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Tags: Digital Nomad Hotels / Hotel WiFi / Hotel Lobbies / Manhattan Hotel Reviews / Times Square Hotels / → All Tags
Digital Nomad Lobbies: Millennium Broadway
There has been a lot of talk recently about the lifestyle of digital nomads -- folks who work from wherever they might roam. HotelChatter has been covering hotel wifi since the beginning, but as we cited in our 2009 annual hotel wifi report times they are a changin'.
Hotel: Millenium Broadway New York Times Square
Location Layout: There are three levels. The street level is the busiest level, level two is bound to have a conference going on and level three is fairly open.
Outlets: Plenty of 'em.
Furniture: Each level has a set of couches and good lighting. Aside from the street level, which is a bit darker.
Digital Nomad Tolerance: Light. If you are there during non busy hours you stick out like a sore thumb, and if you are there after 6 PM the place turns into a full fledged bar.
Phone Calls: Not a problem. There are three levels of lobby/conference rooms -- just pick the quietest level for your call.
Overall Mood: Business Time.
Digital Nomad Grade: A
Lack of outlets, bad furniture for working, dim lighting loud music -- they don't want digital nomads here and you don't want to be here. Keep searching.
Tags: Digital Nomad Hotels / Hotel WiFi / Hotel Lobbies / Manhattan Hotel Reviews / Times Square Hotels / → All Tags
Digital Nomad Lobbies: W Times Square
There has been a lot of talk recently about the lifestyle of digital nomads -- folks who work from wherever they might roam. HotelChatter has been covering hotel wifi since the beginning, but as we cited in our 2009 annual hotel wifi report times they are a changin'.
Hotel: W New York Times Square
Location Layout: You enter around the corner from Times Square, but have to get yourself to the 7th floor before you are actually in the lobby. Once there, expect dim lighting, base pumping music, and fembot servers asking you if you want a drink regardless of the time of day.
Outlets: Could not find one.
Furniture: Low set couches coupled with low set tables make working comfortably difficult. Wheat grass is present, of course. Oh, and there is this cool old typewriter on one of the tables near the back.
Digital Nomad Tolerance: Light. If you are there during non busy hours you stick out like a sore thumb, and if you are there after 6 PM the place turns into a full fledged bar.
Phone Calls: Not recommended, unless you like your conference calls set to drum and base backgrounds.
Overall Mood: Millennial shiek.
Digital Nomad Grade: D
Lack of outlets, bad furniture for working, dim lighting loud music -- they don't want digital nomads here and you don't want to be here. Keep searching.
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City Club in Manhattan for Under $200 a Night
Can't afford the Plaza? Check into the City Club Hotel. The hotel is currently offering rates of $185 on Quikbook.com. (What is up with Quikbook and insanely cheap NYC prices?)
We did some searching and found a room there available this weekend, March 7 and 8th for that rate along with a free pass to the nearby New York Sports Club gym.
However, it is for the tiniest room category in the hotel--"One person max" says the description--and it comes with a full bed. A queen luxe room bumps up to $245 and a king luxe bumps to $295.
If you can split with a friend, the luxe double double is going for $345 which is $172.50 per person, which brings us back under $200 again. Circle completed!
We stayed at the City Club in March 2006 and we got a great spell of warm weather much like NYC is having right now.
The rooms are tiny and the views are awful but it's a Jeff Klein property. The decor is hip, the location central and the WiFi free. Plus Daniel Bouloud's DB Bistro is on the first floor. Mmmm....
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Semi-Stream of Conciousness Hotel Review: A Boutique Dorm Hotel
Remember, hotel qt? the glorified scene hostel where you can actually get a hotel room in Manhattan for under $200? Well, we spent the night there recently. We were not lucky enough to pay under $200, however, we did pay $239 in all for our "F" type platform and it lived up to its just-a-step-above a pod room billing.
Egalitarian, to say the least.
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Hotel Video Tour: Midtown's Hotel QT
New York City hotel rates have been hit by the January thaw, thus it is a great time to snag some Manhattan hotel nights.
Late last week we decided to keep costs low and shack up at André Balazs's quickly-becoming-legendary boutique dorm hotel in Midtown -- Hotel QT. Our "Type F" room ran us $239 for the night and lived up to its just-a-step-above a pod room billing.
Platform bed, small flat screen television, and very little room to do much more than sleep. The pool area was fairly quiet, though we did see a naked dude coming out of the sauna while sitting up in the lounge area. Isn't that the way André envisioned it? Modern day turkish bath and all?
Full review coming soon.
Be sure to check out our growing hotel video tours channel and all our hotel video reviews.
Tags: Best WiFi Hotel Spots / Hotel WiFi / Manhattan Hotel Reviews / → All Tags
Best Hotel WiFi Spot: W Union Square
These days everyone is looking for four bar, non-complicated, hotel WiFi when they check in. Sure there are a bunch of hotel WiFi lists out there, but they are quickly out of date and unreliable. This week, as a lead up to our popular annual hotel WiFi report, we will let you know our favorite WiFi hotels in five hot travel destinations. The rules are simple. The signal has to fast, and reliable, the cost should be free (at the very least free for guests) and the WiFi experience at these hotels offer a comfortable surfing environment. Have a city or destination you want us to investigate? Let us know. And if you have a favorite WiFi hotel you are willing to share, no matter where it is send it our way.
W Union Square:: New York City, NY
Bravo W Hotels it took you a couple years, but it looks like you got hotel wireless right, eventually. We remember a time when you wanted us to call your lobbies living rooms and we scoffed. Well guess what? We get it now.
W Union Square might just be the perfect wireless lobby. The four bar signal is strong, there are no sign up screens, and there are just enough chairs and tables for a limited amount of people to quickly work in a virtual way. The best part? Because of the set up there is a constantly shifting cast of hard working characters in the lobby living room and no one is abusing the system.
Best Part:
This hotel has the perfect layout for free WiFi. There are two lobbies (sort of), separated by stairs, and the downstairs lobby lends itself perfectly to business wireless activity. Sales pitches, job interviews, and venture capital meetings all happened while we were getting some work done in this made-for-free WiFi lobby. Oh, and coffee is served from a nearby bar.
Related Stories:
·Hotels in New York [HotelChatter]
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Inside the Waldorf-Astoria
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.
Our brief review after the jump.
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Just How Gross is the Wellington Hotel?
See for yourself right here. The other day we got a live tip from Jessica who was staying at the Wellington Hotel aka The Borat Hotel in Manhattan.
She was extremely disappointed with the false advertising of kitchenettes, the falling-apart furniture and the poor service. And today, she was kind enough to send us the pics from her room.
Ugh, we would rather watch the naked wrestling scene in Borat in slow motion than have to stay in this room.
Another picture is after the jump.
Tags: Killer View / Manhattan Hotel Reviews / → All Tags
Room with a Killer View, Special Edition: The Bryant Park Hotel
Usually, Thursdays is our day for Killer Views but we just received two photos taken from The Bryant Park Hotel and we thought we would share with you ASAP. After all, a Killer View in Manhattan is hard to come by.
Kris Koeller writes:
The Bryant Park is my definite favorite when staying in NYC, they have, in my opinion, the best bathrooms in the City. I stayed in 1401 this past May, in a Park View Room, and a quite a view it was. Both of these were shot from my window around dusk, one of the park, Rock center and the public library, the other of the sunset on the West side of Bryant Park.
The second picture can be found after the jump.
Tags: Hotel Deals / Manhattan Hotel Reviews / Hilton Hotels / → All Tags
Score a Room at the Millenium Hilton for Under $200
Even though Mid-August is indisputably the crappiest part of summer in Manhattan, the Millenium Hilton in the financial district is looking... not so crappy at all.
We tried booking a room for August 17th and found out that we could score one for under $200-- $194.65, to be precise. With that kickass rate, we don't care about the heat so much. Plus, who doesn't love an awesome indoor pool?
The only catch is that you have to make your reservation online and pay fully in advance, but if you're cool with that, then you've got a pretty sweet deal.
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Patio Reserved: Guests of The Bowery Hotel Take Note
Outdoor space is a rarity in New York City so when a hotel room comes with a guaranteed spot on a romantic patio take it, even if said property is the technically-open-for-business-but-technically-not-finished Bowery Hotel.
Tags: Frank Bruni / Hotel Restaurants / Manhattan Hotel Reviews / → All Tags
Frank Bruni Eats Up the London NYC Hotel
The NYT restaurant critic Frank Bruni did a guest stint yesterday in the paper's weekly "Check-in, Check-out" as a hotel reviewer checking in on the London NYC Hotel. But then again, it does make sense since the hotel has its infamous Gordon Ramsay restaurant.
Bruni first liked the amount of space the rooms in this all-suite hotel provide, starting at about $400 a night.
The octagonal living room had a kidney-shaped sectional sofa on which at least four people could comfortably sit, a round coffee table that could be elevated to function as a dining table, an enormous desk with a proper desk chair, and enough floor space left over for a Pilates session, had I been so inclined.
Maybe he could invite Bill Marriott in and they could do pilates together. Other noteworthy room amenities include a flat-screen television in the living room and in the bathroom, and a long shower with heads at opposite ends so two people can shower at once.
Of course, Bruni tested out the room service, ordering a sunchoke risotto and a peekytoe crab salad which he said was just as good as it was in the restaurant, although pricey.
In the end, Bruni was pretty soft on London NYC only complaining about the pitiful fitness center (they are supposedly building a "real" one set to open this summer) and a few lapses in what was otherwise pretty good service.
[Photo: Marko Georgiev for The New York Times]
Related Stories:
· Check In, Check Out [NY Times]
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