HotelChatter

Add $27 in taxes, the total would be $182. Still a rocking rate. But guess what? We had a $25 referral credit (and new members will get $25 too, btw), so that reduced the bill back down to $157.

Oh, hells yeah. Tap. Bought it. Done.

Now, Dream New York is where Bravo TV have put up the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and where they safely stash guests once they’ve finished tippling with Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live.The hotel is in a great location, next to Times Square and Broadway, so it’s a great base for tourists, too. Now, we'd been told several times that sister hotel Dream Downtown would be a much nicer place, but frankly, for $157, we thought we’d manage, even knowing this deal could be due to the Chatwal empire's drama and money woes.

And manage we did through these good and not-so-great points.

The Upgrade: We checked in at 7pm, which seemed to be crazy customer service hour. After patiently waiting and sweetly inquiring about his day, we were told by the overwhelmed, burly front-desk attendant that he’d upgraded our standard room to a queen room and to “enjoy our upgrade”. When we threw open our room door expecting to see a grand amount of space, we chuckled. If we’d be traveling with someone, tiny space could have caused injury from bumping into one another. It’s miniscule, man. But, we appreciate the love, Dream Guy.
The Mini-Bar: The Dream is NOT playing around when they tell you the mini-bar is electronic. They tell you at check-in. The front of the fridge says it. The inside says it in several languages. Don’t try and play stupid and say you didn’t know that bottle of Voss wasn’t free.
The WiFi: It’s free in the lobby. It’s $9.95 in the room. Not the most expensive we’ve ever paid, but we don’t wanna pay anything! But, we had a choice, so we’ll leave it at that.
The Bed: Super comfy. We fell out the minute we hit it. All the hotel literature about thread-sheets, etc? We buy it.
The Bathroom: Beyond tiny. Spread your arms and you could probably just reach the shower.
The Ambiance: The white furniture, the electric blue light? Yeah, you could say it was cool, but not over-the-top pretentious. We liked that. We kept the lower light panels on at night. Not ‘cause we’re scared of the dark or anything.
AVA Bar/Rooftop: Admittedly we dragged our heels upstairs not ready for the bar “scene”. But there are two parts to the AVA Lounge. The downstairs inside area where it seems a bit more hectic and clubby, and then the rooftop, where perhaps the night air has a way of calming people down, because it was decidedly more chill there. So, we parked ourselves on a bamboo chair, took in the New York City skyline, splurged on a Dark n’ Stormy (they have Goslings and ginger beer here, big points in our book) thanks again to our great rate, and toasted what we thought was a dreamy night for sure.

[Photo: HotelChatter]