Good value and super location.
Written: Nov 03 '09 (Updated Nov 04 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Location is the main reason to choose this hotel. Off the beaten path.
Cons: no free wi-fi. Besides that, not much to complain about.
The Bottom Line: A pleasant discovery: reasonably priced, located in a less noisy area of Midtown, lots of restaurants and attractions within walking distance
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| icio's Full Review: Tudor Hotel, NY |
The Tudor Hotel at the United Nations in a nutshell. Let's be clear from the start: This hotel is not cheap and wil not take anybody's breath away. But, it offers a few good things:
- It is cheaper than alternative accomodations in these parts of Manhattan;
- The rooms are nice... not fancy;
- Location is superb. The hotel is located at the corner between Second Avenue and 42nd Street East, about 2-3 minutes walk to the United Nations building. I could not care less about the proximity to the UN building, but the location is excellent to reach pretty much all parts of Midtown whether you are in NY for pleasure or for business
The grades (for the busy people who do not have time to read reviews):
- Location: 9/10
- Cost: 8/10 (it is NYC!)
- Personnel 8/10
- Amenities 7/10 (Wi-fi should be free)
- Lobby and hallways - 7/10
- Room 7.5/10 (8 if it were not too dark)
- Bathroom 8/10
- Room Service 7.5/10
- Places to eat outside the hotel: 8.5/10
- Proximity to tourists' destinations 8.5/10
- Convenience to airports - 8/10
- Overall grade - 8/10
The grades explained....
Let's talk money first. How much did you pay? About $250/night. Booked the hotel through Expedia. It is not cheap, but other hotels in more important parts of Midtown will require $350+/night for a similar hotel
What was your first impression entering the hotel? Excellent to be honest. The lobby is quite nice and well kept. It has a classic decor, but it is clean and functional.
Was the personnel nice? I was pleased. The receptionists were corteous (do not take it for granted in NYC) and not stiff. No valet tried to assault me to take my bag.. It turned out I had one normal size piece easily carried and I was asked if I needed help, but nobody came to take my luggage away from me. That is the way I like it. It is not about saving a few $$'s on tips, but sometimes I have delicate things in my bags and I like to handle those myself.
The person at the concierge was also nice and provided us with informations and brochures as needed.
Business Center.. is there one? Yes, there is one indeed, it can accomodate I think up to 5-6 people and it provides a fax machine and printers.
Towards the room... The elevators are reasonably fast, during the 6 nights I spent there I never waited longer than 20-30 seconds to get one (they have 3 as a matter of fact) and that happened only once. Once I reached my floor, I think I saw the only feature of this hotel I do not like: the hallways are so narrow that even pulling a large suitcase could be a challenge. It is not uncommon in NYC, unfortunately. When people like to live piled up on top of each other, space come at a steep premium, and everyone economizes it.
.. The room.. the heart and soul of any hotel experience... Good. I was pleased. To start it is reasonably sized (no feeling of being caged). The bed is queen sized and I am alone so no fighting to sleep at night. The bed was properly made, linens were clean. Pillows a little too mushy for my taste, but I could manage. Floor was clean, bathroom also and it had a window and equipped with all the necessary "amenities" (toilet paper, shampoo, soap, towels, hair dryier, etc..). The tub was large (but I never take baths where hundreds or thousand of people might have been) and the shower head it will be revealed worked excellently. Water was warm and abundant.
A working area is provided (a little too small for my taste and not the most comfortable overall, but reasonable). Wi-fi is available for a fee. This always gets me fuming! The fee was steep, $14/day!
Fortunately, you might be able to pick up some wi-fi signals from the buidings nearby. It might not be stable, but if you need it just to check e-mails or to goof around on the internet it might just do the trick.
A safe was provided and large at that. Too bad that I had to call to get it open since, the previous guest did not let it open and there was no way for me to reset the combination.
Many hangers hung (what would hangers do, after all?) in the closet. An ironboard and an iron were also available. Home away from home.. Hooray!
Air conditioning and heating were working fine. It took me a couple of minutes to understand how they work, but no need of a Ph.D.to use them.
Unfortunately, the room was dark (typical NY, again), but not so bad as at other hotels I stayed at. Maybe having two little windows on two different sides did help in the end.
Room cleaning? Regular.. since the location is close to the United Nations I suspect that it sees a lot of guests there on business so the signs "Do not disturb" hang out almost on every door in the morning. But everytime I got back from my business day in the evening, the room was clean and the bed was inviting.
Room service: the menu is limited and I only used it once one evening that it was raining and windy and did not feel like walking outside to go to dinner. The food was good. Price was not different than at other hotels in the area I used in the past.
Is there a bar on the premises? Yes, and it looked fine. But I am not the bar type of person... In the evening I noticed that a few people were sitting around it.. Nothing major though.
Eating out: the location turns out to be excellent in that respect since within a mile radius there are so many places to eat from cheap burger joints to moderately priced ethnic restaurants and expensive steakhouses. During the week I was there, I managed to get plenty of variety of food and never had to walk more than 10 minutes to find it.
Attractions: besides the UN, you are close to the East River (not all votes are out as to whether the East River should qualify as an attraction though). Central Station is about 10 minutes walk west.
Fifth Avenue is probably 15 minutes top.. Times Square might be less than 20.. Central Park is a little bit more walking in that sense. But really the subway system is there (Central Station, for instance).
Convenience to airports. Location again plays an important role. Since you are basically close to the East River you don't need to cross Midtown and that means a considerable saving of time, very important at some busy hours of traffic during the day.
Taxis are relatively easy to find. The area was never excessively busy. We only had to wait 4-5 minutes for one in one occasion: at
5pm and in the rain.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
icio
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Location: Thousand Oaks, CA
Reviews written: 58
Trusted by: 6 members
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