A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

We decided to take a trip to NYC to visit my grandfather a little early for his 102nd birthday. Look who thought he was coming with us!

So up at 3:30am and at the Back Bay train station by 5am to be in NYC at 9 in time to work in our NY office for part of the day.

I knew it was going to be a long day, but at least I was going to look cute with my fresh pedi by Tam at MiniLuxe in Newton Centre – go check her out, I’ve been seeing her for years, wouldn’t dream of having anyone else do my pedi’s.

The train car was empty until one stop before NYC. You would think that it’s so early that people wouldn’t be very chatty – and with the whole car empty, you wouldn’t think that someone would want to sit one row behind you….

We check into the Hudson Hotel. We had stayed here last year when we came in for business. See previous post here. I tweeted at the hotel saying that I hoped that the room would be a quiet one this time. They tweeted back and suggested I email them and let them know my preferences, which I did.

The hotel underwent a huge renovation, and they now market themselves as “cheap chic”. The lobby is definitely a statement, the ceiling is amazing and the large window behind the front desk looks out onto the patio. The location is great if you want to be in midtown – it is less than a block from Columbus Circle, where you can pick up the B,D,1,2,3,A, and C trains. There’s a shopping mall, a Whole Foods, a Starbucks and a CVS all within a block.

I usually ask for a mid level floor, far from the elevator. They have 24 floors with a sky terrace located on the 15th floor.

So when you ask for a quiet room, you have to ask yourself, who thinks quiet means a room one floor below the terrace that blasts bass until 11pm? Granted that’s not super late, but if you have to wake up early, that’s tough. You would think that the AC would drown out some of the noise, but the AC in our room was so loud and sounded a bit like the buzzer on your alarm clock. You have to put the AC on though, otherwise you will roast in your room.

Rooms come equipped with an electronic lock that you just tap your room key up to.

The room is a little bigger than the one we stayed in on the 16th floor, with a little more space around the bed, but not much. The beds are comfortable, but if you want a top sheet, make sure to ask for one, because you only get a duvet.

I never got the whole see through shower thing…

So we go out for dinner, and get back to the room at around 9:15pm. There is a piece of USED dental floss outside my room. Yes, I could have picked it up myself, but the thought of it really grossed me out. So I call down to the front desk and let them know the situation. Oh no problem, they say, and that someone will be right up.

Apparently 12+ hours means “right up” because when we wake up the next morning, it’s still there. I call again and they say that someone will be right up. Thank goodness that by the time we got back to the hotel after dinner that night it was gone.

In our room the door did not sit in the door frame, so the light from the hallway was shining through…

So between the light, the noisy ac, and the bass from the terrace – it was hard to fall asleep. And then the real treat. 3am the fire alarm goes off. Some stupid drunk chick  “intoxicated guest” couldn’t find her room key, so she pulled the fire alarm. Smart. So here are all these people, half awake, some barefoot, walking down 14 flights of stairs to the basement – where there is no AC. They tell us immediately that there is no fire, it was a false alarm, but they can’t turn the elevators on until they turn off the alarm. Meanwhile at this point, I am melting…and exhausted. They finally turn off the alarm and “isolate the alarm to the floor it was set off from”. Great. We all pack like (sweaty) sardines into the elevator and go back to our rooms.

Lucky us, the alarm was pulled on our floor. So it is now 40 minutes of bliss. Even though we can go back to our rooms, who wants to hear a blaring alarm? I will say that they did give us 50% off that one night we were disturbed, but frankly, we were there for 3 nights, and thinking about it now, we should have pushed for more. While it wasn’t the hotel’s fault, it was certainly inconvenient. If they want guests to return (and we are not sure we will), they should bend over backwards to make sure that their stay is a pleasant one.

And just for fun, here are some pictures from the trip! The Union rat sculpture on 53rd street.

Columbus Circle.

An amusing bill on the street.A coffee cup from one of my favorite stores, Fishs Eddy on Broadway and 19th.

Fabric at the Marimekko store.

And a beautiful store display.

A crowd favorite was the Louis Vuitton windows with gold dinosaur skeletons at the 5th Ave location.

And I will leave you with just a few images from the “Library” at the Hudson hotel. Who can resist the amusing photos of cows with hats all over the walls?

The pool table is the focal point in the room, with ample seating all around and a bar in the back corner.

Tags: hotel, new york