zero service and zero effort, it might be true it was difficult to book, but not even trying is not the right attitude: I booked myself the first restaurant through opentable and I walked in the second restaurant and got a table as well.

On top of that, the corridors were dirty (pizzas staying there for more than 6 hours), it was very noisy (even in a high floor I found it noisy from the street) but specially I could hear all my neighbours through the thin walls and the 'lobby' was often packed, I would say with non-guests. I didn't have access to the lounge.

I was quite disappointed over all the experience: the one nice thing is that Jay granted me a late check-out request for the day we were leaving but too late to change my opinion. What a difference with the Westin Palace in Madrid, where I spent the previous weekend in a cheap rate, got upgraded to the SPG floor and everything was working and nice.

So, maybe it was because of the holiday period, maybe they were fully booked, I don't know, but next time I'll choose another property.