HotelChatter Goes Inside The Pod Hotel

We had to find reasonably-priced digs in New York City this past week. Not much chance of that happening. But we did find cheap (by NYC standards) rooms at the hip-sounding Pod Hotel. Not as cheap as we'd hoped - the $149 room we learned about the first time we called had jumped to $169 a couple weeks later when we called to book. "Demand," they said by way of explanation.

So with visions of dorm-style grungy showers and that dingy youth hostel in London a few years back, we checked in last Wednesday. The bright, clean mod lobby promised a fun stay.

Opening the door to our bunk room was fun indeed. How can a room be so little? Though we'd just initialed our life away promising not to smoke in the room, a recent inhabitant had clearly smoked, and quite a lot.

Nobody answered the phone downstairs, so back down the elevator we went to ask for an actual non-smoking room. Luckily, this was no problem and we moved up two floors to 712, a corner room with a teensy bit more space, two windows instead of one, and a pretty decent view (better than the first room).

No kidding, the room is so tiny, and was so crammed with our person, our backpack and a purse it took five minutes to realize we'd left a suitcase sitting in the hall.

The bright little beds were cheerful but the fluorescent light overhead brought a more institutional than fun feel. You can leave that off though and turn on the little lights next to your very own personal flat-screen TV - one for each bunk.

The mural in the bathroom.

We scoped out the communal bath situation (a long travel day necessitated an immediate shower) and were pleasantly surprised. In addition to the clever mural of three judges holding "10" signs, the marble bath and three way shower were quite lovely. Shampoo and liquid soap are provided. Paper towels are not, so if you come just for the toilet, bring your hand towel to dry your hands after you hit the sink. Oddly, toilet paper is provided in the room.

During a two-day stay we never waited for one of the four bathrooms on our floor, though they often seemed unpleasantly warm and steamy from recent use.

So the room is cute, the TVs, free WiFi and iHome are a nice touch, and the bathroom is perfectly fine. The view is good and the shutters block it out if you need darkness to sleep (we do). But the big question when we stay in a room is "what about the bed?"

Sadly, the bed is quite frankly, hideous. Thin, hard and narrow -- that's what we'd like to sculpt ourselves into if we had the dedication to go to a gym. That's not what we like in a bed.

$169 a night may be a New York bargain, but it's a lot to pay for a night of tossing and turning, and waking with achey knees and hips.

All told: we've been there, done that, and will check Hotwire next time for a cushier bargain.

For more pics of our stay at the Pod, check out Travelingmcmahans' Flickr set.

[All Photos: TravelingMcmahans ]

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