Hotel in Manhattan: Help needed

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m going to New York for my sister’s wedding in August, and had planned to stay in an apartment in Queens, near where she lives, like we did on our last visit. But they no longer are accepting guests for anything less than seven days. :mad: We’d actually planned to only stay for two, and then move over to Manhattan for a couple nights after the wedding for shows, eating, touring.

Well, since the Queens apartment is out (and I can’t find another one), I’ll need to book something for our entire stay, and my mom wants to go on and stay in Manhattan the whole time. (The wedding is in Brooklyn/Queens.) We’ve stayed in Chinatown before and liked it a lot, but it’s sort of far from everything and even though we’re subway veterans, I don’t want to spend my whole trip winging around underground.

So my question to Those Who Know is —

  • What is a nice, close-to-Broadway and other attractions hotel which doesn’t cost terribly much and is nice? I’m talking like around $200 a night (or less if that’s not ridiculous). I did a quick search on Bookit and see something called the Wellington which looks OK.

  • What should be my priorities when selecting a hotel? Sure I’d like to be treated like a queen, but I know that comes with a price tag. Should I be most concerned with location? Amenities? Which ones mark a good solid hotel?

  • Any fun ideas? We’re open to new experiences, though I’d rather not stay in a group hostel or something. Me ‘n’ 71-year-old Mom are way past that. :slight_smile:

2

Might be helpful

The cheapest hotel I have stayed in in manhattan is Hotel Indigo in Chelsea. Just checked and they are $229 a night if you were staying tonight - so that may be out of range - but FWIW - I think it’s fine if you don’t need a big lobby and all that.

3

$200 (is that including or excluding the approximately 15% tax?) might be a stretch for Manhattan, even in a lower demand month like August. My own hotel priorities are that it’s not a dump (avoid Hotel Carter& Hotel Pennsylvania like the plague) and that it’s near a subway station. I also like to make sure there’s an elevator as some of the older, small, boutique hotels (like Chelsea Pines Inn) are walk-ups. I also prefer to stay in a more interesting neighborhood than Midtown. You said you felt Chinatown was “far from everything.” What would you like to be close to?

For me, I don’t care if there’s free breakfast or a gym or anything like that. I just want a place to sleep. Having a refrigerator is nice though.

What I would do is plug your dates into something like booking.com or kayak and first just look for hotels that meet your budget (paying attention to whether the price you’re looking at includes taxes or not). Once you have a list of hotels, look at reviews on tripadvisor.com and look at pictures on oyster.com, and look on a map to see how close they are to a subway station.

If you’re not finding anything in Manhattan for $200 I’d look at hotels in Long Island City (Queens). Make sure the hotel is near the subway. There’s a cluster of hotels called The Vetiver, The Verve, Country Inn & Suites, a Holiday Inn, etc. right in the same area and you’re just a 15 minute subway ride from Midtown. It’s not an exciting area, kind of industrial, but it’s safe. Make sure any hotel you pick is in that area though as other areas aren’t as convenient to the subway.

Or, post your exact dates, bed configuration needed, and budget on the NYC forum on trip advisor and there are some experts there who are very helpful.

But don’t even mention on Trip Advisor that you’re thinking of an apartment because, as they will tell you over and over and over again, most short stay apartment rentals in NYC are illegal and are often scams.

Oh, and you can book something that’s cancelable for now, just so you know you have something, and keep your eye out for better deals between now and then.

You could also try backbid.com. You enter some info and say what your maximum price is and hotels respond with what they have available for the price.

4

When I was traveling to and from NYC quite a bit before moving here I always stayed at the Americana Inn because I really didn’t need much, just a bed at night, somewhere to keep my stuff when I was out and about, and somewhere I could take a shower. This place fit that bill nicely and for less than $100 a night, though I’m sure prices have gone up a bit since 7 years ago. If you want a lovely hotel experience this is not your place unfortunately, because it really is simply a place to sleep at night and not much more than that, but honestly I can’t imagine going somewhere like New York and spending enough time in my hotel room that it would need to be more than sufficient. It is on 38th and 6th so it is in a great location but other than that the biggest selling point is the price.

5

I stayed at the Kimberly back in January and really liked it (the room was beautiful and spacious). It was close enough that we walked to a Broadway show.

I just looked at booking, and it is a LOT more expensive now than it was when I stayed (my bill was $490 total for two nights).

May be worth a call to see about a better rate?

6

I’ve stayed at the Wellington. I have no complaints at all about the hotel. The room was clean, the staff was nice, etc. It’s not the Ritz, but it’s not a roach coach either. It was in walking distance to a lot of the stuff we wanted to do, so it worked well.

7

Try the Hotel Newtonon Broadway & 95th. I don’t know what your exact dates will be so I just put in a random week in August, and the rates for two adults ranged from $160-245 per night.

I’ve never been there, since I live in the area, but I can vouch for it being a great location. You are right next to the express 2 & 3 subway station which are just two stops to Times Square. It’s a very safe, quiet neighborhood.

8

Priceline. If you want some sort of safety net, choose and book via a hotel’s page or somewhere that you can cancel. Then hit Priceline’s Name Your Own Price or their Express Deals page. Their ad copy is not marketing hype. We hit the city regularly and regularly save absurd amounts of money. Save enough such that when we don’t I wanted to ask if anything out of the ordinary was going on in the city.

We regularly stay in four-star hotels for less–often much less–than two hundred bucks per night. I have no idea how cheaply you could get a two- or three-star.

9

We did this not that long ago Mebbe some more answers for you in that thread.

10

Check out the hotels in the Long Island City area.

Don’t let the name of the area fool you. Long Island City is in a part of Queens that is VERY close to Manhattan…it’s on the Queens side of the East River directly opposite midtown Manhattan. Depending on the exact location of the hotel that you choose you would be either one or two train stops from the 59th St-Lex Ave station in Manhattan…or, if you’re young you might be up for a 10 minute walk across the Queensboro Bridge.

But the prices are definitely suburban…most are under $150 a night and you can find some for under $100 a night. These hotels sprung up recently as a result of a zoning change and there are lots of choices in the area and 90% of the them were built within the last 5 years so they are new construction.

Best kept hotel secret ever, check it out.

11

VERY helpful resource after you have a place in mind… http://bedbugregistry.com/metro/nyc/

12

We stayed at The Pod on 51st a couple years back. IIRC, the room was about $200, but they had cheaper ones (with bunk beds, for example). As you might guess from the name, the rooms are tiny, but it was clean, modern and a great location - not super close to Broadway but we walked it one night. Perfect place if you just need a spot to rest your head and are not planning on spending lots of time in the room.

13

I just booked the Affinia for a June stay at way less that $200 a night. It has some solid reviews. I can let you know how it goes when I get back. There are 3-4 Affinias in Manhattan - all within a few blocks of Times Square.

14

I’m sorry I haven’t been back to this thread. THANK YOU for offering all these great insights and ideas! I really appreciate it.

15

Not to hijack the thread but does this include apartments listed with airbnb.com? This was my go-to plan for a trip to NYC this summer, mostly to save my traelling companions some money. Has anyone had a good experience with them?

16

I’m on my phone, but you can google for an NBC article stating more than half of the listings for NYC are illegal (“airbnb a popular alternative to hotels but is it legal?”) Airbnb is trying to change the law but no dice. All listings for an apartment, less than 30 days, for which the owner will not be present are against the law and the city can fine up to $25,000. Shares, room rentals, and b&b situations where the host remains on the premises are legal.

17

Not a hijack to my mind and I had intended to ask about this. I found the apartment we stayed in last time through Air B&B and found it to be a wonderful service. I’ve just used it the one time, though, and now they don’t have any listed that would be of use to us. (All I saw was a lot of bedrooms in people’s apartments rather than whole apartments, but I didn’t look completely thoroughly.)

ETA: HelloAgain— The apt. we stayed in was next-door to the owner; not sure if that qualifies as on the premises. OR maybe that’s why they’re not doing nightly any more.

18

If you are staying on a weekend look for Wall Street hotels which I found have good deals. Apparently the average wall street hotel caters to people who are visiting the Stock Exchange which is only open on weekdays.
I have also stayed for relatively cheap in Jersey. It is easy to take a PATH train to Manhattan, so it is quicker than staying in some some of the other boroughs. Also they don’t charge for parking which most Manhattan hotels do.