Last week, we gave you a peek of the rug in our room at the legendary Waldorf-Astoria which surprised us because it was so...well...ugly and we thought the Waldorf was all swanky and stuff. Lesson learned. Words like legendary and famed often mean "old" and "outdated."
If only video cameras could capture smells because if that were true you would all be getting high watching this video. That's right. Immediately upon stepping out of the elevator on the 16th floor, we smelled some herb.
Our dear old mother thought it was a skunk but we had to explain that when you encounter this type of smell on a highway, then it's most likely a skunk. Indoors, however, that's some weed we are talking about.
Check-In Checking in was a bit of a hassle. We had driven into the city and arriving at the Park Avenue entrance to the hotel, we were told to make a right down 51st to the garage entrance. Not a problem. We did as directed.
But when we arrived in the garage/"motor court", it was a bit of mayhem. Taxis were picking up passengers and other people were dropping off their cars. There was also a group of conference attendees that were trying to catch shuttles to the airport and were being directed by loud annoying conference leaders (who were not part of the hotel). This was our first clue that the hotel does crazy tourist business.
Room Reaction After we got over the marijuana smell in the hallway, we headed to our room 1646. As you can see, the rug was majorly off-putting and so was the old dark furniture. That's not to stay it wasn't clean. The room was pristine but it just had some old decor. The TV in the armoire worked fine and we liked the fax machine. Not that we used it but it was impressive to us. Also, we miss the early 90s. Does anyone else?
The bathroom was fairly large for a midtown hotel room and once we got that hot shower going it was pretty nice.
Minibar Madness Since we were a Hilton Honors member, we were given two coupons for two water bottles from the minibar which was nice. Except the water bottles were those little tiny ones about 6oz.
Internet Connect Wireless was not offered by the hotel although you could get wireless through some third party which the hotel advised not doing. Ethernet worked fine at $12.95 a day.
Bottom Line We paid $289 a night for our room which was a good deal for midtown Manhattan in the summer. The hotel is also close to the shops on Fifth Avenue which was nice.
But the hotel is a bit crazy. It's almost like Vegas--there's a lot of people coming and going. To us, it felt like we couldn't escape the madness on the streets in Manhattan.
However, history and architectural buffs will love the place. We found ourselves gazing at the Art-Deco interiors and perusing all the historical artifacts from the original hotel (on 5th avenue and 34th street) on display as well as checking out all the photos of famous people and dignitaries who have stayed here throughout the years.
But if you want a swank Waldorf experience we suggest booking a room in the Waldorf Towers which start at around $700 a night.
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